The Mental Model that Debunks 95% of Business and Personal Development Advice

We consume more information than ever before. Our brains can’t possibly process everything perfectly. Nor do we need to in order to survive.

Instead of analyzing every piece of information that comes our way, our brains use shortcuts.

Scottish psychologist Kenneth Craik proposed the theory that the mind constructs “small-scale models” of reality that it uses to anticipate events, reason, and explain.

Philip Johnson-Laird and Ruth M.J. Byrne developed a theory which makes the assumption that reasoning depends, not on logic, but on mental models.

Models are simplified representations of reality. A mental model is an explanation of someone’s thought process about how something works. It’s a concept you can use to explain and understand many different aspects of the world around you.

Each mental model offers a different framework to analyze problems and situations. When your set of mental models is limited, so is your potential for understanding. For example, if you think reason explains all of human behavior, you would be unable to understand a vast majority of behavior. If you acquire a larger set of mental models, you improve your ability to solve problems because you’ll have more options for reaching the right…