In the Renaissance, many great minds had a noble goal: learning across a broad variety of subjects and leveraging this diversity in whatever endeavor you may pursue. Leonardo da Vinci, for instance, famously applied his knowledge of anatomy and light to create lifelike and realistic images in some of the most famous paintings in history.
What if you could harness this same power, the ability to draw upon many different subjects, to become an analytical powerhouse? In other words, to become an extremely effective thinker, to be capable of finding patterns others can’t see, and then use all of your analysis to strategize more effectively?
Turns out, this is what Charlie Munger (the billionaire investor) outlines in his book, Poor Charlie’s Almanack. He believes that mental models are the key to improving our thinking.
Mental models are simplified representations of reality. They take a model in some discipline and use it to describe reality. For instance, inertia in physics has been used in various scenarios: from describing how inflation tends to be persistent to the difficulty of changing the culture of companies. There are countless examples of mental models: natural selection in biology, marginal benefits and marginal costs in economics, overextension in international relations, and catalysts in chemistry, just to name a few.
We see the world through mental models, even if subconsciously. We pick these concepts up throughout our lives, be it through our jobs or subjects we have studied. We then use mental models to make sense of the world around us. But here is the problem: the quality of our thinking depends on the diversity of our models. You need to know mental models across many subjects. As Charlie says, “all the wisdom in the world is not to be found in one little academic department.” To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. If you limit yourself to your own domain of expertise, you’ll be thinking like everyone else who only thinks in terms of the mental models of that field. This is the big reason why innovation often comes from outside an area - innovators just have a different mental tool kit.
Here is how Charlie recommends you go about using the power of mental models to boost your analytical ability:
Learn the big mental models in the fundamental sciences (physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, and engineering). He recommends you start with the fundamental sciences given their particular utility and influence over other subjects. You should understand these models to the point of being able to analogize with them in an array of different areas (i.e. develop liquid knowledge that is applicable in a non-specific domain). A note: don’t get discouraged at this point. You probably already know many mental models. High school is actually a great place to learn many big ideas from a broad range of disciplines given its traditional emphasis on studying several different subjects.
Learn the big mental models in other major disciplines (economics, finance, politics, international relations, psychology, among others). Remember, this need not be a massive endeavor. You are aiming to collect about 100 mental models as an end result.
Develop a mental model checklist, listing out all the major mental models from the different disciplines you covered in steps 1 and 2. When analyzing something, you will go through this checklist one by one, asking yourself how each mental model can be applied to a given situation. I like using a mind map when doing this.
Practice, practice, practice. Even though you have learned all the big mental models, you need to learn how to use them when examining something. You need to understand how they relate to one another and when a mental model is relevant and when it isn’t. Preferably, start practicing in your own domain by using mental models when analyzing an issue at work. If you’re not in it only for professional benefits, thinking about the news using mental models is very fun. Personally, I have practiced this past year by sitting down, reading an Economist article, and considering it using my mental models checklist.
References
Poor Charlie’s Almanack by Charlie Munger
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