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Recent Articles
The Availability Bias: How to Overcome a Common Cognitive Distortion
June 07, 2021
“The attention which we lend to an experience is proportional to its vivid or interesting character, and it is a notorious fact that what interests us most vividly at the time is, other things equal, what we remember best.” —William James The availability heuristic explains why winning an award makes you more likely to win […]
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How to Write Creative Fiction: Umberto Eco’s Four Rules
May 31, 2021
Umberto Eco (1932–2016) was one of the bestselling authors of all time. In Confessions of a Young Novelist, he shares some unique advice for writing fiction. Umberto Eco wrote Confessions of a Young Novelist in his late seventies. But having published his first novel, The Name of the Rose, only twenty-eight years earlier, he considered […]
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Better Thinking & Incentives: Lessons From Shakespeare
May 24, 2021
At Farnam Street, we aim to master the best of what other people have figured out. Not surprisingly, it’s quite a lot. The past is full of useful lessons that have much to teach us. Sometimes, we just need to remember what we’re looking for and why. Life can be overwhelming. It seems like there’s […]
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The Great Mental Models V2
This is the second book in The Great Mental Models series and the highly anticipated follow up to the Wall Street Journal bestseller, Volume 1: General Thinking Concepts.
We tend to isolate the things we know in the domain we learned it. For example:
- What does the inertia of a rolling stone have to do with perseverance and being open-minded?
- How can the ancient process of steel production make you a more creative and innovative thinker?
- What does the replication of our skin cells have to do with being a stronger and more effective leader?
On the surface, these concepts may appear to be dissimilar and unrelated. But the surprising truth is the hard sciences (physics, chemistry, and biology) offer a wealth of useful tools you can use to develop critically important skills like:
- Relationship building
- Leadership
- Communication
- Creativity
- Curiosity
- Problem-solving
- Decision-making
The second volume of the Great Mental Models series shows you how to make those connections. It explores the core ideas from the hard sciences and offers nearly two dozen models to add to your mental toolbox.
You’ll not only get a better understanding of the forces that influence the world around you, but you’ll learn how to direct those forces to create outsized advantages in the areas of your life that matter most to you.
