Fan of contrarian thinking? Check out Codie Sanchez’s newsletter here. If you like my newsletter then you’ll love the content that she is creating. Having read quite a bit of it myself, I believe it a great addition to your idea diet. I’ll share more about Codie’s newsletter at t … | Continue reading
In a shared-resource system where individual users act independently according to their own self-interest, they will behave contrary to the common good of all users. | Continue reading
The tendency to believe that what people do reflects who they are. | Continue reading
The increased pressure to constantly adapt and improve just to survive. | Continue reading
Years back while trying to prepare for a competitive exam, me and a friend got stuck with a quant problem for over 30 minutes. We tried the technique that was taught to us (the only one we knew) but we couldn’t crack it. We googled for about 10 minutes and soon left in frustratio … | Continue reading
Our tendency to believe in grand stories with near-perfect cause & effect relationship without considering other contributing factors. | Continue reading
Insight into the business of sales pages for premium domains. | Continue reading
The ability of an entity to produce a product/service at a lower opportunity cost than another | Continue reading
Focus on your strengths instead of investing time and resources on trying to do anything and everything for the sake of it. | Continue reading
The Pyramid Principle recommends that you start communicating with your answer/hypothesis first and then support it with arguments and data. | Continue reading
The Von Restorff effect states that when presented with a group of similar objects, the one that differs from the rest is most likely to be remembered. | Continue reading
Back in 2013, I landed my first job after college at Northern Trust as a Financial Analyst. It was during this time that my interest in progressive rock peaked where I would fill any free time I had listening to bands like Pink Floyd, Opeth and Dream Theatre etc. | Continue reading
Summaries are not always good, especially so while reporting critical news media. | Continue reading
“All I want to know is where I’m going to die so I’ll never go there” - Charlie Munger | Continue reading
This imbalance between the context/information among the 2 parties is known as information asymmetry. This is an important mental model to have in your arsenal, especially when you are dealing with something out of your circle of competence. | Continue reading
Cargo cult can be described as the adoption of a technology or practice based on the observation that it has been used elsewhere, without understanding the motivation for its use elsewhere. These practices were thought to be a feature exclusive to under-developed societies but no … | Continue reading
An approach to innovation that goes beyond strengthening your product features and dives deep into other factors. | Continue reading
Why is Amsterdam so pedestrian and bicycle friendly? And how did universal healthcare become acceptable in mainstream conversations? The Overton Window can answer those questions and more. | Continue reading
LaunchNotes.io recently raised $1.8 million in the releases/updates communication space. If you CAN build this product, then this edition might help you turn it into a business. | Continue reading
Frederic Desnard, a 44-year old man sued his employer unsuccessfully for €360,000 back in 2016. Desnard complained that from 2010 to 2014 he was given little to no work, or given menial tasks that were not part of his job description. He claimed that his employers actions made hi … | Continue reading
In 1935, when Sugarcane crops in Australia were being ruined by Cane Beetles, the government panicked and introduced the Cane Toad to Australia. Given the urgency at the time and Sugarcane crops being one of Australia’s biggest sources of income, it seemed like a quick and necess … | Continue reading
When the prominent instant cake mix brand Betty Crocker wanted to increase sales, they hired a psychologist named Ernest Dichter. Mr. Dichter after studying usage patterns and consumption data, had one simple suggestion - get consumers to add fresh eggs to the mix themselves inst … | Continue reading
Get one FREE & useful mental model or thinking hack with practical examples, everyday. | Continue reading
Have you heard about this popular psychological hack that tells you to ask people for small favours first and then asking them for a big one to improve your chances of getting a yes? I bet most of you have. While on the outset, this seems like one of those viral “hacks”, it does … | Continue reading
The average attention span of a reader is less than 8 seconds and many media companies have been very effective in catering to this handicap. This phenomenon is known as the Concision bias where media companies will condense and report views that can be easily summarised in a few … | Continue reading
We all take courses all the time but the ones who make the most of it go through the process with intent and almost always take notes. And just like a lot of things in life, not all note taking methods are equal - some are bad, some good and then there is the Cornell Method. | Continue reading
We've all had our parents tell us that each of us are special even when we are not. The bias in our perception that we are unique when in reality we are not is called the False-uniqueness effect. In essence people see themselves as unique from others – as having better personalit … | Continue reading
We often attribute greater accuracy to opinion of authority figures and are thus influenced greatly by them. However, just because someone is an authority does not mean their opinions or stances are correct or credible to justify compliance. One useful mental model or thinking ha … | Continue reading
Traditional media and more recently modern media’s reputation has taken a beating in the public’s eye and it is not without good reason. While the media feeding frenzies could be largely attributed to the financial imperatives of media organisations to retain their funding, we ca … | Continue reading
Conspiracy theories are big these days and one of the main reasons that they are so prominent is our tendency to assume that big events have big causes. A lot of times we automatically assume that for consequences to be big, the causes have to be big as well and this goes beyond … | Continue reading
Anchoring bias occurs when people rely heavily on the first available information or benchmark while making decisions. To illustrate this with an example think of you walking into a sports store and the first thing you spot is a pair of track pants worth $500. Now your brain is a … | Continue reading
The overconfidence effect or bias occurs when a person’s subjective confidence in their judgement is reliably greater than the objective accuracy of that judgement. Sponsor: BlackBook Investments: Find and invest in cash-flowing digital assets. Overconfidence manifests in 3 ways: | Continue reading
First and foremost, last week we were amongst the top 5 free publications on Substack. We were #4. So, thank you for your support. Also, if you’d like to advertise on this newsletter drop me an email at mentalmodels@protonmail.com. Now let’s get into today’s post about the | Continue reading
The Von Restorff effect, also known as the “isolation effect” states that when presented with a group of similar objects, the one that differs from the rest is most likely to be remembered. According to this theory, different doesn’t necessarily mean better but rather just more m … | Continue reading
Circular arguments are pretty common in charged conversations where the sequence would be something like this: If A is true because B is true. Then B is true because A is true. In essence circular arguments are all about using your own assumed conclusion of an argument as the pre … | Continue reading
Slippery slope fallacy is a pretty common phenomenon in our everyday lives. It happens when we take a seemingly small event and attach it to a train of consecutive improbable events that ends with an improbable (often tragic) conclusion. For example, if you were rejected by someo … | Continue reading
Named after Hungarian Physician Ignaz Semmelweis, this behaviour refers to our tendency to stick to beliefs and reject fresh ideas even when there is sufficient support and evidence. This bias was largely thought to be prevalent in medicine but there are instances where it is spo … | Continue reading
Understanding & capitalising on your strengths | Continue reading
Hanlon’s Razor can be summarised with this one sentence: ‘Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by neglect.’ It is often used for quick decision making in both business and personal circumstances. This model can help make rational decisions and develop … | Continue reading