“It’s your mind’s toolbox for making decisions. The more tools you have, the more equipped you are to make good decisions. “
A mental model is the specific thought process you use to examine a problem. There are many types of known mental models, and each one takes a unique view of a foreign concept in order to reduce its complexity. In short, it is the mind’s way of making sense of something. Mental models help people make sense of the world—to interpret their environment and understand themselves. Mental models include categories, concepts, identities, prototypes, stereotypes, causal narratives, and worldviews.
“You can’t really know anything if you just remember isolated facts and try and bang ’em back. If the facts don’t hang together on a latticework of theory, you don’t have them in usable form.”
Charlie Munger
As James Clear explains, “Each mental model offers a different framework that you can use to look at life … If you develop a bigger toolbox of mental models, you’ll improve your ability to solve problems because you’ll have more options for getting to the right answer. This is one of the primary ways that truly brilliant people separate themselves from the masses of smart individuals out there.”