Super Thinking: Upgrade Your Reasoning and Make Better Decisions With Mental Models

A WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER!

"You can't really know anything if you just remember isolated facts. If the facts don't hang together on a latticework of theory, you don't have them in a usable form.
You've got to have models in your head."
- Charlie Munger, investor, vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway

The world's greatest problem-solvers, forecasters, and decision-makers all rely on a set of frameworks and shortcuts that help them cut through complexity and separate good ideas from bad ones. They're called mental models, and you can find them in dense textbooks on psychology, physics, economics, and more.

Or, you can just read Super Thinking, a fun, illustrated guide to every mental model you could possibly need. How can mental models help you? Well, here are just a few examples...

   • If you've ever been overwhelmed by a to-do list that's grown too long, maybe you need the Eisenhower Decision Matrix to help you prioritize.

   • Use the 5 Whys model to better understand people's motivations or get to the root cause of a problem.

   • Before concluding that your colleague who messes up your projects is out to sabotage you, consider Hanlon's Razor for an alternative explanation.

   • Ever sat through a bad movie just because you paid a lot for the ticket? You might be falling prey to Sunk Cost Fallacy.

   • Set up Forcing Functions, like standing meeting or deadlines, to help grease the wheels for changes you want to occur.

So, the next time you find yourself faced with a difficult decision or just trying to understand a complex situation, let Super Thinking upgrade your brain with mental models.

Gabriel Weinberg is the CEO & Founder of DuckDuckGo, the Internet privacy company and private search engine. He holds a B.S. with honors from MIT in Physics and an M.S. from the MIT Technology and Policy Program. Weinberg is also the co-author of Traction.

Lauren McCann is a statistician and researcher. She spent nearly a decade at GlaxoSmithKline, where she designed and analyzed clinical trials and authored articles in medical journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine. She holds a Ph.D. in Operations Research and a B.S. with honors in mathematics, from MIT.

Lauren and Gabriel reside in Valley Forge, PA with their two children.

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