Transcription
A couple of weeks ago, we did an episode all about what are known as mental models. These are frameworks or ideas that allow us to make better decisions, to solve more problems more effectively, and to be able to change the way we think in ways that allow us to get the kind of results that we want. Well, thank you so much to all of you for all the great feedback that you've given about how valuable that was and how useful that was. I know we packed in 25 mental models that I walked you through, and today we're doing part two.
So, in this episode, we're going to look at different mental models such as the law of identity, the law of diminishing returns, the Paradox of certainty, the ideological blind spot, second-order thinking, and much, much more. There's a treasure trove of mental models that are coming to this podcast that have the potential to transform the way in which you live your life. Let's get ready to go for it.
Hello and welcome to another episode of The Changing Minds podcast. I'm Jon Fitzpatrick, and today we're going to return to the world of mental models. Mental models are these ideas or frameworks that allow us to be able to think differently and to be able to solve problems more effectively. The last time we looked at 25 different models that provide you with the opportunity to be able to think in smarter and better ways. Today, we're going to dive into 25 more, and I'm going to walk you through ideas again from such figures as Chris Williamson, George Mack, Shane Parish, Alex Hormozi, Dr. Richard Berler, Naval Ravikant, Nim, Nicholas Taleb, Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett, Rob Henderson, and lots, lots more. Overall, I've packed as many signals, if you will, inside of the noise that's out there in the podcasting world, and I'm hoping that by the end of this episode you're going to walk away with lots of really smart ways to be able to tackle any of the challenges you face in life. So let's get straight into the next of the mental models.
So the first mental model we will dive into today is number 26, and this is the notion of luxury beliefs. This is popularized by Rob Henderson, and basically what Rob was talking about in this particular area was he said that luxury beliefs are beliefs that we have if we're in a position of luxury to believe them, or policies that we might have that don't affect us if they go wrong but do affect unprivileged folk. So the example he gives is defund the police, and again, don't want to get political into this, but this is just the example that he gives. He says the defund the police is something that a lot of people tend to promote or tend to suggest is important, but most of the people saying that are actually people that have the luxury of having private security themselves or live in an area where they're pretty much protected anyway, whereas the people that will be really affected by that, and actually if you see some of the surveys done in these areas which are underprivileged societies or disenfranchised groups, those people are a lot less likely to support the idea of defund the police. So luxury beliefs are almost beliefs that certain people will have because theoretically they seem nice and they're a great way of signaling that we care, but actually in reality, in real practice, in real life, they don't actually work out, and because we're sort of safe from the real effects in the real world, we kind of throw out these theoretical ideas even though they might not have the desired impact. So they're called luxury beliefs. Where that's useful is really in understanding, well, based upon this notion, am I thinking through that this is what society needs without actually asking myself the question, what is the real impact going to have on not just me but other people who might not be as fortunate as me? And when we start to think that way, it not only builds our ability to be more empathetic but also allows us to be a lot more accurate in the decisions that we make. So that's a particularly interesting mental model.
Number 27 is what is known as the present bias, also called hyperbolic discounting, and this is the notion that so often we overvalue the reward we get in the present and we undervalue rewards that we get in the future. So this is about comparing, for example, the six-pack to the cheesecake. You see the cheesecake, which would be, oh my goodness, that cheesecake is going to be so tasty. Oh, you open the fridge and you see it; you're like, or BFI—I've talked about BFI before—BFI is the greatest dessert, and you, you, you see this BFI and you go, this is going to be so nice, and then you imagine yourself with a six-pack in the future. You see yourself with like this raw, like eight-pack, like all of these abs, and you think, oh, that would be good, but then you look at the BFI, and the BFI is like, hey, I'm so delicious, just eat me, just eat me. And yet you look at the six-pack or the eight-pack and you go, oh, it'd be so good; how good will I feel if I'm looking into the mirror? Nothing can taste as good as having an eight-pack would feel, but you still eat the BFI. You know why you eat the BFI? Because it feels so good; it releases a massive amount of dopamine, more dopamine than a dummy, stupid, like, loser eight-pack will. That's a problem, and it's a problem because in society it can be very easy for us to be distracted; it can be very easy for advertisers or marketing to be able to draw our attention to the shiny new object and to get us to be focusing on what's in the now as opposed to the long-term reward. What really needs to happen is we need to begin to become better at strategizing, at thinking long-term, and overcoming this present bias. And the way we would do this is we spend more time focusing on what the long-term gains of a particular behavior are. So you imagine vividly how great the six-pack or eight-pack would be; you vividly imagine it; you build it, and you crank up the desire so that becomes so strong that you're willing to forego the BFI for it. That's what we're talking about. And so recognizing the present bias, also known as hyperbolic discounting, is a really great model that you can leverage and you can use to make sure you're making better decisions and building better habits as a result.
Number 28 is the principle of outcome-based communication. Now, this principle is based upon the premise that so often when people communicate, they're so busy thinking about what they're going to say; they're not really thinking about the outcome that they're looking for. And whenever I teach presentations, whenever I teach different individuals to be more effective in strategic communication, I'm really getting them to focus on, what's the outcome that you want to have? And the outcome is invariably always you want the person to take a certain action and feel a certain way. And so what's really important about outcome-based communication is that whenever you're communicating with someone, always, as a rule of thumb, think through, what is the result I want to get from this communication? In NLP—that's neuro-linguistic programming—we have a setting that says the meaning of your communication is the response you get. So very similar, this is about what is the action you want the other person to take, and it's not just about the action; it's usually about the emotion. And this is the missing piece for so many people is that they think to themselves, I'll give you this information, I'll give you feedback, and then you'll make the adjustments, but unless the person feels empowered and motivated and driven to make those changes, they won't necessarily make them. So it's vital for us to not just give people the information that they need but to make them feel driven and motivated, to feel the feelings or emotions that they need in order for them to take the actions that they need to take moving forward. When you focus on the way you make them feel and you focus on how you can get them to take the action, that's outcome-based communication, and it's a lot more effective than simply communicating what you say, 'cause just because you say it doesn't mean that's what they hear; certainly doesn't mean that's what they listen to.
Number 29 is second-order thinking, and this is a really cool mental model where we look at considering the consequences of your decisions and then the consequences of those consequences. So when we're doing second-order thinking, we're thinking in terms of not just if we do A, this will cause B, but if B happens, then what will that cause? What is C? And we're thinking through, and this could even turn into third-order thinking. Game theory, for example, requires that you're doing second-order thinking, third-order thinking, fourth-order thinking. A lot of times in negotiations, you're thinking, we'll offer this, they'll react in this, and once they've reacted in that way, then we respond in this way. Winning at war also requires multiple-order thinking. Even if you take chess, that's the ultimate—you're predicting an entire sequence of steps. I'll move this way, they'll move that way, I'll move this way, then, and they'll move that way, and you're making all of these predictions ahead of time. Even in what I would play, which would be pool or snooker—which is, for those of you in in Europe or in China, you'll recognize what snooker is, but for Americans or those of you who aren't unfamiliar with the notion of snooker, it's like pool but a lot more complicated and requires a lot more skill in my opinion—but with regards to even pool, when I go to the table, I'd be pretty sharp when I go and play a game of pool. I'm not thinking about the pot or sinking a certain ball or potting a certain ball; I'm thinking about five shots ahead. Once I do this, this will leave the ball here, then I do this, this will leave the balls here, then I do this. So I'm thinking ahead; I'm not just thinking first-order; I'm thinking second and third and fourth or fifth order. Doing this in your everyday life can help you to be much better at making decisions and to be able to predict what those decisions are going to lead to. So you're not just anticipating what's going to happen based upon one action; you're anticipating how that's going to then infect or affect other actions, how that's going to impact things, and so you're not just paying attention to the consequences of your actions or decisions; you're thinking about those consequences and those consequences to give you a more accurate appraisal as to how the lay of the land will end up.
The number 30 is the law of identity, and this is what I've described as—the law of identity is simply changing who you believe you are will actually change your actions, and changing your actions will actually change who you believe you are. James Clear, in his book Atomic Habits, popularizes this quite a lot, but this is something we've been using—at least I've been using it for years—in terms of the work I've done as a therapist and as a coach. It's the notion that says that one of the best ways to get people to change their behavior is get them to believe that they are a different type of person. So when you believe you're the type of person who exercises, you're much more likely to exercise regularly. When you believe that you're the type of person that is going on a diet, well, you can always fall off the diet; when you go off cigarettes, you can always go back on cigarettes. It's like this notion that you're doing a behavior; you're engaging on a diet; it's going to last for a certain amount of time, but whenever you see yourself as a certain type of person, that's a long-term behavior; that's something you do non-stop. So the key is the law of identity suggests that if you want to make a change, start to see yourself as the kind of person who does that particular action, and then vice versa, if you want to become that kind of person, then act in such a way that that person would act. So your long-term consistent behaviors allow you to build your identity, but your identity also will determine your long-term consistent behaviors. So if you approach it from both angles—how do I work on my beliefs about myself and how do I work on my actions—you'll find a way to be able to cultivate not only a much more empowering identity but also habits and behaviors that lead you towards achieving everything that you ever desired. So it's really, really cool.
Number 31 is a cool one; this is what I call opinion noise. And in a nutshell, this is the idea that says everybody's got an opinion, and just because everyone's got an opinion doesn't make it right; just because a lot of people agree with a certain opinion doesn't make it right. If you ever go on social media and you're reading through people's comments, a lot of times you might read through people's comments or people's opinions about different things, and while sometimes that's useful, one of the big mistakes a lot of people make is that they start to think that whatever the opinions that people communicate with on social media, whatever they are, is representative of what most people think. The problem is that people that normally comment on social media, normally they're just the ones with the loudest voices online. A lot of trolls love to throw through different posts and make comments about it, and just because people have certain comments to say doesn't make them true; certainly doesn't mean that everybody thinks the same way as them. So just because someone has an opinion doesn't make it correct, and just because the person's opinion is loud doesn't make it any more right. So opinion noise is the idea that, first of all, the noise of the opinion—how loud the opinion is—doesn't necessarily mean that it's accurate or true, but also the fact is that there's so many opinions out there that there's an awful lot of noise, and it's important for you to be judicious as to what kinds of opinions you take on board. Are they coming from the right place? Do they have the requisite skill or authority or expertise to be able to give you a well-informed opinion? Is that opinion going to be helpful for you? Because remember, it's so easy to have an opinion about things; it's not so easy to actually take action. You can hear people talk about how awful the government is doing; they might be right, but also it's the easiest thing in the world to have an opinion. We can all talk about what's wrong with things; we can go into a restaurant and say, oh, this is terrible, but it's easy to say it; it's not so easy to do it. It reminds me of that quote by Maya Angelou where she talks about, it's not the critic that counts; it's the man in the arena. And this is the notion that it's so easy for people to become critical, especially online; it's like the forum, where it's like the open book—book of places that we can go to be able to tell everyone what we think. Meanwhile, we could be sitting at home on the couch doing absolutely nothing with our life—life—except, you know, using our fingers to try to tear people down. So remember, a lot of opinion noise; just 'cause it's there does not mean that you got to listen to it.
Next is probabilistic thinking, and this is something I originally came across in the work of Robert Anton Wilson. Now, Robert Anton Wilson is the author of a number of excellent books in the area of psychology, in the area of even science fiction, and one of the things that Wilson talks about is he looks at the importance of being able to look at situations not from an either/or perspective but really from finding ways to be able to understand that we need to be thinking in terms of probability. Also, Annie Duke, in her wonderful book Thinking in Bets, talks about this too. It's the notion that whenever we're trying to predict what's going to happen, a lot of people will jump to conclusions and go, well, that's going to happen or that's not going to happen. When we start thinking in terms of probability, we look at, well, what's the most probable outcome, and what percentage probability would we give something? If it gets us to be a lot more accurate with our appraisal of what we think is going to happen. So making decisions using probabilistic thinking means that you give the various different scenarios or possibilities a different probability rating, and that then allows you to be a little bit more objective because you're evaluating outcomes based upon the probability as opposed to what might scare you the most or what you're most excited about. In other words, instead of allowing emotions to drive your decisions, you're making it more easy for for you to be able to make better decisions in a slightly more objective way. So probabilistic thinking is a really, really great approach and a great mental model.
The next one is something also from Annie Duke, which is what I call investment certainty. And this is based upon a great little technique that Professor Duke suggested when she said, if you're ever making a decision and you ever think that A is the right approach, for example, ask yourself the question, how much money would you put on A? So how much money would you actually bet on A being the best decision? And when you actually have to put money to it, the degree to which you'll put money or the amount of money that you'll put on this being the right decision actually will tell other people and yourself how certain you are of that. Are you willing to put your money where your mouth is? Is really investment certainty. And so when you're thinking about decisions that you want to make, it's a really great strategy to go, okay, am I sure enough that I would put money behind this? And if so, how much money would I bet that this is the right approach? This is such a powerful approach because as soon as you start putting money to something, it immediately raises the temperature of it, and it makes you significantly more likely to be thinking through the permutations. Once again, in the world of opinion noise, we can all go, oh, I think this is going to happen; want to bet? If you're willing to bet on something, if you're willing to put money on something, it indicates very strongly that this is something that you do genuinely believe in, not just a sort of idea that comes to the top of your mind at that moment when you have to make a decision. One—a bet forces you to do your research; forces you to do your due diligence, which is exactly what's more likely to make your answers more accurate.
Number 34 is environmental hacking. Again, this is a term that I'm using to describe techniques or ideas talked about by Alex Hormozi, not a million miles away from what we talked about the last time, which is about friction and reducing friction. What Hormozi suggests is that if you want to change your behavior, a great way to do it is to change your environment. And the simple tactics for this, right—surround yourself with healthy food; make it so that you live next to your gym and make it so that it's very easy to get to your gym. I think he gave the example—he wears clothes which allows him to be able to go for dinner or go to the gym quite easily either way. By changing your environment and making your environment more conducive to helping you achieve the results that you're looking for, that allows you to be able to build more useful long-term habits. So again, from a practicality perspective, how can you create an environment that makes it easier for you to be able to engage in new behaviors? That is what I call environmental hacking.
The next mental model is what is known as the principle of false authority, and this is a term that I came up with to describe this notion that so often we tend to, on social media, on the media, buy into this notion that a person has authority because they've got a loud voice—voice. So because a certain person has a lot of fans or because a person is famous or because a person is known in one area, we should listen to them. If a person is known as being a world-famous psychologist, that doesn't mean they know what they're talking about about economics or about even philosophy and certainly politics. If a person's an expert politician, it doesn't mean they know what they're talking about in terms of psychology. We have to recognize the false authority that we give people is always usually at least predicated upon the notion that says that this person is, in inverted commas, as smart and they think through things, and as a result of that they might have access to information that the rest of us don't; therefore, they've got more information; therefore, there's someone to listen to. And that's a mistake because when we make that mistake, what we're assuming is is that there's certain people gifted with all of the knowledge of the world, and we should just listen to them. The problem is there's a lot of people like that, but a lot of them disagree with each other, so therefore that begs the question, who's right? And for me, whenever I'm listening to different experts and thought leaders, whenever I scroll through social media or I listen to the media or I read through the books, I'm always looking at, is this a person an authority in the area that they're presenting themselves as an authority in? And if they are, I'm more likely to be open; doesn't mean that I'm not going to listen to someone just because they don't have the right qualifications, but it does mean that I'm going to be challenging them just as much, and I'm going to make sure that I'm not just believing someone because of their popularity or believing someone because they're, in inverted commas, on the same side as me. If a person's on the same side as my ideology or the way in which I think or the opinion or idea that I have, it's more likely that I'm going to believe them even though they might not be correct, and just because I agree with them about one thing doesn't mean I should agree with them on everything else. So again, from a useful perspective, if you look at some of the thought leaders that you follow, some of the people that you listen to, what is it that you listen to them about? What do you agree with them on? But also try to look for areas that you disagree with them on so that you can see every person as full of great ideas, but also you can see the ideas you don't agree with. If you find yourself believing everything that a particular guru or thought leader says, either A, they're saying nonsense—in other words, they're just being very, very vague—right, or B, you're allowing yourself to fall under the allure, the seduction of this notion that one person has all the answers. It's almost like this desire we have, this craving we have to go, I need somebody to tell me how this works; I need someone to tell me exactly how life is supposed to be. And when we fall into that sort of Messiah arena, we uh will very easily be taken advantage of and quite often make the wrong kind of errors in the decisions that we make. So some important things there.
Number 36 comes from Alex Hormozi again, and this is the notion of what he calls the difference between business indigestion versus business starvation. And whereas what most people think when businesses fail—most people assume the businesses fail because of starvation; they're not getting enough cash in, for example—but most businesses, from Hormozi's perspective, fail because they try to take on too much as opposed to just the fact that they are starving for cash or they don't have enough cash. And as a result of that, we need to recognize in our own businesses, are we taking on too much? So for me, at least, that was useful. I tend to take on a lot, and in areas where I'm struggling in business, that particular mental model helped me to figure out, okay, I think I'm trying to do too much here as opposed to not getting enough results. I realized that I was trying to get too many results and therefore not prioritizing um in the way that I could do.
The next one is something we mentioned last time, which is sunk cost fallacy, and this is basically: do not continue a project just because of the time and effort you've put in. Make sure you're making a decision based upon, is this a good allocation of your time today? Just because you spent the last two weeks, two months, two years working on this project doesn't mean you should just keep pushing.
Through, if it's not working, doesn't matter how many, how much time, or how many things you do; that you invest in a particular practice, if it's not working, it's not working. And you have to know when to walk away. So again, back to the Annie Duke book of being able to know when to quit, you have to be able to notice that and pay attention to it. So whenever you're asking yourself the question, "Should we keep going?" ask yourself, "Are you being unduly influenced by this notion of the sunk cost bias?" The fact that, "Oh, I've already put in all this effort; I don't want to go to waste."
The next one is availability heuristic, and this is really the notion that your judgments are influenced a lot more by what's easy and what comes to mind. For example, we go online, or we go and we watch the media, and what you see is, you see, "Oh my goodness, politics, politics, politics." And politics is making such a big difference, and we're constantly exposed to all of these things that the media deems, or social media deems, to be important at that moment in time. And all of a sudden you're thinking, "Oh my goodness, it's terrible, that war that's happening; it's awful." Two weeks later, the news moves on to some other war, and all of a sudden you're going, "Oh yeah, this new war is the worst; that old war, well, I think that all worked out okay." Spoiler alert: it didn't work out okay; it's just as bad. You know, the only difference, the only difference is the media is no longer covering it; the only difference is people aren't talking as much about it on social media. But people are still dying; people are still starving; that disease, it's still rampant; right, the serial killers are still on the loose. Like, I hate to tell you, but just because the news is no longer covering it doesn't mean it's stopped. The world is full of chaos; the world is full of crazy things happening on an ongoing basis. And one of the things we have to reconcile is that just because we hear about it doesn't mean it's a big deal, and just because we don't hear about it doesn't mean it's not true. But availability bias means that whatever we see around our area, we tend to overvalue that; think it's more important than it is; think it's more prevalent than it is. When we see a couple of plane crashes, for example, we think to ourselves, "Oh my goodness, all the planes are crashing," and then we start to get phobias of flying on a plane. We think to ourselves, "Oh, I don't want to get on a plane," why? Because of the plane crashes. An incident of terrorism happens; "Oh my goodness, I, I don't want to go to this festival in case of terrorism." Now some people will say, "Yeah, but oh, that's logical, because a terrorist…" You might be identifying certain, uh, concerts or certain ways to be able to attack, but still, your chance of dying from a terrorist attack is ridiculously low; your chance of dying on a plane crash is ridiculously low; your chance of falling off a horse or being killed by a cow, I believe, is just as high as your chances, if not more high than your chances of dying in a plane crash. So now you have to ask the question, "How are you going to die from a cow?" And my only understanding of that would be if a cow runs you over, if you're standing in a field next to a cow. Not sure why you're in the field next to the cow; you should be aware of the statistics. But if you're there with a cow and the cow runs over… I don't know, maybe you're taunting the cow; maybe you're, you know, saying nasty things to the cow. I don't know again why you'd be doing that; I think that's a very unfair thing to do. I like cows; I think they're cute; I think they're cool. Have you ever seen a cow run? Like, they look like it's such an effort. I've never seen an animal like running like, "Oh my God, I hate running." Like, if you ever see a cow run, that's how I feel when I'm running, right? Because I don't enjoy running, and when you see the cow run, they don't have to communicate English or any language; you know, they hate running; it's the way they carry themselves. Whereas horses, they're like, "I'm so good at running; I'm the best at running." Poor old cows, not so much, right? So we have to be able to recognize… Where am I going with that? I don't know. What is it that I'm even talking about? Oh yeah, the importance of the availability bias. And when we talk about the availability bias, we need to recognize that the more we see things in the real world, the more we overestimate them. What's the trick there, for all… what's the useful bit of knowledge from a mental model? What it is is we need to start to look for and start to expose ourselves to the kind of information that helps us to empower ourselves in our life. If you expose yourself to the kind of information that feels, that makes you feel more gratitude, that makes you feel better about yourself, that makes you feel more optimistic, that makes you feel more relaxed, that makes you feel more confident or happy; if you give yourself opportunities to surround yourself with information that is positive for you and helps you drive and feel motivated to drive and move forward, wonderful. But what you do not want to do is expose yourself to things that terrify you, or expose yourself to things where you're just constantly overvaluing, uh, things that necessarily you don't need to. And also most important of all, be nice to the cows; they've done nothing wrong, and they don't deserve you to be standing in a field shouting at them. I just, I just don't think it's fair; I just don't think it's nice.
The next one, number 39, is the circle of competence. And the circle of competence is when we focus on areas where we have deep expertise, as opposed to acting as if we know everything. There's probably this large-scale awareness of this notion called the Dunning-Kruger effect. And in a nutshell, this is that the more a person seems to act like they know something, probably the less intelligent they are in that particular area. But a sort of a cousin of this is this notion of the circle of competence, and this is really being aware of what you do know; being aware of what you're an expert in; and knowing to stay in your lane; knowing to be able to stay in your circle and not to branch out. So the law of false authority is how we listen to other experts; the circle of competence is for us to stay in our own circle of competence. So get to know what you're good at; get to know what you're great at; what you're an expert at. But also be mindful of the things that you don't know, and approach them differently. Because if you act like an expert about everything, you will show yourself up, and you're going to negatively impede on your ability to be able to demonstrate confidence. So people will be less likely to see you as confident in anything because you've ruined it by generalizing your expertise. Whereas when you stay in the field that you do know, it means that whenever you speak on that topic, people are more likely to listen, and people are more likely to believe you as a result.
The next one is the law of diminishing returns, and this is a really cool one. And this is the notion that the more you invest, the less gain that you'll get in a certain environment. So, for example, if you walk past… let's, let's bring back BFI; I love BFI. Let's bring back BFI, by the way. Anyone who doesn't know what BFI is, is it's like toffee… no, maybe it's not toffee; it's caramel with like a biscuit with, sort of like… it's kind of like tastes like a cheesecake, but it's even nicer. There's one that I get in in Greece which is like a, a layer of like peanuts at the top of it, and it's just so delicious; it's, it's just insane. Anyway, BFI. If we take, for example, a lot of diminishing returns, every time I go to, when I go to Greece, I have one of my BFIs in this one cafe that makes it. And the first BFI is unbelievable; like, it is just heaven. I just, like, everyone else disappears; it's just me and the BFI, and I'm just like eating it. I usually eat it quite quickly, which is unfortunate, but I'm like, just, I'm just totally immersed in the BFI, and I'm having a BFI experience; it's just amazing. The second day I go there, I have a BFI; it's, it's amazing, don't get me wrong; it's amazing, but it's not as amazing as the first day. The third BFI I have, 'cause I have them every day when I'm there, like whenever I can, um, the third BFI is really, really, really good, but it's not amazing, and it's definitely not like… And so what happens is, is the more that you have something, the more you get diminishing returns from it; you don't get as much from it the third time as you do the first time. And this is really a trick to the dopaminergic system in the brain, right? Dopamine tends to be released when you anticipate reward, but when you've already been exposed to the reward, for example, the next time you have it, there's not as much of a gap between where you are and how good the reward feels. And so it's something that allows us to constantly grow and constantly push ourselves. And really what, what happens is, is that because it drives us to be motivated, it drives us to want more and drives us to do more as a result of it. But what's important to recognize is that you can get to a certain point, and when you get to that point, just because you put a lot more effort in—obviously all my effort was just me looking forward to the BFI—but if you take, for example, all the effort that you put in to learn a musical instrument, you get to a certain stage, and you work all the time so you can play the guitar and a certain song. Once you get to that point, you get an amazing reward. Then you could put in the same amount of time, and you don't get the same reward, 'cause the feeling of pleasure you get from the very first time you do a song is more pleasure than you get when you do your second song, even if you put the same amount of time into it. So in other words, we have these diminishing returns on the investments we make. So you put the same amount of energy in, it doesn't give you as much for the second thing, the third thing, the fourth thing. Now I'll contrast that with another idea or concept, and that is this notion of, uh, tipping points, as popularized by Malcolm Gladwell. And that is, you put a lot of effort in, and you might not be getting as many of the rewards as you want, so you try to lose weight; you're not losing much, and then you reach a tipping point where all of a sudden the weight starts to come off; you, so almostly you do it for a certain amount of time, and then something flips or switches. So that obviously sometimes can happen, but what's important to know or to use about diminishing returns is to recognize that when you're trying to accomplish something, when you're trying to take action, when you're trying to learn something, recognizing the diminishing returns means that when you do not feel just as excited, you understand neurologically what's going on, and as a result of that you can compensate for it. So it means that you can keep pushing yourself to deeply learn whatever you need to, much, much better, which is really, really cool.
The next is the law of subtraction. Sometimes subtracting something from your life is actually a lot better than adding. We live in a world of like, more, more, more, more, more; give me more of this; give me more of that. We're constantly exposed to ads that are trying to get us to part with our hard-earned cash in order to get more things: more books, more cars, more computers, more this, more that, more clothes. We're always looking for more and more and more. In Sweden, they have this saying called "Lagom," which I really like; I probably mispronounced the name. But the notion of "Lagom" is just enough, not too much. And this is something culturally in Sweden they get, but I think especially in the Western world and countries like America, for instance, there is this culture of more, more, more. And I think it's really important, the notion of these movements like minimalism, which is this idea of, uh, leading a very decluttered life, right? Marie Kondo-esque, right? When you have like, "spark joy" with regards to taking away all of the clutter in your life and trying to strip it down to the bare essentials that you need. There's something freeing about that. But even if you're not going for a minimalistic life, it's still a great understanding to know that sometimes some of the greatest pleasures we get is from subtracting things from our lives. So it's okay to let go of certain things; it's okay to say no to certain things; it's okay to stop doing certain things. If something is not giving you what it is that you need from it, it's okay to say no and to decide not to engage in anymore. So the practical question here to ask is, "What could you subtract from your life? What could you stop doing? What could you take away that would actually add to your happiness?" And when you can get into the habit of subtracting, which in turn adds to your happiness and adds to your feeling of contentment, now you're on to a winner.
The next law is a really cool one; it's what I call the Paradox of Certainty. And this is really about this notion that I've seen in the modern world where the problem is, is that the people that are most likely to be convincing or persuasive tend to be the ones that are most certain. If you take a look at psychopaths, like the nut job, an evil piece of crap, Hitler, or you take Stalin, or these people that were so certain, like, "This is the way…" Have you ever seen it? Was like a spit flying off the mountain. If you ever look at any of that, they're so certain with their perspective. And if you look at even politicians today and certain leaders today, they have a sense of absolute conviction and certainty. And the, the problem is, is that that certainty tends to be contagious; there's emotional contagion, which means that we're more likely to contract emotions from other people, including certainty and confidence. So when someone demonstrates absolute certainty, we're more likely to believe them. But the Paradox of Certainty is that the more certain you are about something, more than likely the less accurate you are. If you look at real experts, real scientists, most of the time when they're asked a lot of questions, their response is, "It depends." And the reason it's "it depends" is because when you actually look into the nuances, context plays a part; there's a lot of factors you have to consider; there's not that many simple answers to a lot of the questions that are asked or posed in science. Why that matters is, you know, someone is more well-read or well-experienced or more accurate, the more that they're demonstrating subtlety and demonstrating, sort of, "Well, it's kind of this, but it's also kind of that; well, the figures are not fully clear." The more they give you those kind of conditional answers, the more likely they are to actually be giving you accurate information. And the reason we know that is because instead of jumping down, "This is definitely the case," they're looking at all the data; they're looking at the pros and cons; they're looking at the for and against, and they're giving you a more scientific answer. The people that go down the roof going, "This is definitely the way it is," and 100% certainty, they're the ones that are most persuasive, and yet they're also probably the most inaccurate. And so that's the interesting thing; that's the paradox is that just because someone's certain doesn't make them right, and just because someone's not too certain doesn't make them wrong. And remembering that whenever you're taking on information from people, it's, it's a potential life-changer. I know it's certainly something that I remind myself of whenever someone gives vibes that they're like absolutely convinced of a certain route; I'm like, "Interesting."
The next is the law of learned experience. Now this is an important one because I think a lot of times people go, "Well, it's not your expertise just that matters; it's your experience." But it's not any type of experience. I can't remember who it was that said it to me, but, uh, someone mentioned before that there's a difference between living the same year every single year for 30 years versus living 30 different years. And I think that's one of the things that Dr. Richard Bandler shared with me as a mentor many, many years ago: do as many different things in as many different places with as many different people as you can. So I traveled the world; I traveled to more than 100 countries; I delivered talks and keynotes and trainings and speeches in just over 31 countries to date. I always challenged myself; I did things that were extremely difficult. My TEDx talk, which has been seen by 1.4 million people and counting, was one of the hardest things I ever did, and it was all in rhyme, and it was a big challenge for me. These are the kinds of things I did to test myself, to push myself, to challenge myself. And the reason I did that is I wanted to expose myself to as much uncertainty, as much chaos, uh, as much change as possible. Because the more we experience this, the more, more learnings and lessons we get. You don't get a lesson from doing the same thing in the same way all the time. You learn and you get lessons the more you expose yourself to the chaotic nature of life; you allow yourself to challenge yourself by new experiences; the more we allow our lives to be impacted by a lot of change, the more likely we are to grow and become stronger and become better as a result. So the law of learned experience is that it's experience that teaches you, and it's not so much the amount of time, but it's experience that allows you to learn lessons, and it's not just logical lessons; it's also emotional lessons. Because experience, whenever you expose yourself to challenges and adversity, experience gives you the opportunity to be able to feel okay when you're experiencing adversity in the future. So you're more composed because you've been through hell and back before, and that's a really, really important idea or lesson that we need to pay attention to.
The next mental model is something that I've been familiar with and studying for more than half of my life. This is something that I learned through the field of NLP, and it's something that Shane Parrish in his book, *Mental Models*, mentioned as well: "The map is not the territory." And actually, it doesn't come from Parrish; it doesn't come from NLP; it comes from Alfred Korzybski in his book, *Science and Sanity*, written in the 1930s. He's the creator of a field of study called General Semantics. And the notion of "the map is not the territory," something that he coined, became popular in NLP because, in a nutshell, it says that we have whatever our experience is in the world, right? That's the territory of the world. And then we've got the map of the world; these are the models of the world that we have, like these mental models, ways of thinking about the world. And the map of our experience is not the same as our experience; the map is not the territory. This is so important because two people can experience the exact same territory and have two totally different maps, and one of those maps can be empowering, the other map not so much. Two people can have the exact same childhood; one person allows it to make them stronger and better; the other person allows it to become the very reason that they don't succeed. We have a map of the world, and that map is rich, or it's impoverished. It's impoverished if, as it limits our choices; if it prevents us from succeeding. And it's rich if it allows us to be able to learn and grow and develop and improve. So the beliefs that you have and the map that you build for yourself about the adversity and changes and challenges that you face in life will play a large part in dictating how you're going to be able to deal with it; how you're going to be able to tackle it. And so this notion of "the map is not the territory" is one of the most powerful of all the mental models; it transformed my life because it gave me the understanding that just because I feel this is true, just because I think this is true, doesn't make it true; it's just what I'm thinking and feeling. Just because I believe it doesn't make it so. And when you recognize that, you realize, "Well, if it doesn't make it so, then maybe I need to change the belief." And if you transform your belief, that can transform your experience of reality. So by changing the map, you can transform the way you engage with the territory. And this is one of the most useful lessons I've ever learned; it's also one of the core ideas behind the notion of belief leadership, which is the field that I've been building, which is really dedicated towards helping people to cultivate empowering beliefs that allow them to overcome the challenges and start to believe in things we're believing in, so that they can ensure that they're able to accomplish what they're looking to accomplish in business and in life. And so "the map is not the territory" is great. You're asking yourself the question, whenever you're facing a challenge, "What's the story? What is the belief for the story I'm telling myself? What is the map I'm creating?" And knowing that that's different from the territory means you just need a different map. And in fact, that's what coaching or therapy is all about: helping you to change the map you have so you can build a new map which is better for you. And that's how it works.
Number 45, we've only a few to go, is the law of contextual dependence. Now this is also what I call the law of "it depends." In a nutshell, what I'm saying here is, in a lot of different situations, the answer to most questions is "it depends." In social psychology, if there's one lesson we've learned is that you can't really assume this is always going to happen in this way. For a lot of experiments, it really does depend; it depends on the context; it depends on the various different environmental variables; it depends on the people; there's all of these contextual variables that influence and impact what goes on. So how this helps is that when, whenever you're looking at a situation and you're trying to make predictions, always realize that there are a number of factors contextually that will influence whatever is going to happen. So to avoid making assumptions that this will happen because this person always acts this way in this situation, in reality, a lot of times the context is what informs how a person's going to act; the context of a situation will often dictate what a person is going to do. So we always need to be thinking of the context in order for us to make better predictions as to what's likely to happen.
Number 46 is another one of my favorites; this is what I call the ideological blind spot. And this is the notion that a lot of people that believe that they are very much clear-minded—these are people that believe that they aren't really ideological; that they have a very sort of accurate understanding of the world—these people tend to fall into the trap of actually often being very ideological. So in other words, the same people that talk about ideology is bad, the same people that say, "Oh my goodness, people are so extreme, and we're polarized," and the same people that repeat the same kind of ideas, such as a lot that I do, tend to also often miss where they're ideological. So, for instance, they might be very rational and go, "Look, the Democrats see this; the Republicans see that; and this is why they're different; this is what's going on." And almost the subtext is, "Look at how smart I am because I'm seeing both sides and I'm able to understand where, where their mistake of reality is." Those same people, often times, will be fine with certain things, but as soon as it becomes something important to them, they become affected by what we talked about before, I think in the past episode, which is when the emotions create this blind spot for us. But as a result of that, it's not so…
Much of the problem is that emotions dictate how we filter how we experience a certain reality. It's also that we, in our mind, think to ourselves that we're not ideological, so we don't think that we're wrong. We think, "Well, we're just being honest." We think it's honesty, but it's really because we have this point of view, and we're confirmation bias-looking for evidence to prove it's true. Therefore, we feel it's true; therefore, we hide behind this notion that we're just being truthful or honest. We're just saying what's true, even though we are being ideological in this. That's the blind spot, and the problem with it is that, because it's a blind spot, most people that have it don't know that they have it. In fact, that's the whole point of it. And to me, that's one of the things I see. And again, how is this useful?
It's useful because whenever you come across someone that is a thought leader, that has lots of rational opinions, that is very much in the middle, that's always able to see both sides, and they're really, really great—just because they're able to do it in a number of incidences doesn't mean they're able to do it in all areas. There may be situations or occurrences which trigger them emotionally, which make them a lot more irrational. But recognize that they might think that they're being rational even when they're not. And the more we can notice blind spots like that in ourselves as well as others, the more that can help us to become more critical thinkers and therefore make better decisions as a result.
Number 47 is real versus imaginary problems, and this, of course, comes from the wonderful legend himself, Dr. Richard Bandler. Dr. Bandler says, in a nutshell, that people have either real problems—which is something you can do something about, right, with your actions—or imaginary problems. And he says imaginary problems are whenever you create worst-case scenarios for yourself, or you create complications, and you almost build them into a problem in your own mind. And he says the real problems require real solutions, but imaginary problems require imaginary solutions. So, in other words, if you think to yourself—and I've given this example before, so forgive me—but if you think to yourself, "Oh, I'm not earning enough money; I'm not valued enough," and then you—that's an imaginary problem, let's say—and then you solve that problem with a real solution, which is you earn more money, you could still find yourself thinking, "I'm not good enough; I'm not making enough money," and this can continuously happen for you. So you need to recognize that the imaginary problem doesn't mean you're making it up in the sense of it's not true; it means that you're making it up in the sense of you're making it true. And so, by working on the way you think and changing the way you're thinking about it, that is actually the route toward success as opposed to trying to actually take behaviors in the real world and trying to fix it. If you feel ugly, all the plastic surgery in the world will probably not make enough of a difference, but changing the way you think about yourself will. And actually, psycho-cybernetics, which was a field developed by Maxwell Maltz—that's really what got him into it; he was a plastic surgeon, I think—that was helping people to change the way they looked and noticed that it—it really was something that needed to happen from within; it's the self-esteem was the issue. So we need to work on how we feel about ourselves. So pretty cool mental model there, real versus imaginary problems.
48 comes back to the work of Annie Duke. This is what is known as decision hygiene and resulting. Decision hygiene is pretty much making sure that when you're making decisions, you're very clear of the process. A lot of people fall into the trap of what we call resulting. So, a good example that I think Annie gives in her book is: let's imagine you are—you've had a few drinks and you decide to drive home. Right? Is that a good decision? Well, 99.99999% of us would say no, it's not a good decision. But often times, let's say you get home—even if you get home successfully—we'll still say that's not a good decision. But most decisions that we make—if I ask you what's a good decision you made—most of the decisions that you'll tell me are always the ones that had good results. In other words, sometimes we judge decisions based upon the results we get, not based upon the process we used in making the decision. And because luck can factor into it—bad luck, good luck—we tend to overvalue the results of a decision in evaluating how useful that decision was. That's the—known as resulting. We overvalue results as opposed to the process. And decision hygiene is really about getting back to the process; so making sure we're challenging our assumptions, challenging our biases, weighing up the pros and cons, looking at the long-term, short-term, really thinking through the evidence. The more effective we are at making sure that we're following a very sort of solid formula for making good decisions, the more likely we are to win. And again, that's an obvious practical application.
Number 49 is what is known as Hanlon's Razor, and this is often attributed to Robert J. Hanlon from Scranton, Pennsylvania. He's credited in formulating this; I think it was part of a—a submission to a joke book or whatnot back in the day. But the concept pretty much lasts like this: Hanlon's Razor is: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. A lot of times we turn around and we go, "Oh my goodness, politicians, they're evil, right? The Deep State, they're lurking, this and that and the other." The truth of the matter is—is that I don't know if you've been online in the last 10, 15, 20 years—people are so much dumber than you would have thought. I mean, I'm not saying that I'm smart, but of the things that social media teaches you, and the online world we live in, is there's so much stupidity in the world. When you look at politicians again, the more we get to see them, what they really think, the way in which they articulate themselves—I used to have this idea that politicians must know a lot, 'cause they run the world—and all of those illusions have been removed from me. Like, there's a lot more stupidity. And if you turn around to me and say, "Why did people make this decision? Are they evil? Do they come from a bad place?" No doubt some people are selfish, and so people have malevolent intentions, but overall, a lot of times people make dumb decisions because they're just dumb. And I don't mean dumb as in like fixed-mindset dumb, although sometimes I mean dumb as in they're just—they—they just don't—they're not putting in the effort to actually use their brain. So I think that—I love this particular razor, 'cause whenever you're immediately jumping to the conclusions, going, "This person's evil; this person's bad," maybe they're just an idiot. And so, having that mantra—and this is something that helps me to stay sane, 'cause otherwise I'd be living in a world where I think everyone is out to get me and hates me—just maybe they're just stupid. That maybe they're just stupid. Just those few words really helps you calm down; at least it certainly helps me. Maybe they're just stupid. Try it. Try it. Think about someone who pisses you off in some way or says something that you immediately hold yourself against; you're like, "I can't believe they said—" Maybe they're just stupid. Maybe they're just—doesn't it relax you a bit? Certainly does to me, anyway. Hope you found Hanlon's Razor useful.
Finally, number 50, what I call life as an attention war. So what do I mean by life as an attention war? Life as an attention war is simply the notion that as we grow through the world, what we're faced with is we have our mobile phones that are constantly vying for attention. We're constantly looking for all of the information out there. We look at, for instance, what comes in through our laptops, what comes in through our tablets, we're listening to the radio, we're watching the TV; we're inputting, inputting, inputting. And everyone's job is to try to get your attention. If you're on my radio show, I want you to keep attention long enough because we've got ads coming. Even if you're on Netflix, I want to keep the amount of time that you spend on it; I want to keep you watching. You don't even have to press the button. You ever noticed that you're watching a show on Netflix and you finish an episode and you go, "I wonder should I—" By the time you've decided whether or not you're going to watch another episode, it auto-plays for you. It's one of the most insidious little tricks that they play, 'cause their job is to keep your attention. And our attention is constantly being hijacked and taken and stolen. Life is an attention war, and recognizing it as a war means you got to fight. You got to fight for your right—to do you. Remember that song? You got to fight, boom boom. I don't know who it is by, but it's a cool song. Tell me you remember it. Oh, I don't know why I'm asking you; you can't respond. But in the chat, let me know if you know that—if you've gotten this far, you're probably like, "May I tune out ages ago?" But if you're saying that you're still tuned in, see how that works. Anyway, getting back to it, life is an attention war, and so you got to fight for your right to pay attention to what matters. So where is your attention going? And I say it's a war because I believe we need to get ourselves up for it. We need to decide, "I need to focus my attention on what will benefit me and what will enhance me, on what will help me to grow and improve it better, on what is—is good for me, good for my mood, good for the way in which I feel about myself." I need to start to expose myself to information or entertainment that makes me think and feel the way I want to, more of the time. So it's a war that we need to fight, and that means recognizing: where's your attention going today, and how can you start to fight back so that you can use it? Because remember, you're not just fighting against people that are vying for your attention; you're fighting against very sophisticated psychological strategies designed to try to get you to stay hooked to whatever it is that they're focusing on. What you need to do is recognize that and fight the battle using the kind of skills that we teach here and changing minds. Also, by the way, we also have a newsletter called Inner Propaganda, which is a really cool newsletter. Every single Tuesday we release it, and it is—I don't want to say it—but it's probably one of the most useful emails you will get in your inbox every week. You can sign up for it at ownpatrick.com/newsletter. And if you are listening to this, please do let people know; share it. I'm hoping you got a lot of value. Let me know in the comments if you can—if you're tuning into this on YouTube—what were your favorite mental models? What are the ones that you really loved? What are the ones that you find very, very cool? I would love to hear about them as well. And if you are listening for more information on mental models, I mentioned a couple at the outset, certainly of the first episode on mental models, there's a—Modern Wisdom is a great old podcast. Shane Parrish has written a number of great books on the areas of it, and Naval Ravikant, the Almanac of Naval Ravikant, Alex Harosi, George Mack, Annie Duke, Nim, Nicholas Taleb, Richard Bandler—the legend himself—Charlie Munger, I think he wrote Poor Charlie's Almanac, Warren Buffett, and uh, Rob Henderson. And you know, there's lots of others as well, but check them all out. But I hope that you found this useful. I hope you're taking away a number of approaches or ideas that will help you to transform the quality of your life. For now, take care, be well, may the force be with you, and looking forward to hearing your favorite mental models below. Oh, and check out the next video; it's epic.