mental models

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Shane Parrish (@ShaneAParrish) is the entrepreneur and wisdom seeker behind Farnam Street and the host of The Knowledge Project podcast, where he focuses on mastering the best of what other people have already figured out. Shane's popular online course, Decision by Design, has helped thousands of executives, leaders, and managers around the world learn the repeatable behaviors that improve results. His work has been featured in nearly every major publication, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Forbes.

Shane is the author of Clear Thinking: Turning Ordinary Moments into Extraordinary Results.

Please enjoy!

This episode is brought to you by AG1! I get asked all the time, “If you could use only one supplement, what would it be?” My answer is usually AG1, my all-in-one nutritional insurance. I recommended it in The 4-Hour Body in 2010 and did not get paid to do so. I do my best with nutrient-dense meals, of course, but AG1 further covers my bases with vitamins, minerals, and whole-food-sourced micronutrients that support gut health and the immune system. 

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This episode is also brought to you by Momentous high-quality supplements! Momentous offers high-quality supplements and products across a broad spectrum of categories, and I’ve been testing their products for months now. I’ve been using their magnesium threonate, apigenin, and L-theanine daily, all of which have helped me improve the onset, quality, and duration of my sleep. The Momentous Sleep Pack conveniently delivers all three in one single blend. I’ve also been using Momentous creatine, and while it certainly helps physical performance, including poundage or wattage in sports, I use it primarily for mental performance (short-term memory, etc.).

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[05:43] The Stopwatch Gang influences a D student.

[10:54] How a low-grade troublemaker gets vetted for an intelligence job.

[17:23] The impact of frequent relocation on a child.

[21:33] The benefits of a challenging education (once the tears dry up).

[31:09] From 68131-1440.blogger dot com to Farnam Street.

[36:10] An early exploration of cognitive biases.

[39:39] "Ordinary moments determine your position, and your position determines your options."

[45:55] Incisive, deliberate decision-makers.

[47:44] Defining mental models.

[50:47] The declaration of platform independence.

[52:50] A Farnam Street business breakdown.

[56:05] Scrutinizing the problem statement.

[1:03:12] The power of asking "And then what?"

[1:05:26] Setting yourself up for success with automatic rules.

[1:21:31] Doubling down on email and the evergreen.

[1:28:05] Investing with the benefit of deal flow.

[1:32:41] Thoughts on index fund investment.

[1:34:58] Factoring sleep into opportunity cost.

[1:43:33] How to make better decisions.

[1:48:10] Why should we write in the age of AI?

[1:52:08] Parting thoughts.

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For show notes and past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast.

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Past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show include Jerry Seinfeld, Hugh Jackman, Dr. Jane Goodall, LeBron James, Kevin Hart, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jamie Foxx, Matthew McConaughey, Esther Perel, Elizabeth Gilbert, Terry Crews, Sia, Yuval Noah Harari, Malcolm Gladwell, Madeleine Albright, Cheryl Strayed, Jim Collins, Mary Karr, Maria Popova, Sam Harris, Michael Phelps, Bob Iger, Edward Norton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Neil Strauss, Ken Burns, Maria Sharapova, Marc Andreessen, Neil Gaiman, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Jocko Willink, Daniel Ek, Kelly Slater, Dr. Peter Attia, Seth Godin, Howard Marks, Dr. Brené Brown, Eric Schmidt, Michael Lewis, Joe Gebbia, Michael Pollan, Dr. Jordan Peterson, Vince Vaughn, Brian Koppelman, Ramit Sethi, Dax Shepard, Tony Robbins, Jim Dethmer, Dan Harris, Ray Dalio, Naval Ravikant, Vitalik Buterin, Elizabeth Lesser, Amanda Palmer, Katie Haun, Sir Richard Branson, Chuck Palahniuk, Arianna Huffington, Reid Hoffman, Bill Burr, Whitney Cummings, Rick Rubin, Dr. Vivek Murthy, Darren Aronofsky, Margaret Atwood, Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, Dr. Gabor Maté, Anne Lamott, Sarah Silverman, Dr. Andrew Huberman, and many more.

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Follow Shane on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/ShaneAParrish

For most people who dip their toes into the world of thought work for the first time, there are usually some questions that come up around subjectivity and reality. “If all thoughts are made up in our brains - is anything really true? How do I know if something is true?” But the truth is, our brains are making things up all the time. We’re actually hallucinating all the time (and no, you haven’t been unwittingly dosed with mushrooms!).

Listen to this week’s podcast episode to learn about the way our brains create our realities, why accepting something as reality first can make it more difficult to change your thoughts about it later, and why you should decide what to believe on purpose.

Get full show notes and more information here: https://unfuckyourbrain.com/249

In disasters or accidents, why do some people survive and others perish? In exploring this question, my guest has uncovered psychological and philosophical insights into not only dealing with life-threatening crises, but strategically navigating any situation that involves risk and decision-making.

His name is Laurence Gonzales and he's a pilot, a journalist, and the author of several books, including the focus of today's conversation: Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why. Today on the show, we discuss how the story of his father being shot out of the sky during WWII set Laurence on a journey to explore the mysterious underpinnings of survival. Laurence then explains what happens to us mentally and emotionally in a disaster situation that causes us to make poor decisions, how our mental models can get us in trouble, and why rule breakers are more likely to survive than rule followers. Laurence then walks us through complexity theory and how trying to make things safer can counterintuitively make them more dangerous. We then talk about why the frequency with which you yell at your kids correlates to your chances of surviving a life-threatening emergency, before ending our conversation with a discussion of the paradoxes would-be survivors must grapple with, including being both realistic and hopeful at the same time.

Get the show notes at aom.is/deepsurvival.

Mike Maples, a partner at the VC firm Floodgate, shares how mental models shape his decision-making process, where to find the next big idea, and how to rally people to your cause.

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Follow Shane on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/ShaneAParrish

“What matters is: Are you a good problem solver? Are you moral? Are you a hard worker? Are you a good leader? Do you have insights into the field? These are the questions that matter.” — Neil deGrasse Tyson

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) was appointed the Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium in 1996. Dr. Tyson’s professional research interests are primarily related to the structure of the Milky Way galaxy, and the formation of stars, supernovas, and dwarf galaxies.

Dr. Tyson graduated from the Bronx High School of Science, received his BA from Harvard, and earned his PhD in astrophysics from Columbia University in 1991. In 2001 he was appointed by President Bush to serve on the 12-member Commission on the Future of the United States Aerospace Industry. In 2004 Dr. Tyson received a second appointment from President Bush, this time to the nine-member President’s Commission on the Implementation of the United States Space Exploration Policy (dubbed the “Moon, Mars, and Beyond” commission). In 2016 he was appointed by the US secretary of defense to be an advisor to the DoD on the future of sci-tech innovation.

Dr. Tyson has been awarded 21 honorary degrees as well as the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal, and he has authored multiple books on the universe, including Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier, Death by Black Hole and Other Cosmic Quandaries, which was a New York Times bestseller, and The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America’s Favorite Planet, chronicling his experience at the center of the controversy over Pluto’s planetary status.

His newest book is Letters from an Astrophysicist, a companion to his 2017 bestseller Astrophysics for People in a Hurry.

Since 2006 Dr. Tyson has appeared as the on-camera host of PBS-NOVA’s spinoff program NOVA ScienceNOW. He also hosts a popular radio show and podcast called StarTalk in addition to the Emmy-nominated StarTalk TV show on National Geographic.

In 2014 Dr. Tyson hosted a reboot of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos.

This episode is brought to you by Helix Sleep. I recently moved into a new home and needed new beds, and I purchased mattresses from Helix Sleep. It offers mattresses personalized to your preferences and sleeping style without costing thousands of dollars. Visit HelixSleep.com/TIM and take the simple 2-3 minute sleep quiz to get started, and the team there will match you to a mattress you’ll love.

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Tim Ferriss Show listeners get to try ShipStation free for 60 days by using promo code TIM. There’s no risk and you can start your free trial without even entering your credit card info. Just visit ShipStation.com, click on the microphone at the top of the homepage, and type in TIM!

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For show notes and past guests, please visit tim.blog/podcast.

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Follow Tim:

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Past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show include Jerry Seinfeld, Hugh Jackman, Dr. Jane Goodall, LeBron James, Kevin Hart, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jamie Foxx, Matthew McConaughey, Esther Perel, Elizabeth Gilbert, Terry Crews, Sia, Yuval Noah Harari, Malcolm Gladwell, Madeleine Albright, Cheryl Strayed, Jim Collins, Mary Karr, Maria Popova, Sam Harris, Michael Phelps, Bob Iger, Edward Norton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Neil Strauss, Ken Burns, Maria Sharapova, Marc Andreessen, Neil Gaiman, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Jocko Willink, Daniel Ek, Kelly Slater, Dr. Peter Attia, Seth Godin, Howard Marks, Dr. Brené Brown, Eric Schmidt, Michael Lewis, Joe Gebbia, Michael Pollan, Dr. Jordan Peterson, Vince Vaughn, Brian Koppelman, Ramit Sethi, Dax Shepard, Tony Robbins, Jim Dethmer, Dan Harris, Ray Dalio, Naval Ravikant, Vitalik Buterin, Elizabeth Lesser, Amanda Palmer, Katie Haun, Sir Richard Branson, Chuck Palahniuk, Arianna Huffington, Reid Hoffman, Bill Burr, Whitney Cummings, Rick Rubin, Dr. Vivek Murthy, Darren Aronofsky, and many more.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Gabriel Weinberg (@yegg) is a serial entrepreneur, angel investor, founder of privacy-protecting search engine DuckDuckGo, and coauthor of Super Thinking: The Big Book of Mental Models.

What We Discuss with Gabriel Weinberg:

• What are mental models, and how can they be applied to make your life run more efficiently and effectively?
• How mental models used primarily in physics, economics, biology, and math can be easily adjusted for everyday decisions.
• What a South American tribe that can only count to three and our own grade school experiences with multiplication tables can teach us about the power of math as a mental model.
• Why you should be second-guessing your natural intuition during the decision-making process, and how you can use mental models to do it.
• First principles versus conventional wisdom for approaching familiar situations in an innovative way.
• And much more...

Full show notes and resources can be found here: https://jordanharbinger.com/214

Sign up for Six-Minute Networking -- our free networking and relationship development mini course -- at jordanharbinger.com/course!

The Mental Illness Happy Hour with Paul Gilmartin is a weekly online podcast that interviews comedians, artists, friends, and the occasional doctor. Each episode explores mental illness, trauma, addiction and negative thinking. Give it a listen here!

Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally!

On this episode, Scott Page, 5x Author and Professor of Complex Systems at the University of Michigan explains the power mental models have in how we view the world, discover creative solutions and solve complex problems.

Go Premium: Members get early access, ad-free episodes, hand-edited transcripts, searchable transcripts, member-only episodes, and more. Sign up at: https://fs.blog/membership/

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Follow Shane on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/ShaneAParrish

We live in a complex, fast-changing world. Thriving in this world requires one to make fast decisions with incomplete information. But how do you do that without making too many mistakes?

My guest today argues that one key is stockpiling your cognitive toolbox with lots of “mental models.”

His name is Shane Parrish. He’s a former Canadian intelligence officer and the owner of the website Farnam Street, which publishes articles about better thinking and decision making and is read by Wall Street investors, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, and leaders across domains. We begin our conversation discussing how Shane’s background as an intelligence officer got him thinking hard about hard thinking and why the musings of investors Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger have had a big influence on his approach to decision making.

Shane then shares his overarching decision making philosophy and explains what mental models are and why they’re a powerful tool to make better decisions. We then discuss why you should focus on being consistently not stupid instead of trying to be consistently brilliant and tactics you can use to make better decisions.

Get the show notes at aom.is/farnamstreet.