Unlock Your Potential: 30 Mental Models for Achieving Exceptional Results

Megan: Even if you've been using mental models forever and are good at critical thinking, it never hurts to review! You may even find there are a couple here that you either don't think of much, or at all. And if these skills aren't your strong point, it'll serve you well to work at developing them.

In Mental Models, we're taken through thirty different models, which are heuristics or patterns we can find in various every day situations that we can use to be more efficient, productive, solve problems, etc.

All of the models are useful at some level. Some will be sort of familiar to you (Murphy's Law, anyone?) and some of them might make you think for a moment. For example, in my own headlong charge towards success, I've never thought of using the inverse--what should I *avoid* doing?--to help propel me toward my goals.

You'll also learn how to take black swans in context, use an Eisenhower Matrix, and more.

The models feels exhaustive in a way. That is, you leave the book feeling like you've taken on a lot of information that will help you navigate the world. I would absolutely recommend Mental Models. There's a lot of good information here and it's written in...

United States on Nov 07, 2023

Anon: The author did a great job of concisely explaining each mental model with sufficient examples and not too much repetition or fluff. I got a lot out of this book.

United States on Sep 09, 2023

Daniel Pérez Cruz: El libro nos muestra técnicas, con las cuales podemos utilizar más eficientemente nuestra mente en la resolución de problemas o en el manejo de nuestros recursos, tales como nuestro tiempo y que en enfocarnos en nuestro devenir cotidiano. Lo recomiendo en realidad en un buen libro y muy interesante.

United States on Aug 24, 2023

SANTANU BISWAS: This is a dynamite of a book on a cognitive concept termed mental models. If anyone irrespective of background wants to empower their thought process must read this book, it will resolve innumerable constraints of the mind and bring forth clarity, self-discovery and decision making prowess. The one aspect that differentiates this particular book with similar books on mental models is the putting together of 30 indispensable, highly impactful and life changing mental models that is bound to add tremendous value to an individual's life. Compare this highly resourceful book with a GPS which will consistently assist any individual in making mental progress, gain insights and declutter the mind.

India on Aug 19, 2023

kishan rathi: There a lot of common mental models that everyone knows. I expected more from the book. Not a lot of value add for me.

Canada on Jul 20, 2023

Santhosh: This is an amazing book and very concise and easy to follow

India on Jul 14, 2023

Amazon Customer: Some really great explanations and examples and how to apply them to your life. Thoroughly enjoyable read.

United Kingdom on Feb 27, 2023

Chris S: I got SO much out of this book. Aside from it being very well-written, this book takes you from knowing nothing about mental models to knowing almost everything about them. If you apply the material learned in this book, not only will you know how to use the mental models he presents in the book, but you’ll be able to instantly understand and use any mental model imaginable.

I didn’t appreciate some of the analogies and examples that he used. I’m not upset enough to give this book anything but 5 stars, but some of the examples he uses are hard to understand.

One mental model he brought up had to do with procrastination. Cool, but he used a confusing example — he said it was akin to a check engine light appearing in a car, but he used the word “flashing” instead of "appearing" which can be confusing because when there is a serious problem with your car, the check engine light will literally flash as opposed to just illuminating. He went on to say that he’s had a check engine light on his car for over a year, which seems incredibly irresponsible. I’m not trying to judge, far from it, but the fact here is do I really want to be taking advice from someone...

United States on Jan 09, 2023

Krasa30: I really enjoyed this book, it took no time at all to read all the way through, the summaries are very helpful and in terms of content I like that such a huge number of approaches has been pulled together in a single tome. I can see myself re-reading the summaries too as well as applying the methods described in my day to day at work.

United Kingdom on Dec 29, 2022

Reverse Engineer: This is more interesting than other Hollins' productions I've bought (and didn't like -- they've been removed from the marketplace.)
At least the sentences are a little bit more interesting... but at times truly bizarre. (Talking about what reversible decisions are ,comparing them, a non-reversible decision is "shaving your cat"... say what? I'm wondering if this wasn't spun from "skinning a cat.") At times the adjectives seem like someone went thru and randomly used something to replace one adjective with a similar one -- but not one I would assume a native English speaker would ever use.

Some of the content -- which seemed, at times, gratuitously added to fatten the ebook -- seemed like it was spun from other content.

What I like best -- the summaries at the end of the chapters of the mental models.

Seems like "mental models" are the topic du jour... as there are at least two other books coming out about it (with some of them starting from a similar place -- a 1994 Commencement Speech at USC by Warren Buffett's well-regarded partner, Charlie Munger) -- and another one by another prolific author in the personal development space.

After having gone...

United States on Apr 29, 2019