113: The Great Mental Models Volume 1 by Rhiannon Beaubien and Shane Parrish

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1. 00:00:00 So it turns out Joe Buellig that obsidian is actually pretty cool. Who knew?
2. 00:00:04 How did I know that this was potentially gonna be a thing that came up today?
3. 00:00:14 Now I should I should say well by the time this goes live I probably will be completely switched over as of this moment
4. 00:00:23 I am not a hundred percent
5. 00:00:25 Positive that obsidian is gonna do everything that I need it to do. I am 99.5% positive
6. 00:00:31 It will and you helped me overcome two big obstacles in the last week
7. 00:00:36 One of them was figuring out how to recreate my cross-reference library
8. 00:00:41 Which is not the same way because obsidian does not have block references
9. 00:00:46 They have block embeds which means that you cannot go to a block and see everything that's connected to it
10. 00:00:52 You cannot reference the other pages from said block
11. 00:00:55 But you can if you know someone like Joe who has scripting experience break apart all of the Bible verses by
12. 00:01:03 Individual verse and end up with 30,000 text files that will accomplish roughly the same thing
13. 00:01:11 So 31,000 and 90 to be exact
14. 00:01:15 Yes, so thank you very much for your assistance with that now
15. 00:01:20 I have to drop everything in I've done a couple months worth of sermon notes and it seems to be working
16. 00:01:25 I think this is gonna be what I wanted in the first place and then the other thing which you helped me with I
17. 00:01:31 I'm sorry
18. 00:01:32 It took so long but I was trying to figure out a way to back stuff up and I found this obsidian plugin for backing up to GitHub
19. 00:01:39 I know nothing about GitHub. I know nothing about command line terminal
20. 00:01:45 etc, so I naively messaged Joe and said hey do you have a few minutes to help me set this up and
21. 00:01:51 Then we ran into problem after problem after problem and two hours later you had helped me
22. 00:01:57 connect obsidian to a GitHub repo and now obsidian is backing up
23. 00:02:01 automatically and beautifully so I
24. 00:02:05 owe you
25. 00:02:06 lunch coffee
26. 00:02:08 many other things I
27. 00:02:11 Will say whatever you messaged me about the the git thing in
28. 00:02:15 My head I was like okay
29. 00:02:18 There's a couple things. I know he's gonna want he's gonna want it to be in a private repo and I'm
30. 00:02:24 Guaranteeing he doesn't have SSH keys set up. So we're gonna have to go through that process
31. 00:02:28 I know he's got a brand new computer. There's probably gonna be issues with that
32. 00:02:32 There's probably like I knew a lot of this was gonna happen before I ever said yes, so I
33. 00:02:39 Was aware and anytime you're installing something brand new
34. 00:02:43 Via command line you're always opening up the door for
35. 00:02:48 Potential issues and I will stay but I did run this in its entirety on my machine before I ever said yes to you
36. 00:02:57 That's the part that's hilarious to me is that I set it up on my computer and
37. 00:03:02 in my systems
38. 00:03:05 Three minutes I think is what I set it up in and then it took two hours on your computer just because all the stuff wasn't set up on it
39. 00:03:12 but I
40. 00:03:14 Knew that so I'm glad it works. I'm glad you are down the path of heading into
41. 00:03:19 Obsidian I will have to figure out what to do with my bell now
42. 00:03:23 Do I need to get it out just in case maybe we should make up the obsidian Bell now?
43. 00:03:32 Great fun. Well, I'm glad you've made that decision. I'm glad obsidian is
44. 00:03:38 Potentially what you need and I'm glad that we were able to get 31,000 text files made
45. 00:03:44 Yes, yeah, and there's a great there's a bunch more
46. 00:03:48 I mean, that's just just the Bible verses and then I've got three years worth of
47. 00:03:52 Notes that I've got to connect and all of the files that are associated with that
48. 00:03:58 I mean, I'm I'm learning more about how obsidian works and I'm kind of concerned that I'm going to break it
49. 00:04:05 but
50. 00:04:07 so far have not we temporarily broke it when you were sending me the did good finished
51. 00:04:13 Zip files with all the individual text files and throw it at obsidian and then it's loading the cache for two hours
52. 00:04:19 You know, but eventually it caught up. I
53. 00:04:22 did run across a
54. 00:04:26 thread on their forums that
55. 00:04:28 Someone was asking us like what is the max number of notes that it can handle and somebody was talking about throwing a million
56. 00:04:35 Text files at it to see what it would do and it seemed like a define. Well, maybe I'm good
57. 00:04:40 I don't know. I don't know that's that seemed like it was a lot now
58. 00:04:44 They had a use case where they had like some programmatic generation of text files that was gonna happen
59. 00:04:49 So they were generating a thousand plus a day in some form
60. 00:04:53 I don't know what that was but
61. 00:04:55 Mosquito has a good question though. You could make separate vaults. You could but then you can't connect things
62. 00:05:00 So I don't want separate vaults. I've never understood
63. 00:05:05 Why like in Rome you can have separate graphs and I'm like, but these are all my ideas
64. 00:05:11 Why would I want to separate them other than when I was trying to do the bookworm stuff?
65. 00:05:16 And create a separate graph for that you only have the option to share an individual page or share the entire vault
66. 00:05:23 So I'd set up the set the second one and just share the entire vault although
67. 00:05:27 Obsidian publish is very nice. That's gonna be way better
68. 00:05:32 Once I get your setup just give me some time folks to
69. 00:05:37 To get it all over there. I actually am paying for publish already
70. 00:05:41 So we'll have to figure out. I know you can do like custom URL stuff
71. 00:05:45 So we can actually just like tack it on to the bookworm.fm
72. 00:05:49 URL if you wanted to but that's something
73. 00:05:53 That's interesting. That's a discussion for another time
74. 00:05:55 It's true. It's true, but
75. 00:05:59 In the midst of all this I'm grateful you've started the transition to raw files
76. 00:06:05 But that's that's my real
77. 00:06:08 Excitement for you. Yeah, it's like in my case. I had a whole bunch of notes that I was using with Envy Ultra
78. 00:06:13 I'm kind of playing around with making a switch over to obsidian just because Envy Ultra is taking so darn long to
79. 00:06:19 Release and I'm getting tired of
80. 00:06:21 Waiting so I've been trying to find a tool that
81. 00:06:23 Does a lot of what I want it to do and uses a lot of the same hotkeys and stuff and obsidian lets me hack a lot of that stuff
82. 00:06:30 So I've rewritten
83. 00:06:33 The vast majority of the hotkeys that are in it already
84. 00:06:36 So we'll see we'll see what comes of that if I stick with it or not. Who knows?
85. 00:06:40 I dabble with a bunch of stuff. So I've got mine in sublime text Envy alt Envy Ultra
86. 00:06:45 Vim
87. 00:06:47 And obsidian right now. I'm a mess plain text files though. So you can do that
88. 00:06:52 It's true and I can have them all open at the same time
89. 00:06:54 All right enough about obsidian and fancy apps
90. 00:07:00 Oh, actually one more thing I should mention to you because you'll find it humorous
91. 00:07:04 You were helping me with this stuff and I was
92. 00:07:06 Rachel was popping in and out and I was explaining what you were helping me do
93. 00:07:10 and
94. 00:07:12 In the evening, she's like so let me see what this looks like and I showed her like what I could do with connecting the verses using the
95. 00:07:20 the references and the graph view and all that kind of stuff and she's like
96. 00:07:23 blah blah blah nerds
97. 00:07:26 100% yes exactly that is exactly the right response to that
98. 00:07:35 Yeah
99. 00:07:37 That's hilarious
100. 00:07:38 All right, so we got a couple of action items here. I put this one in
101. 00:07:42 I'm not sure if you actually published this or not
102. 00:07:45 I'm not sure if you forgot about this because you actually have completed it already
103. 00:07:50 For yourself, but how is your
104. 00:07:52 Kanban board coming? Yeah, it works well
105. 00:07:56 Uh, this is an omni focus. I've been using it pretty regularly
106. 00:08:00 I publish it on github. I haven't done a write-up on my blog about it and I'm not sure I'm going to
107. 00:08:07 Because I'm not sure that it's a good fit in this case because I've got a lot of omni focused stuff on there
108. 00:08:13 Lately and I'm trying to break that up slightly. So it's on github
109. 00:08:17 I can get you the link to that one specific or you might already have it mic, but
110. 00:08:21 it's pretty straightforward. It takes all of the
111. 00:08:24 scripts that are on the omni focus
112. 00:08:27 plug-in
113. 00:08:30 directory of sorts on the omni automation site and then I just tweaked it to run on projects instead of tasks
114. 00:08:36 Made a custom perspective boom done. That's the way it works. So yeah, it's done. I've been using it pretty regularly
115. 00:08:43 I like it. I'm a fan cool
116. 00:08:45 Well, we can link to that because we got some nerds who listened to bookworm 2 who might be interested in that sort of thing
117. 00:08:50 Um, I do not have access to that yet, but I'll dig it up for the show notes
118. 00:08:55 Oh real quick one more thing on that. Uh, I did a guest episode on the automators
119. 00:09:00 Podcast where we were talking about omni focus automation
120. 00:09:04 And that particular plug-in and such that I had done came up a lot along with a whole bunch of other stuff that I've done
121. 00:09:12 Uh with omni focus. So if you're interested in that and you're listening right now, go check out the automators podcast
122. 00:09:17 Very cool
123. 00:09:19 All right. So my action item was to make morning time my writing time. I have basically been successful in this
124. 00:09:27 uh
125. 00:09:29 been
126. 00:09:31 Intentionally procrastinating for lack of a better term on anything not writing
127. 00:09:35 related
128. 00:09:37 And this is going pretty well part of this is the new and shiny of checking out obsidian
129. 00:09:43 Which actually I really like as a writing tool
130. 00:09:47 I think maybe all my writing will happen here instead of Ulysses
131. 00:09:52 But i'm not 100 percent
132. 00:09:55 Sold on it yet. I do like the fact that basically it's always auto saving now
133. 00:09:59 it's automatically uploading everything to github every five minutes
134. 00:10:03 and it's got like the character and the word count which is
135. 00:10:07 really the only sort of statistics that I was after anyways
136. 00:10:11 And it's all playing
137. 00:10:14 Markdown. So when i'm done, I can just copy paste into WordPress without
138. 00:10:18 Any of the crazy stuff that Ulysses does to like images and footnotes and all the other stuff
139. 00:10:25 Yeah, I I don't know that I
140. 00:10:28 I again, I haven't committed to it, but the fact that I can just tick up
141. 00:10:34 An icon and it goes from edit mode to preview mode
142. 00:10:37 Makes me like I ran my stream on this past Monday
143. 00:10:42 I normally have an outline with notes and stuff for it that I write in markdown and then I usually pull it up and marked
144. 00:10:49 And I would normally write it in multi markdown composer
145. 00:10:53 Well, this time just to find out I wrote it all in obsidian and then I just tick the box change the view a little bit to hide
146. 00:11:00 all the side bars and stuff and
147. 00:11:03 It seemed to work just fine for me. So
148. 00:11:06 Maybe i'm consolidating three tools into one. I don't know that I like that
149. 00:11:11 Sure, we'll see. Yeah, the preview is pretty nice
150. 00:11:14 And actually if you hold on the command key and you click on the preview you open it in a second pane and then they're linked
151. 00:11:21 So as you're editing in real time
152. 00:11:24 It's making the updates in the preview, which I know marked as something similar, but I believe it's got to be saved
153. 00:11:32 Sure, and I like not having to hit command s in fact
154. 00:11:35 I tried bb edit for a little while forgot to hit command s and lost a whole bunch of writing
155. 00:11:40 Not good because for a while I was just dumping the notes inside of obsidian then you can open in the default app
156. 00:11:47 So bb edit was my default app and I really do like bb edit
157. 00:11:50 Maybe there's a setting in there where it autosaves. I'm not I'm not sure
158. 00:11:54 I don't know. I'm still figuring out what the specifics of this workflow look like but
159. 00:11:59 Obsidian is great for writing and I realized that a lot of my ideas end up being turned into some
160. 00:12:03 Sort of writing anyways, so I like being able to have all that stuff in
161. 00:12:07 Inside of one application makes the workflow a little bit more seamless
162. 00:12:11 Sure, and hook is awesome and integrates with obsidian and I am just scratching the surface with what you can do with that stuff
163. 00:12:18 So yeah, thanks for freeing to hook productivity. Yes, that that's a really cool tool that lets you hook
164. 00:12:26 In spec like get urls and such to link
165. 00:12:29 Documents pictures text files to websites and other like it's it's kind of nuts
166. 00:12:35 Just hit a keyboard shortcut and you can see all the links you've got for whatever it is you're looking at. Yeah, it's it's bonkers
167. 00:12:42 It's an impressive app
168. 00:12:45 But enough about impressive apps. Let's talk about mental models. Shall we?
169. 00:12:51 Sure. All right, so today's book great segue. Well done
170. 00:12:56 Today's book is the great mental models volume one by shane perish and ryanin bowbin
171. 00:13:03 And this is a book that is published in conjunction with the company automatic the people behind wordpress
172. 00:13:10 the basic idea behind this book and the others in the series is that
173. 00:13:15 You have these models that you base your thinking and decision making on and if you understand the models
174. 00:13:22 Maybe you can make better decisions. That's kind of the whole point of this
175. 00:13:26 first section here on acquiring wisdom
176. 00:13:30 And then there are nine different mental models that they get into there are three supporting ideas
177. 00:13:36 which basically happen after each
178. 00:13:39 three chapters or something like that
179. 00:13:42 and I love this approach I
180. 00:13:45 Bought this one and the second one
181. 00:13:49 When I saw them available in hardcover on amazon i've been keeping my eye on this ever since it was recommended
182. 00:13:54 in the bookworm club
183. 00:13:56 Probably two years ago at this point
184. 00:13:59 And the hardcover you could not find you could get the ebook version. I didn't want the ebook version
185. 00:14:04 And so the hardcover I checked a couple months ago. It was available on ebay for like 150 dollars for a acceptable condition
186. 00:14:13 Book and i'm like no way and then out of the blue
187. 00:14:17 They became available again. So I bought them mine is printed right side up. I'm like our buddy josh's
188. 00:14:22 Sorry josh
189. 00:14:24 Just just to point that out josh our friend of the show josh rinj sent us both
190. 00:14:29 This video of him flipping through this book and it was printed upside down and backwards
191. 00:14:35 Okay, well, I guess that's small printing it happens. So I know that he got it swapped out
192. 00:14:43 So it's it's all been fine. That's good. Yeah, that was that's bizarre never
193. 00:14:47 Yeah, I don't know how something like that happens. I know right but that aside
194. 00:14:53 I think this is a really cool concept and this first volume is kind of like the general
195. 00:14:59 Principles and then the second volume gets into like science and math things that i'm not really that interested in
196. 00:15:05 I will tell you though after reading this one and seeing kind of the purpose behind the models that they're presenting
197. 00:15:11 I totally want to read all the other ones
198. 00:15:13 I don't know if we'll cover the second one for bookworm
199. 00:15:17 It's quite a bit longer than this one is but I am definitely going to read it. I love this approach
200. 00:15:22 It's basically condensing stuff that we would probably read whole books about in fact in some of these
201. 00:15:29 We have read a whole books about them and they condense it down. It's very visual. They tell cool stories
202. 00:15:36 I mean
203. 00:15:38 This is my jam right here
204. 00:15:41 Did you just give away your rating maybe?
205. 00:15:44 I think this is interesting
206. 00:15:48 especially this first section when
207. 00:15:51 Because he does a very good job of
208. 00:15:55 laying out the intense
209. 00:15:58 the background the why
210. 00:16:00 for
211. 00:16:02 This book and i'm grateful for that because it has a lot to do with
212. 00:16:07 What is it we're trying to accomplish here and that is ultimately how do I acquire wisdom?
213. 00:16:13 How do I get smarter as a human and how do I think about things?
214. 00:16:17 and
215. 00:16:20 Yes, we're going to go through each of these mental models. We'll see how many
216. 00:16:23 Or how long we spend on each hopefully it's not forever and always but
217. 00:16:28 I do think you know one thing that kind of stood out to me
218. 00:16:31 You know in in
219. 00:16:34 The religious world that you and I come from Mike a lot of times whenever we think of a mental model
220. 00:16:39 We don't call it that we call it a world view
221. 00:16:41 And that was something that struck me fairly early on. It's like i'm not sure there's a direct correlation
222. 00:16:46 Between those but from a
223. 00:16:49 Christian perspective that having a worldview is something that we've talked about pretty regularly
224. 00:16:55 it's a fairly common
225. 00:16:57 discussion point and
226. 00:16:59 I
227. 00:17:00 I approached this kind of with the mindset that these mental models
228. 00:17:05 Could be seen as a way to view the world. However, I don't think that holds up 100
229. 00:17:12 Because again, that was my expectation going into this once he started explaining what our mental models
230. 00:17:19 Especially once we got into the the first one here
231. 00:17:21 It it made me realize like well, no, it's kind of more a way of thinking about a specific
232. 00:17:29 Situation or different methods of thinking about situations or decisions that you're trying to make or understand as opposed to
233. 00:17:37 an all-encompassing set of glasses that you see things through
234. 00:17:41 So I don't think it's a true correlation. I just thought it was kind of an interesting connecting point
235. 00:17:47 And that's that's how I got started in the book is with that point. Yeah, I agree with that. It's not a
236. 00:17:52 worldview per se
237. 00:17:55 it's a
238. 00:17:57 set of
239. 00:17:58 tools that you can use to
240. 00:18:00 think about things in a specific way, but you don't always
241. 00:18:04 view things
242. 00:18:07 Through the lens of a specific model
243. 00:18:10 He let's just jump into this first chapter here on acquiring wisdom because this is where he starts to talk about what mental models really are
244. 00:18:17 So there are representation of how something works and it is a lens
245. 00:18:22 So I guess you could in some way say yeah, it's a it's a worldview
246. 00:18:28 but you collect these lenses
247. 00:18:30 And the more lenses you have the more reality you understand and the more you know
248. 00:18:36 What to do with it, but you can't you have to use the right lens on the right?
249. 00:18:40 situation
250. 00:18:43 and so
251. 00:18:44 What this book is trying to do is give you some tools in your mental toolbox
252. 00:18:49 And then it's up to you to figure out
253. 00:18:52 when to apply
254. 00:18:55 which one
255. 00:18:56 Is that fair you think?
256. 00:18:58 Yeah, I think so
257. 00:18:59 because it's ultimately when do you think about
258. 00:19:02 using one of these
259. 00:19:05 You know later on we're going to talk about Occam's razor
260. 00:19:07 Yep, so well, that's just a a tool that you can use to help make a decision as to which route to take
261. 00:19:14 or which is the most likely
262. 00:19:17 Reason for something that happened and
263. 00:19:21 I will say and i'm not going to spend
264. 00:19:26 much if any time on this we've had some very
265. 00:19:28 tragic recent events in my little town and
266. 00:19:32 it was kind of
267. 00:19:34 interesting to come at some of the conversations and relationships that I have
268. 00:19:38 with some of this in mind
269. 00:19:41 uh as a result of that
270. 00:19:43 um
271. 00:19:44 For those of you interested there was a shooting and bombing in my little town of buffalo. So
272. 00:19:49 That's kind of raw on my mind as we're going into this again. I'm not going to go into
273. 00:19:55 Details with that, but it is just a thing that made me stop and pause like
274. 00:19:59 my original assumptions
275. 00:20:02 Given these mental models were they true?
276. 00:20:04 You know my my initial thoughts with all of that was I correct or not probably not
277. 00:20:11 Here's why
278. 00:20:12 And now I have a kind of a way to define it in terms that I can use to explain it a little bit
279. 00:20:17 Yeah, that's that's kind of the point is that you have something that you can use to explain things and unpack things
280. 00:20:24 Um, it mentions at the end of this chapter
281. 00:20:26 By the way that the more you use these models the more you understand when to use them
282. 00:20:31 Which means there are times to use them and times not to use them
283. 00:20:35 You have to understand the models
284. 00:20:38 And you have to actually apply them in order to get the benefit from them
285. 00:20:41 And the other thing I think that's worth noting here in this first chapter
286. 00:20:45 Is that all of the models are flawed in some way
287. 00:20:49 So you have to use them in the situation
288. 00:20:53 In in order to mitigate the flaws. So if you use something in one situation that flaw doesn't really matter
289. 00:20:59 It's going to provide you the benefit, but if you use it in a different situation
290. 00:21:02 That flaw gets exposed and it's pretty easy to see
291. 00:21:05 Well, that's not helping me see things right in this
292. 00:21:08 Situation so that's the background of the entire book
293. 00:21:12 Let's get into the meat of this book, which is the great thinking concepts
294. 00:21:16 There are nine of these we're gonna go through these I think pretty quickly famous last words
295. 00:21:23 How many times have we said that?
296. 00:21:25 Yeah, we're gonna run through these quick the chapters themselves are pretty
297. 00:21:30 short
298. 00:21:32 And so
299. 00:21:33 There's not a whole lot
300. 00:21:35 in terms of the material in the book
301. 00:21:38 To spend a ton of time talking about but there are
302. 00:21:42 Concepts here that we've come across before that there have been entire books written about that are very lengthy
303. 00:21:48 So the first one is the map is not the territory
304. 00:21:52 basic idea here
305. 00:21:54 is that
306. 00:21:56 the map or the what we think of
307. 00:21:58 in terms of the landscape
308. 00:22:01 is very different than reality and that could be a
309. 00:22:06 Map in like google maps or apple maps and it doesn't have the street on there that you need to turn down
310. 00:22:12 But that's there are many other scenarios where this takes place one example of this
311. 00:22:19 They mentioned is stereotypes stereotypes are a form of a map
312. 00:22:22 and the danger
313. 00:22:25 Here and the reason for this mental model is that we forget that the territory is actually much more complex
314. 00:22:33 Than the map itself. Yeah, I think the the way to see that is that
315. 00:22:39 You have to consider that a map is a simplified version of reality
316. 00:22:45 And if you take the stereotype
317. 00:22:49 Piece that you brought up like yes, that is a map that people use
318. 00:22:54 Generally speaking that map is
319. 00:22:59 There for a reason it exists for a reason
320. 00:23:03 Stereotypes exist for a reason
321. 00:23:06 They're not a hundred percent. That's the point
322. 00:23:10 and
323. 00:23:13 Although if you have to make like if you're forced
324. 00:23:17 to make a snap decision
325. 00:23:19 that map may be
326. 00:23:21 helpful
327. 00:23:23 But if you're not forced to make that snap decision
328. 00:23:27 It's probably the wrong one to
329. 00:23:30 Adopt I guess so following that map isn't necessarily the right answer if you're able to
330. 00:23:37 Stop and see the whole
331. 00:23:40 Of what's actually going the reality side of it. I liked kind of the
332. 00:23:45 You know, he has a lot of quotes in this and there's a lot of those in this
333. 00:23:49 section about reality versus
334. 00:23:53 Expectations, I guess and I really appreciated that
335. 00:23:58 Because it's true like yes, you can use a map like
336. 00:24:01 driving
337. 00:24:04 terrain maps
338. 00:24:06 They're not a hundred percent if they were then you would be seeing the actual
339. 00:24:10 world
340. 00:24:12 at that time
341. 00:24:13 so it's nice that
342. 00:24:15 You can use these to help you navigate things
343. 00:24:18 But you also have to keep in mind like it's saying the map is not the territory. It's not the real
344. 00:24:24 Deal, it's just to help you guide through help guide you through that real
345. 00:24:29 Territory
346. 00:24:31 Yeah, and if you really want to break your brain
347. 00:24:33 He talks about how an ideal map would contain
348. 00:24:37 A map of the map the map of the map of the map, etc
349. 00:24:42 And it would never end it's kind of like turtles all the way down. Yeah, when you open up
350. 00:24:45 Screen sharing inside of an application and then all of a sudden doo doo doo doo doo
351. 00:24:49 You know, you see a million different inception in the matrix versions of your
352. 00:24:54 Yeah
353. 00:24:56 So maps cannot show everything
354. 00:24:59 and
355. 00:25:01 Because they can't show everything you have to take into consideration
356. 00:25:05 some things about the map the
357. 00:25:09 A couple that stood out to me. He mentions reality is the ultimate update
358. 00:25:12 So something may happen in the real world
359. 00:25:16 And obviously the moment that it does the map needs to be updated in order to be accurate
360. 00:25:20 The map may or may not have that thing on there
361. 00:25:23 And maybe because
362. 00:25:25 They have an updated it and maybe because they intentionally chose not to include that thing which is another important thing consider the cartographer
363. 00:25:32 I like that phrase. I never really thought of that before
364. 00:25:37 But it's true that the people who make the maps
365. 00:25:40 Do have an opinion and a bias that they apply to the right way to create that map
366. 00:25:49 Now for something like a traffic map
367. 00:25:51 We can all agree that those opinions and biases are fine. We want to know the roads. We don't care about
368. 00:25:58 all of the
369. 00:26:01 The colors of the houses that you're passing, you know, but
370. 00:26:05 There will be situations when if you were to make the map of the territory you would make it in a very different way
371. 00:26:11 and
372. 00:26:13 I never really questioned
373. 00:26:15 A lot of the maps
374. 00:26:18 In my life before but hearing that phrase
375. 00:26:20 I think i'm going to now and it's not that i'm not going to use them
376. 00:26:25 But I think this is the whole point of this book is this these mental models this
377. 00:26:29 Lattice work on which to hang your ideas
378. 00:26:33 You know when you're presented with a fact even in like a book that we read
379. 00:26:37 Recognize that they are the cartographer in that case and they're creating this knowledge map in a specific way that
380. 00:26:43 Benefits them it may not be exactly what you were
381. 00:26:47 looking for so
382. 00:26:50 Kind of take it with a grain of salt and air on the side of being skeptical. I guess
383. 00:26:55 Uh, or at least question it before just blindly accepting it that yeah, this is this is truth
384. 00:27:01 fucking mosquito has a good
385. 00:27:03 Comment here in the chat. It's like any personality test you ever take
386. 00:27:07 That gives you feedback on what you are like that would fit into like it's the creation of a map of you
387. 00:27:13 And when we were talking like map of a map of a map of a map
388. 00:27:18 The more personality tests you take the more maps you're giving yourself and the more potential views of yourself that you're
389. 00:27:28 Being offered I guess different ways of trying to understand what it is that's
390. 00:27:33 That's happening. So you get these personality tests
391. 00:27:36 And you're able to understand what it is that you are so
392. 00:27:42 again more and more maps mean
393. 00:27:44 More understanding, but keep in mind like you're saying
394. 00:27:48 What is the purpose of that map?
395. 00:27:51 Yep, if I draw a map with the intent of giving you driving directions
396. 00:27:56 That's gonna be very different than if I drew a map for you to give you walking directions
397. 00:28:01 Think of google maps like they have that tick off which mode of transportation are you using and it's going to change which
398. 00:28:08 Method or what type of map it's displaying. It's gonna tweak it so that it's more appropriate for your
399. 00:28:14 purposes same thing if you're just giving a map it's got a bias built into it
400. 00:28:20 Because it has an intention behind it
401. 00:28:23 And if you question the maker and the purpose of it
402. 00:28:26 You can start to understand where it should or shouldn't be used
403. 00:28:30 I think of like the motivation code that we read. Yeah, it told us a lot about ourselves, right?
404. 00:28:36 But it's only good whenever we're talking about what motivates us to act
405. 00:28:41 It does absolutely nothing as far as telling me how to focus on the things i'm doing
406. 00:28:47 But it is really good at explaining how I get started doing those things
407. 00:28:52 Like those are two different areas so I can't use it in one when the other is the intention
408. 00:28:57 exactly
409. 00:28:58 uh
410. 00:28:59 the one that comes to mind
411. 00:29:01 For me is the four tendencies by Gretchen Rubin, which I was not a fan of
412. 00:29:06 And I recognize it's because my mission in taking that assessment did not line up with the cartographers in that particular case
413. 00:29:15 Right and that's completely fine
414. 00:29:17 But that's one instance of me questioning the thing that I was going through just because it didn't quite feel right
415. 00:29:24 But how many times the motivation code for example, do I just
416. 00:29:27 Coast through those things and accept it as this is the right thing for this situation
417. 00:29:34 You know, I want to do a better job of questioning those things that
418. 00:29:37 As i'm going through and which kind of leads into the next one the circle of competence
419. 00:29:42 because
420. 00:29:44 When you're talking about motivation the motivation code by Todd henry that's a great place
421. 00:29:49 To go because he's an expert in that particular area
422. 00:29:53 Right, but you don't want to listen to somebody who's been divorced five times about marriage advice
423. 00:29:59 Yes, and this in this chapter they explain why
424. 00:30:06 you can
425. 00:30:08 Find yourself in a situation where you do feel like you know everything in a particular area
426. 00:30:15 Even when you compare yourself to somebody else and in the marriage example, you know
427. 00:30:19 Uh, when you look at the longevity of somebody who's been married for 50 years
428. 00:30:23 As opposed to somebody who has trouble staying in a relationship for more than a couple of years
429. 00:30:28 Uh from a higher up perspective. It's easy to see while i'm going to trust that person
430. 00:30:33 But when you're in the details, it's easy to think well
431. 00:30:37 I know everything and so that's what this life versus stranger story at the beginning here is all about
432. 00:30:42 They use the analogy of this small town
433. 00:30:44 There's a lifer who lives there. He knows everything about everybody
434. 00:30:48 Where they went to school what their favorite color is what they for breakfast
435. 00:30:53 He knows literally everything and then this stranger shows up
436. 00:30:56 And he gets to meet the mayor and he meets some influential people and he understands some broad concepts about
437. 00:31:02 Where things are inside of the town and he's been there a couple of days and he thinks
438. 00:31:07 Oh, I know everything there is to know about this town
439. 00:31:09 But if you get them to talk to the lifer for more than two minutes, it becomes very clear that you don't know anything
440. 00:31:15 The lifer is the one who has all of the real experience and the real knowledge as it pertains
441. 00:31:22 To this thing and I think it's can be difficult to understand
442. 00:31:26 When you are a lifer when you are a stranger if there's a single takeaway for me from this section
443. 00:31:32 It is to assume that you are the stranger and that you don't know everything and look for the lifers who can help you out with stuff
444. 00:31:38 Yeah for sure
445. 00:31:40 Probably a good example of like the whole life or a stranger story in small town
446. 00:31:45 I grew up in small town, Missouri
447. 00:31:47 And I remember specifically we had kind of our town festivals once a year
448. 00:31:52 in
449. 00:31:54 Septemberish
450. 00:31:56 And I remember
451. 00:31:58 There was a bunch of folks that had come in from out of town
452. 00:32:02 And they wanted to go grab something to eat so they wanted to go to a town that was
453. 00:32:07 Not too far away
454. 00:32:08 So we were going to go together and they immediately is like, oh, we'll just take the main road and you can follow us and we'll we'll meet you over there
455. 00:32:15 It's like no you cannot do that it's been raining a lot lately. I'm betting there's a lot of water over the road over there
456. 00:32:21 Like oh no, it's fine. Like well, tell you what we'll meet you there. We're gonna go a different way
457. 00:32:26 so
458. 00:32:28 Me and my friends went and met them there and of course they show up 20 minutes later
459. 00:32:32 Then us even though our way was longer technically because it had been raining a lot and guess what there's water over the road
460. 00:32:40 so
461. 00:32:41 You don't learn those things
462. 00:32:43 Just from talking to the mayor and coming up and knowing
463. 00:32:46 You know what you've seen in the tour
464. 00:32:49 You always get the high level you get the peaks
465. 00:32:51 Whenever you do the tours, you don't get to see what the depths are down and the valleys and such
466. 00:32:56 And what's going on down in the rivers and such like you don't get that detail
467. 00:32:59 Unless you've been there for a long time. So
468. 00:33:02 Yes, I think there's a lot of value in understanding when you're which
469. 00:33:07 When you are which of those two
470. 00:33:11 Uh, you know if you want to come back to your obsidian
471. 00:33:14 Example it's like mike knew that get was not his
472. 00:33:18 Forte that's true reach out to somebody who knows it like sure that's that's inside my circle of
473. 00:33:25 Competence, but when it comes to putting together a top-notch
474. 00:33:30 um screencast
475. 00:33:33 Like I can do that
476. 00:33:35 It's technically like on the outskirts of my circle of competence
477. 00:33:39 But I know mike is the guy I want to talk to if I wanted some details on that so we like we have our own
478. 00:33:44 Circles that we need to run in but you have to know which white wind are you in each of those
479. 00:33:50 Uh, and I think it's a little bit dangerous when you're not aware
480. 00:33:54 Or not willing to consider
481. 00:33:56 Where you are in the midst of that. I think the warning sign is when you
482. 00:34:03 Think you know
483. 00:34:06 Quite a bit about a topic because he mentions that when you are
484. 00:34:10 Within a circle of competence
485. 00:34:12 You know exactly what you don't know
486. 00:34:15 And that phrase really struck me. It's it's really true. I know that
487. 00:34:23 I am not a designer
488. 00:34:25 Right and right I'm with you on that one
489. 00:34:28 I know nothing about colors and fonts and all that kind of stuff
490. 00:34:32 But I know that I don't know that and so if i'm building a website
491. 00:34:36 I am not going to try to make myself a logo because it's just not kind of work
492. 00:34:41 But I think there are definitely times especially when you get excited about something and you're exploring something where the tendency can be
493. 00:34:49 Okay, well, I guess, you know, I know everything there is to know about this
494. 00:34:52 One example of that although I don't think I ever got to that point
495. 00:34:57 Was with room research because I went into it
496. 00:35:00 Thinking I have no idea how I'm going to use this thing
497. 00:35:03 I'm going to try it this specific way and then I kind of built on that knowledge
498. 00:35:06 I wonder if it can do this. I wonder if it can do that
499. 00:35:08 And I ended up doing a whole bunch of stuff and inside of it
500. 00:35:11 But I still never felt like okay. I have
501. 00:35:15 mastered this application and I can do everything I know everything it can do
502. 00:35:20 I was completely fine saying i'm going to use it in these
503. 00:35:23 Specific ways and the rest of it. I just don't even care about right but I I did that selectively
504. 00:35:30 I wasn't thinking like well. Yeah, this is all the obvious
505. 00:35:33 good uses of the tool
506. 00:35:36 There was always in the back of my mind a belief that somebody out there
507. 00:35:40 In fact when I was on the the Rome FM podcast because they wanted to talk about how I was using it for the sermon notes and the quote book and all that kind of stuff
508. 00:35:47 I was hesitant to go on because I'm like, I don't think I'm using this very well
509. 00:35:52 Yeah, they're like no, no, this is really cool. Trust me. I think that's another indication that you are in a circle of competences
510. 00:35:59 You think something's not that great, but other people are telling you no actually this is this is good
511. 00:36:06 He talks about how there are three practices that are needed in order to build a circle of competency one is a curiosity and it is
512. 00:36:13 Desire to learn that is definitely what I approached that with
513. 00:36:18 But then also monitoring and feedback so you try something and you say you see if it worked
514. 00:36:23 And then you even get outside of your own experience and you get somebody else to look at it and say how would you have done this?
515. 00:36:30 differently
516. 00:36:32 It's easy to just go into something
517. 00:36:36 By yourself develop whatever you are going to use around that thing in a vacuum
518. 00:36:42 and then
519. 00:36:44 And then get to this point I think where you feel you have a circle of competence
520. 00:36:48 But that's just because you haven't expanded your vision beyond your own little circle to see what's really possible
521. 00:36:54 The much safer better version of this is to assume that you're an idiot
522. 00:36:58 Somebody else much smarter knows much more about this look for the experts
523. 00:37:04 This is this is kind of a difficult thing with being a creator online too, right?
524. 00:37:09 We have a tendency to try to make things to share
525. 00:37:14 But we don't always think about what to share until people see something that we've done
526. 00:37:18 I'm like wait, what was that? What did you just do?
527. 00:37:20 Like I've seen this on the live streams
528. 00:37:23 How many times whenever I've done these and I'm showing something on my computer
529. 00:37:26 Like wait, what did you just do you jumped over to that? How did you what what just happened?
530. 00:37:32 I I just typed a text expander snippet. Do you not know text expand or what is this?
531. 00:37:38 Like I don't know what why is that such a thing like I you just don't realize what what it is that you do
532. 00:37:44 That other people could find very valuable and that's because then you start to feel like the whole poser thing
533. 00:37:51 Like if you think that you're someone who
534. 00:37:52 Doesn't know a whole lot about something
535. 00:37:55 um
536. 00:37:57 You could be right
537. 00:37:58 But there's also a decent chance that you know a lot more than you think you do
538. 00:38:02 Yeah, that's an interesting topic. Let's unpack that for a minute because I think the difference
539. 00:38:08 With that is if you're going to share
540. 00:38:12 what you have learned and
541. 00:38:15 Your experiment
542. 00:38:18 publicly
543. 00:38:19 Then that's completely cool
544. 00:38:21 But when you try to synthesize whatever you've just learned as
545. 00:38:26 This is the way things work
546. 00:38:29 Right and I have read this book and I know everything about this topic and these are the three things you need to know
547. 00:38:38 That's when
548. 00:38:41 The red flag goes up in my mind. I've probably been guilty of that from time to time
549. 00:38:45 I have for sure, but I try not to do that. I I try to filter it as
550. 00:38:51 This is what I did. This is what I learned. This is how I applied it
551. 00:38:55 These are the lessons from this
552. 00:38:59 Take it and try it for yourself. I do try to distill it down so people can
553. 00:39:03 can grasp it without having to
554. 00:39:06 Read the whole book themselves
555. 00:39:09 Um, yeah, but I think this is where something like
556. 00:39:13 Roman or obsidian is really valuable because you're collecting these ideas
557. 00:39:18 And you connect them and you let them bounce around and you've got a unique perspective based on your own bank of knowledge
558. 00:39:26 It's easy to know just operate in the vacuum of the last book that you read
559. 00:39:30 But really the truth is that you are the sum of all of your experiences all the dots that you've collected
560. 00:39:36 That's really what's producing the the output. So
561. 00:39:40 Just try not to frame it as
562. 00:39:43 You know, trust me. I got this figured out and just share
563. 00:39:47 The insights from the journey. That's my approach to this
564. 00:39:52 Yep, it's okay to share what you've learned. Just be careful how you share it
565. 00:39:56 Yep. All right. Next one is first principles thinking
566. 00:39:59 This is probably going to be a short one because
567. 00:40:04 essentially what this is saying
568. 00:40:06 Is that there are principles?
569. 00:40:10 That everything else is based off of and constructing your understanding based on these
570. 00:40:17 First principles things that we absolutely know to be true and filling in from there
571. 00:40:23 Can help you understand a lot of the root causes and things. So there's a couple different processes they describing here
572. 00:40:29 One is the Socratic questioning method
573. 00:40:32 I'm not really that interested in this one
574. 00:40:34 The second one which I'd heard before is the five wise
575. 00:40:38 I assume you're familiar with this one joe
576. 00:40:41 Yeah, why why why why why yeah, so that's how I see it
577. 00:40:44 Basically for trying to figure out the core the core motivation for something you just keep asking why and then eventually you're going to
578. 00:40:52 To land at it. I feel like that's a simpler
579. 00:40:55 Implementation of this first principles thinking. I don't know why they put Socratic questioning first
580. 00:41:01 This one's kind of complicated. There's several steps and then there's different questions along with that
581. 00:41:06 Uh, but the basic idea here is that if you understand the principles then you can change
582. 00:41:14 Your approach to them they they say it this way you can change the tactics if you know the principles
583. 00:41:19 And they've got a quote here by a Harrington Emerson's is asked to methods
584. 00:41:23 There may be a million and then some but principles are few the man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods
585. 00:41:28 The man who tries methods ignoring principles is sure to have trouble
586. 00:41:32 And this is the big warning flag from this one. I think there's lots of stuff out there regarding systems now. I love systems. I love systems thinking
587. 00:41:42 Uh, most of the books that we read present a system in some way shape or form
588. 00:41:49 But when you combine this with the other principles like the circle of competence and the map is not the territory
589. 00:41:54 I will admit that whenever I pick up a systems book from now on
590. 00:41:58 I'm going to be asking myself
591. 00:42:00 Are they building this system?
592. 00:42:02 And then trying to shoehorn principles into it
593. 00:42:06 Or do they have an understanding of the principles and they've built a system that works on top of that because I can think right
594. 00:42:12 different different examples that fall into each of those categories
595. 00:42:17 And I would venture to say that the ones that we don't like
596. 00:42:20 Are the ones that are trying to just make a system works so that they can sell a book like that
597. 00:42:26 guessing that's
598. 00:42:29 Part of it first principles thinking is something
599. 00:42:31 I don't know who would have been the one that make it popular, but I know it's big for elon musk
600. 00:42:38 If you're familiar with him, of course with tesla spacex and team
601. 00:42:42 And he
602. 00:42:44 I know adopts kind of this thing. I don't know how which method he comes at
603. 00:42:48 At this from
604. 00:42:51 But I know that he's spent a lot of time trying to figure okay. Well, what are the base
605. 00:42:55 physics when it comes to
606. 00:42:58 battery technology
607. 00:43:00 that
608. 00:43:02 We cannot break or what what are those fundamental pieces
609. 00:43:05 When it comes to battery technology and can we
610. 00:43:11 Alter things without breaking those fundamental physics
611. 00:43:16 Laws like he likes to go all the way down to that level
612. 00:43:20 And then throw out a lot of the assumptions from the general
613. 00:43:24 World of technology that we know the science that we know
614. 00:43:29 He'll throw out a lot of that because he wants to build off of those those elemental pieces
615. 00:43:34 I think that's really cool
616. 00:43:36 Obviously, he's had some success
617. 00:43:39 Doing that
618. 00:43:40 But I think you're right like whenever we approach
619. 00:43:43 Books or we approach a system. We approach a map
620. 00:43:48 It's good to ask the why does this exist
621. 00:43:52 Okay, well why that and why that and why that and why that
622. 00:43:57 And then you eventually get yourself down to the point where this is the foundation that this is built on
623. 00:44:03 And if you agree with that foundation
624. 00:44:05 Awesome, if you don't you have a problem
625. 00:44:08 And if at some point in the chain it's built on air
626. 00:44:12 Then you need to make some adjustments. So I like that
627. 00:44:17 I like the concept, but I don't know how I would come about it other than just be aware of it
628. 00:44:22 The battery example is a great one because also in this section
629. 00:44:27 They say to improve something we need to know why it was successful or not
630. 00:44:30 Which is essentially what you're talking about
631. 00:44:32 They break it down as far as they possibly can and then they figure out the physics reasons for why they can't make it any smaller
632. 00:44:38 Can't cram or better in there yada yada yada
633. 00:44:41 This also leads into one of these supporting ideas which comes right after this chapter on falsifiability
634. 00:44:48 This is just a short like two-page thing that really isn't addendum to this specific chapter in in my mind
635. 00:44:54 Because this falsifiability this is being able to prove that something is wrong
636. 00:45:00 And this is important because if you can't prove something is wrong you really can't prove that it's right either
637. 00:45:07 And they have this falsification definition here, which I liked
638. 00:45:11 This is the opposite of verification by failing to disprove something
639. 00:45:16 You actually make the argument stronger
640. 00:45:19 And again, I don't have a specific application of that principle
641. 00:45:24 But I do like that one and think that it fits very well with this first principles thinking
642. 00:45:29 I like the the way that they
643. 00:45:31 Organized the content in this book where they have the the three
644. 00:45:36 General thinking concepts and they go into that that short little section
645. 00:45:39 The next one is thought experiment
646. 00:45:42 And this is kind of exactly what it sounds like
647. 00:45:46 Thought experiments are simply devices of your imagination
648. 00:45:49 Which are used to investigate the nature of things. He's got different steps that go into a thought experiment
649. 00:45:55 And really this is just trying to imagine an alternate reality
650. 00:46:01 One of the phrases from this section that really stood out to me is that creativity is intelligence having fun
651. 00:46:08 I don't know what to do with that statement
652. 00:46:12 But I like it. I do think that like i've been thinking a lot about idea management and
653. 00:46:20 How we get ideas
654. 00:46:23 How to tie them together how to make the most of them how to tell which ones are good which ones are bad
655. 00:46:29 How to tell the size of an idea? I mean, I don't have specifics for how to do any of this stuff
656. 00:46:34 These are just the questions in my my head
657. 00:46:36 The brain is your biological supercomputer. It's pretty impressive
658. 00:46:41 so
659. 00:46:44 When it comes to creativity, I do think though it is sort of a system is an input
660. 00:46:48 There's a process and then there's output based off of it
661. 00:46:51 And there have got to be levers somewhere that you can pull
662. 00:46:54 To make it easier to ideate to develop one
663. 00:46:58 Obvious one
664. 00:47:00 Is just not constantly being connected giving your brain time to process things like your ideas come when you're in the shower
665. 00:47:07 Why? Because you're not
666. 00:47:09 In the middle of everything else that you got to do during your work day
667. 00:47:13 Um, and I think that when it comes to creating even though it is a system
668. 00:47:21 It's always felt more enjoyable for me
669. 00:47:25 And I think maybe I've kind of written that off is like, well, that's my personality. I identify as a creator
670. 00:47:32 So that's probably why
671. 00:47:36 but then I get into
672. 00:47:37 Still like an artist by Austin kleon and he makes the point that everybody's creative
673. 00:47:43 I heard a story one time which I really liked about how
674. 00:47:47 When you're born you get a box of crayons and you have no problem creating and over time
675. 00:47:54 You people are tell you to conform and they tell you to follow
676. 00:47:57 Processes and think a certain way
677. 00:48:00 And then eventually some people work up the nerve to ask for their crayons back
678. 00:48:05 you know, I feel like
679. 00:48:08 That is true of everybody on some level
680. 00:48:11 so
681. 00:48:13 I don't think creativity is necessarily like a
682. 00:48:15 Genetic thing it's you're not born a certain way you're not creative or not creative
683. 00:48:20 I believe everybody has the ability to be creative. They just express it
684. 00:48:23 in different ways
685. 00:48:24 so
686. 00:48:26 You can apply that here by saying creativity is intelligence while everybody's smart everybody's intelligent in different ways
687. 00:48:32 So when you're creating it's simply activating that intelligence in a specific way that's enjoyable for you
688. 00:48:38 Which kind of throws a whole monkey wrench into the thing of like don't do what you love
689. 00:48:43 Don't follow your passion, but always bring it with you
690. 00:48:46 I don't know. Maybe maybe there's a little bit of truth to that
691. 00:48:52 maybe it is just your perspective though and
692. 00:48:54 you lean into your gift things and your talents and that's you naturally derive some satisfaction from those sorts of things
693. 00:49:04 I think you're diving into the territory of trying to define creativity. Yep, and
694. 00:49:10 I don't think that's a simple thing to do
695. 00:49:15 because it really depends on
696. 00:49:19 How you want to come at it and what we're talking about when it like what is the output from the creativity that matters
697. 00:49:25 Which is why it's such a nebulous hole that you can't really put your finger on
698. 00:49:30 because it's easy to like okay if we're talking about creativity in the realm of
699. 00:49:35 Making videos and putting words to a screen like that's that's one realm
700. 00:49:40 Of creativity and the process of being creative in that space has some pretty well-known
701. 00:49:47 Processes that come with that and I'm guessing that a lot of your thoughts around idea management and using those to come up with new things
702. 00:49:55 are derived around the concept of making things for
703. 00:49:59 digital knowledge based
704. 00:50:02 websites tools products files, etc. Mm-hmm. That that's kind of one area
705. 00:50:09 But there's a number of these like we could be talking about creativity when it comes to fine art whole different game
706. 00:50:16 Yep, the concept of coming up with ideas for fine art
707. 00:50:19 Totally different than what you and I would do to write an article or make a video or make a podcast like
708. 00:50:26 Realms apart from each other. So somebody that comes from the fine art world is going to have a very different perspective on what creativity is than you and I would
709. 00:50:35 so
710. 00:50:37 I think that definition is going to change and I think some of that is because
711. 00:50:43 We've expanded what creativity means
712. 00:50:46 over time
713. 00:50:48 it used to be I if I'm not wrong here, I believe it used to be primarily just art like
714. 00:50:55 paintings drawings
715. 00:50:58 sure clay
716. 00:51:00 Pottery it used to be in that realm and that's what creativity kind of
717. 00:51:04 lint itself towards
718. 00:51:07 But then you start getting like graphic design that takes art and then has a purpose in the world of business and marketing
719. 00:51:14 and now creativity has a whole different life like yes, it's
720. 00:51:17 Creating things that are beautiful still but it has a different purpose other than just being
721. 00:51:24 Fun to look at cool to look at
722. 00:51:28 So I I think it really depends on what you're
723. 00:51:31 trying to
724. 00:51:34 Like how you want to define that creativity as far as where where in this do you do you land but
725. 00:51:40 I don't know there there are a lot of different ways you could come at this for sure
726. 00:51:44 Yeah, so there's a lot of those things that you mentioned
727. 00:51:46 They kind of could be classified as like left brain or right brain and I've heard right brain described as the creative side of your brain
728. 00:51:53 I don't think that's accurate. I think you can be creative with the left side of your brain. I am not a
729. 00:51:59 Artistic
730. 00:52:02 person
731. 00:52:04 but
732. 00:52:06 I can be creative with words
733. 00:52:08 and I think that the left brain is the one that's kind of driving that a lot of the lot of the time
734. 00:52:15 so
735. 00:52:17 These different ways of being creative. I guess the question in my head and I kind of think I know what I think about this
736. 00:52:23 But because creativity can be expressed all these different ways
737. 00:52:26 This thought experiment. What do you see? This is like a left brain or right brain activity
738. 00:52:31 I think this is probably a left brain
739. 00:52:34 activity
740. 00:52:36 In terms of applying mental models. There's kind of a formula
741. 00:52:40 Implied here. It's not just like grabbing something from the stars and bringing it down
742. 00:52:45 Into this this model
743. 00:52:48 At least that wasn't my interpretation of this
744. 00:52:50 So I guess my big question is do you think that these thought experiments can be applied in any arena because I kind of think they can
745. 00:52:59 Yeah, I would say so
746. 00:53:01 um, I don't think
747. 00:53:04 when I when I first came at thought experiment
748. 00:53:06 Creativity and like trying to come up with new things wasn't really on my
749. 00:53:10 radar
750. 00:53:12 the thought experiment
751. 00:53:14 purpose in my mind had more to do with trying to figure out an answer to a problem and
752. 00:53:20 Obviously we could say that could be a creative
753. 00:53:24 process
754. 00:53:26 the example that came to my head was
755. 00:53:29 the process of buying a new house
756. 00:53:31 okay
757. 00:53:33 It's a thought experiment to put yourself through the paces of you found a house
758. 00:53:38 It's in a different area. Of course. It's got a different layout. It has a different all sorts of stuff
759. 00:53:43 You bring kids into the mix. What does life look like?
760. 00:53:47 If you say yes to that house, that's a thought experiment. Let's walk through true if we said yes here
761. 00:53:54 This is how most people buy a house too. We've done this. This is not an unknown process
762. 00:53:59 If you've bought a house, you've gone into it at some point
763. 00:54:02 You've imagined yourself there. You've thought through the process of what does breakfast look like?
764. 00:54:07 How do I get to work? What is my commute like?
765. 00:54:10 How do I get to see family if we can ever go see family again and all these things are
766. 00:54:15 Questions and processes that we work ourselves through
767. 00:54:19 To determine if it's a yes or no
768. 00:54:22 Now that's kind I don't want to say it's a simplified, but it is a simplified type of
769. 00:54:28 thought experiment per I think what he's
770. 00:54:30 intending here
771. 00:54:32 But at the same time, I think there's like yes, that's a very practical way of
772. 00:54:37 Approaching this I think what you're getting at I think is the
773. 00:54:40 in the process of
774. 00:54:43 Take creating content in the process of creating content
775. 00:54:46 How does this apply because if it's a creative process that we're going through in this thought experiment
776. 00:54:50 How does that come out and that?
777. 00:54:55 I think actually is more of
778. 00:54:57 I didn't intend this
779. 00:55:01 It's kind of the Gary V document versus create
780. 00:55:03 If you've followed Gary V, he has this whole thing about
781. 00:55:07 Don't create content document what you're doing
782. 00:55:10 And if you think that through
783. 00:55:14 In what he's intending with that and if you think about what it is that we do whenever we create things for the internet
784. 00:55:21 a lot of it has to do with
785. 00:55:25 Showing you what we've learned or what we're doing
786. 00:55:27 Yes, you can make things
787. 00:55:31 about new things
788. 00:55:33 Idea courses and such like you could do that
789. 00:55:35 But ultimately that's because you've been thinking about it
790. 00:55:39 You know, you were talking earlier about you've been
791. 00:55:41 Thinking a lot about idea management and how we come up with ideas
792. 00:55:45 My guess is you have a lot of ideas around
793. 00:55:48 How do people manage knowledge for themselves and interconnect those thoughts
794. 00:55:54 Externalized I'm getting there because
795. 00:55:57 You've been thinking about this for a long time. That's the process. I think we're talking about you know
796. 00:56:02 That's the thought experiment if I'm thinking through this what comes out of it
797. 00:56:06 Yeah, which totally sounds like a left brain activity
798. 00:56:09 And then they make this statement that creativity is intelligence having fun and it completely destroys the mental model that I had going into this
799. 00:56:16 But you should also know like I I don't know how far they are down the path
800. 00:56:21 But I think they're slowly abandoning the whole left right brain thing
801. 00:56:25 Yep
802. 00:56:26 Because they're seeing how much it floats from side to side and doesn't actually stick to one side
803. 00:56:30 So I don't know it's just an easy way to
804. 00:56:33 Explain it. I think left and right. Yeah, no, it makes sense
805. 00:56:37 And I like the Gary V analogy that you mentioned
806. 00:56:40 document versus
807. 00:56:43 Create because you look at somebody who does like a daily vlog
808. 00:56:47 I've watched those before and I always felt like there's no way I could do that
809. 00:56:52 But for somebody who is just documenting their life
810. 00:56:55 It probably seems very logical how they build one of those, you know, so yeah
811. 00:57:01 Right interesting. All right. Let's move on to the next one, which is second order thinking
812. 00:57:07 This is thinking farther ahead and thinking more holistically
813. 00:57:12 about things kind of the effects of the effects
814. 00:57:17 One of the quotes that they have in this section, which I loved is that stupidity is the same as evil if you judge it by the results
815. 00:57:25 I think that's that's a great explanation of kind of the second order thinking or the absence of it
816. 00:57:33 Because a lot of times we do things and we don't think far enough ahead and we don't realize
817. 00:57:38 The real consequences of some of these actions and make the point that a genie never goes back in the bottle
818. 00:57:44 And they have a couple examples here the one that really stood out to me
819. 00:57:47 was this story about antibiotics being used in
820. 00:57:52 meat because
821. 00:57:54 Initially the antibiotics
822. 00:57:57 Were producing bulkier healthier cows and so they were bringing in
823. 00:58:02 More money for farmers, which is a good thing
824. 00:58:06 but the second order effect of this is that
825. 00:58:09 You have all of these antibiotics and so the bacteria that actually
826. 00:58:14 Survived this is now resistant to the antibiotics
827. 00:58:18 and that is definitely a bad thing so
828. 00:58:23 Should the farmers have known that that was going to happen that there was that second order effect
829. 00:58:30 That was laying out there. I don't know
830. 00:58:35 I this kind of gets into an area which I think is a little bit gray
831. 00:58:39 Because I think you should be thinking about this sort of stuff, but how do you ascribe?
832. 00:58:44 Any sort of responsibility for these second order effects because
833. 00:58:49 You can't really know the future and I guess the big takeaway then if you
834. 00:58:54 Accept that is just hopefully everybody does this
835. 00:58:58 I think the the antibiotic thing is an interesting one
836. 00:59:03 to bring up. I don't know if you did that because of my farm background, but the
837. 00:59:07 the thing that's interesting to me is that
838. 00:59:10 in that particular scenario
839. 00:59:13 Farmers are not thinking about
840. 00:59:15 What's down the line right all they know is that if I
841. 00:59:20 Put antibiotics in the feed for my cattle
842. 00:59:24 if I put hormone supplements in
843. 00:59:27 the feed for my cattle
844. 00:59:30 inject them sometimes
845. 00:59:32 it means that
846. 00:59:33 the cattle can grow
847. 00:59:35 and put on their muscle mass quicker
848. 00:59:38 with less health issues
849. 00:59:42 Which means I can make more money for my family
850. 00:59:45 and continue to live exactly and I completely that is the sum total I completely understand that and you can easily
851. 00:59:53 Dismiss the second order effect thinking in that scenario, which kind of has me thinking like well
852. 01:00:00 Where do you draw the line?
853. 01:00:02 Because you can also take the approach of like well
854. 01:00:04 In certain situations they should have known better than to do this sort of a thing right?
855. 01:00:10 Right. I don't know where that line is though
856. 01:00:12 Yes, yes. I mean it's it's messy right. I mean there's not a clean line there and
857. 01:00:20 ascribing things to stupidity in that case
858. 01:00:24 is absolutely
859. 01:00:26 100% correct because
860. 01:00:29 And in in a lot of cases, it's not even stupidity
861. 01:00:31 It's just I'm allowed to do this if people don't want to eat the results of what I'm doing
862. 01:00:36 Tell them to stop buying it like that's a lot of like farmers a lot of times will have that mindset as well
863. 01:00:42 We can get on to them all you want
864. 01:00:44 but
865. 01:00:45 Stop buying the products of what is being produced from it and then they'll change it like until the money doesn't show up
866. 01:00:52 They're not going to do anything
867. 01:00:54 So anyway, that's all another thing you're stepping on my toes with that one
868. 01:00:58 So like I'll set that one sorry
869. 01:01:00 It's okay. It's okay. The the thing that I think is interesting is we don't often think about
870. 01:01:06 You know think about it from somebody else's perspective somebody makes a decision
871. 01:01:11 and it impacts you and
872. 01:01:14 You're not happy about the decision that they made because it impacted you and now I'm upset at them because of that decision
873. 01:01:21 And they've created a lot of pain for me
874. 01:01:25 So obviously they are the culprit here. They are obviously the one who
875. 01:01:29 Should be at fault here because of so much trouble that they've
876. 01:01:33 They've given to me
877. 01:01:36 The more likely answer is that they weren't even thinking about you. Yeah, you're getting into another mental model here
878. 01:01:42 I know we're diving into it like we're starting to like they start to step on each other's toes to some degree
879. 01:01:49 But it's the same concept right when you have second and third order thinking
880. 01:01:54 like the results of my decision
881. 01:01:56 Have to be understood
882. 01:01:59 In their entirety before you can actually say
883. 01:02:01 Is this the right thing or not? Like this is the this is the problem and the conversation that has to happen a lot when the the
884. 01:02:08 ethics conversation around self-driving cars comes up
885. 01:02:12 Because what happens if that car like how do you program that how is that computer program or supposed to
886. 01:02:18 write
887. 01:02:21 the conditional statements that go into that car
888. 01:02:24 That decide do I continue driving straight
889. 01:02:28 Knowing that i'm going to be in an accident and if I continue driving straight
890. 01:02:34 I'm going to hit a vehicle and it's going to kill one person
891. 01:02:38 or
892. 01:02:39 Well say say if I keep going straight it would kill five people or
893. 01:02:43 Do I intentionally deviate and kill one person
894. 01:02:46 Or do I leave it on its course to kill five?
895. 01:02:50 Yeah, what do you do? This is the trolley car sidebar they had in in this particular chapter
896. 01:02:55 So they spell it out in a different way, but i'm just using the self-driving thing because it's more fun for me
897. 01:03:00 but the that's the question mark right like
898. 01:03:04 which of those
899. 01:03:07 decisions are
900. 01:03:09 better
901. 01:03:10 because now you're choosing between lives
902. 01:03:12 And if the car intentionally chooses to kill the one as opposed to just staying the course
903. 01:03:19 What do you what do you do like what are the results of that?
904. 01:03:24 Now now we have to go back to a thought experiment and work through it like this is this is going to get messy
905. 01:03:30 And it's going to get messy fast. There are no good options and on the other side of this
906. 01:03:34 I think
907. 01:03:36 The other thing here that really stood out to me is they mentioned you have to be careful to avoid
908. 01:03:41 The wedge argument or the slippery slope argument because i've been on the side where well
909. 01:03:45 I don't want to make a wrong choice when you're presented with multiple wrong choices like you were just describing
910. 01:03:50 You don't want to make a choice
911. 01:03:54 So you don't do anything and that's what they're speaking against is like you can't just sit there and wait till you have all the facts in order to make
912. 01:04:02 the
913. 01:04:02 Perfect decision because sometimes there isn't a perfect decision to be made
914. 01:04:06 I've definitely been guilty of that before
915. 01:04:09 analysis paralysis
916. 01:04:12 It's true. The next one here is probabilistic thinking
917. 01:04:17 and
918. 01:04:18 This we have read books about thinking fast and slow by daniel conneman is the one that comes to mind
919. 01:04:25 Probabilistic thinking is basically you're trying to estimate using tools of math and logic
920. 01:04:30 The likelihood of a specific outcome coming to pass
921. 01:04:34 This is kind of getting into
922. 01:04:36 The next book that we're going to be reading which i've started to think this is going to be really interesting
923. 01:04:41 um
924. 01:04:42 The future is unpredictable. We don't know all the variables the best we can do is estimate
925. 01:04:49 and
926. 01:04:51 There are certain things that we can use in this mental model to help us estimate better
927. 01:04:57 Again, I don't want to get into a whole bunch of detail here because we could be having the whole thinking fast and slow discussion again
928. 01:05:04 But they talk about a couple key concepts
929. 01:05:07 The ones that stand out to me are the fat tailed curves because everybody has seen like those bell curves
930. 01:05:12 And with the bell curve they trail off
931. 01:05:15 On the ends, but with a fat tailed curve basically what they're saying is that unlike a bell curve
932. 01:05:21 There is no cap on these extreme events
933. 01:05:25 So when you think of things in terms of a bell curve
934. 01:05:28 Something like median height for example
935. 01:05:31 There is a maximum for how tall a person can be
936. 01:05:37 You know above eight feet probably
937. 01:05:40 You're not running into anybody at that end of the bell curve right but a fat tail curve is something like median income
938. 01:05:48 Because there can be a whole bunch of people that are in like the the
939. 01:05:52 Tall section of that curve but way way on the right side
940. 01:05:57 There are people who have tons and tons and tons and tons of
941. 01:06:00 income
942. 01:06:03 And it completely destroys a bell curve model in in that scenario
943. 01:06:07 So figuring out, you know when to use a bell curve versus a fat tail curve
944. 01:06:13 I think is is interesting
945. 01:06:15 And this is also where the concept of anti fragility comes up
946. 01:06:19 which is
947. 01:06:21 And I don't again I had to I got I don't know how to apply this
948. 01:06:24 But this is fascinating to me, but the anti fragility is basically being able to benefit
949. 01:06:30 from those fat tail scenarios that you can't realistically predict
950. 01:06:35 So
951. 01:06:38 What does that mean? Well, the example they they share is basically never taking your risk that will do you win
952. 01:06:43 Completely and the concept of being anti fragiles that even if you select wrong
953. 01:06:48 you still kind of
954. 01:06:50 come out ahead
955. 01:06:52 But I don't know how you apply this personally this when we read that
956. 01:06:59 Nicholas
957. 01:07:01 I forget how to say his name to lab to lab. Yeah, we read that that book
958. 01:07:05 I came across him like well, this is interesting information, but how in the world do I right apply it? I kind of had the same like
959. 01:07:13 Lost over approach after reading this chapter like yeah, this all makes sense. You're absolutely right
960. 01:07:20 I don't know what to do with this
961. 01:07:22 right
962. 01:07:24 Yeah, I mean the seem to lab anti fragile is what we're referring to and
963. 01:07:29 it's it's the concept of
964. 01:07:31 as you are stressed you are stronger
965. 01:07:33 it
966. 01:07:36 Protects itself from breaking as it's exposed to things that could break it
967. 01:07:40 I think that's a very crude way of explaining it, but that's the concept here
968. 01:07:46 but
969. 01:07:48 I I don't know the the piece here
970. 01:07:51 Probabilistic thinking like that concept
971. 01:07:56 that model I suppose I should use his terms
972. 01:07:58 that mental model
973. 01:08:01 he he dives into
974. 01:08:03 some of this anti fragile
975. 01:08:05 piece
976. 01:08:07 partially because I think
977. 01:08:09 As you're thinking about what is the amount of risk involved with making a decision
978. 01:08:15 If that risk is going to completely ruin you
979. 01:08:19 Like you were saying it's probably not the one you want to take
980. 01:08:24 but if it's one that
981. 01:08:26 You could benefit from either in the short term or in the long term thus the anti fragile piece
982. 01:08:31 If it's one that could benefit you then it's a decision to make. Yes
983. 01:08:35 so
984. 01:08:38 that premise of
985. 01:08:40 Let me think about what is the probability that something is going to happen in a certain way
986. 01:08:46 And then making that choice
987. 01:08:49 depending on if you're willing to
988. 01:08:52 Take it on or not like if there's an 80% chance
989. 01:08:54 You have pretty good chances jump in if it's 20%
990. 01:08:58 You might want to stop and reconsider and figure out how to help your chances increase
991. 01:09:05 As opposed to just like I don't know it seems right and jumping in those of you who do that with the
992. 01:09:10 Stock market know that you don't get very far doing that the hard part with that though
993. 01:09:15 comes from the supporting idea
994. 01:09:18 Where you're trying to calculate the percent chances
995. 01:09:22 Because they talk about necessity and sufficiency
996. 01:09:25 Where having some necessary conditions
997. 01:09:28 Doesn't mean that you have all the sufficient conditions for a desired event to occur
998. 01:09:33 The example they use is making it to the fortune 500
999. 01:09:36 Capital is necessary but not sufficient if you have capital you're not necessarily going to make it to fortune 500
1000. 01:09:43 Hard work is necessary but not sufficient intelligence is necessary but not sufficient
1001. 01:09:49 And it can be difficult to know what's necessary and what's sufficient for the outcome that you're trying to get to
1002. 01:09:54 So this when I read this probabilistic thinking section i'm like, okay
1003. 01:09:59 Yep, want to be anti fragile want to make right decisions that are gonna
1004. 01:10:03 Move me in the right direction make me stronger anyways in order to do that. I got to figure out
1005. 01:10:07 What's necessary? What's sufficient? I forget it
1006. 01:10:10 Yeah, it just feels like too much of a mental burden at that point
1007. 01:10:14 Right, which is why it probably only ever comes up but really really big
1008. 01:10:19 Decisions, I suppose yeah, because like i'm not gonna. Me. I'm not gonna go through all of that to figure out
1009. 01:10:25 Should I upgrade my lighting? Yep, i'm just not I might go through it in the process of buying a house
1010. 01:10:34 But even that i'm not sure is worth
1011. 01:10:37 All of that like you're gonna do a lot of that intuitively anyway
1012. 01:10:41 So probably not even gonna do it then which is back to the beginning point of
1013. 01:10:47 You got to figure out when to use these mental models, but this one right in particular
1014. 01:10:51 I just had a hard time figuring out when I would use this correct
1015. 01:10:53 Yep, i'm with you
1016. 01:10:56 Which is where maybe next book would potentially help us with that and figuring out ways to do it at smaller scale
1017. 01:11:02 So yeah, we're gonna play some poker
1018. 01:11:05 All right, i'm game all right the uh the next one here is inversion
1019. 01:11:11 And this is basically about thinking about things backwards
1020. 01:11:16 you
1021. 01:11:17 Identify and remove obstacles by
1022. 01:11:20 Coming at it from a different direction
1023. 01:11:23 This is interesting because they they made a comment here that I really liked
1024. 01:11:29 Avoiding stupidity is easier than seeking brilliance
1025. 01:11:32 So if you are stuck for what is the right thing to do in order to get you where you want to go start
1026. 01:11:39 with that and start with the end in mind
1027. 01:11:42 you know, steven covey and work your way backwards that's an example of
1028. 01:11:46 inversion
1029. 01:11:47 uh
1030. 01:11:48 And they mentioned that sure a lot of homes was an excellent observer and also a master of inversion
1031. 01:11:53 uh
1032. 01:11:54 He was able to think about you know what he wanted to
1033. 01:11:57 to have proven and then
1034. 01:12:00 Set up scenarios which would reveal the facts that he needed in order to make those
1035. 01:12:04 conclusions, which I think is
1036. 01:12:07 really
1037. 01:12:09 Brilliant
1038. 01:12:10 But again, i'm not really sure when I would use this they do say at the end kind of a single line takeaway when you're stuck
1039. 01:12:16 trying inversion
1040. 01:12:18 But I don't have anything specifically where I would want to use this
1041. 01:12:22 I guess I just file it away in the the toolbox and next time I am stuck, you know, I I
1042. 01:12:27 Pull this out. Yeah, I think there's there's two ways that I I see myself putting this one into practice in the world of programming
1043. 01:12:35 This can happen
1044. 01:12:37 Like I have a problem that i'm trying to solve there's a chain of things that has happened up to the point where I have a problem
1045. 01:12:43 And it's very easy for me to look at the most
1046. 01:12:45 Like the one closest to my error
1047. 01:12:48 The one at the very end it's easy for me to look there whereas sometimes it's better to start back at the beginning
1048. 01:12:54 Like flip it backwards and walk it from the beginning up to where you're at
1049. 01:12:58 It's like that one I could see
1050. 01:12:59 Doing that the other is
1051. 01:13:01 They're mentioning chess in the chat. I could see that too
1052. 01:13:05 Another one it's maybe a little bit
1053. 01:13:08 A little bit off from what they intend here
1054. 01:13:13 is that
1055. 01:13:15 You can sometimes take this approach when it comes to
1056. 01:13:18 Defending or supporting your opinions sure and what I mean by that is like if I have an opinion
1057. 01:13:27 Fountain pens are better than ballpoints. That's not opinion. That's fact
1058. 01:13:31 If I want to make the argument
1059. 01:13:35 in favor of fountain pens
1060. 01:13:38 sometimes
1061. 01:13:40 It's better for me to invert that
1062. 01:13:42 And try to make the argument against fountain pens or rather in favor of ballpoints
1063. 01:13:48 Sure
1064. 01:13:50 And if I if I do that
1065. 01:13:52 I can start to get a better understanding of my own
1066. 01:13:55 Opinion there and possibly be able to defend it better now
1067. 01:13:59 I'm probably not going to go through that process with something like pens
1068. 01:14:02 Though you would probably argue with me that the value is there, but
1069. 01:14:06 If it's something much larger
1070. 01:14:10 gun control
1071. 01:14:12 Sometimes it's easier to take the other person's
1072. 01:14:15 Viewpoint and try to defend what they think
1073. 01:14:18 It's either going to help you improve your own opinion or it may make you question it you may change your opinion
1074. 01:14:25 That's a that's a good example. I hadn't thought of that
1075. 01:14:28 I guess I kind of got stuck in
1076. 01:14:31 Their model here, which is where you identify the problem and you define your objective
1077. 01:14:36 And then you kind of identify the forces that support and impede that
1078. 01:14:40 but I like the idea of taking the other side and trying to
1079. 01:14:45 falsify basically
1080. 01:14:48 You know there those arguments in order to strengthen your own I can definitely see how that
1081. 01:14:52 That could be a complementary mental model to inversion for sure
1082. 01:14:56 All right, next one is aacam's razor
1083. 01:14:59 We probably mentioned this one a bunch of times on on this podcast because I love this
1084. 01:15:05 The version that I'm familiar with and I say all the time is that the simplest solution is the best solution
1085. 01:15:11 They stated here as simpler solutions are more likely to be right than complicated ones
1086. 01:15:17 And they make the point that we all jump to overly complex explanations
1087. 01:15:22 If your significant other
1088. 01:15:26 Is it home when they say they're going to be you jump to a worst case scenario?
1089. 01:15:32 That's an example of
1090. 01:15:34 Occam's razor when really they probably just got stuck in traffic
1091. 01:15:38 Forgot to call whatever
1092. 01:15:41 Uh the phrase that they mentioned here the the quote, which I really liked when you hear hoofbeats think horses not zebras
1093. 01:15:48 I think uh that illustrates to me
1094. 01:15:52 my own propensity towards this
1095. 01:15:54 and
1096. 01:15:57 I
1097. 01:15:58 I guess I need to keep a mind Occam's razor more often in terms of like where my mind jumps to and
1098. 01:16:04 for conclusions
1099. 01:16:05 and try to push back against that
1100. 01:16:08 So a different application than I had applied this
1101. 01:16:12 Before which was simply you know, you're figuring out a system with an objective in mind
1102. 01:16:17 And you try to make it as simple as possible eliminate all the unnecessary steps
1103. 01:16:20 But they're talking about this more in terms of
1104. 01:16:24 You uh have an unexpected event occurring you're trying to figure out why that that happened
1105. 01:16:31 Or why this this there's this gap and the information that you're you're trying to to plug
1106. 01:16:36 And don't let your mind basically control your mind when it tries to think of all those
1107. 01:16:42 Horrible scenarios, which I can totally see value in
1108. 01:16:47 in that from a mental health perspective let alone a
1109. 01:16:51 Productivity perspective
1110. 01:16:54 This is one that I've seen very recently with like recent tragic events
1111. 01:16:59 Like there are a lot of folks whenever big tragic events happen. They have some of these elaborate
1112. 01:17:04 explanations for why it happened
1113. 01:17:08 When really if you look at it, it's actually quite simple
1114. 01:17:13 like there's really a very basic
1115. 01:17:15 straightforward reason for it and
1116. 01:17:20 In most cases the simple explanation is much easier to stomach than the big complicated
1117. 01:17:27 Mess that you've dreamed up. Yeah, think about conspiracy theorists like how many conspiracy theories do you know that are simple
1118. 01:17:34 There's a reason it's a theory and usually it's a conspiracy because it has this big long drawn out thing that you have to follow in
1119. 01:17:41 Order to be able to say that it's true like that's
1120. 01:17:44 By definition it ends up being complicated it seems so
1121. 01:17:49 Thus they're generally false so
1122. 01:17:53 the simplest path is
1123. 01:17:56 In most cases the right answer
1124. 01:17:59 But we don't always like to think that way. I like the whole hoof
1125. 01:18:03 Horse zebra thing like it makes a lot of sense because it's easy to like
1126. 01:18:07 Wow, this could be like this. Oh, it could have meant that we didn't go to the moon
1127. 01:18:12 It could have meant that we like all this stuff like well the simplest answer is it is exactly the way you think it happened
1128. 01:18:19 the basic way
1129. 01:18:21 I like the
1130. 01:18:24 conspiracy theory angle that you brought to this because if I'm honest with myself if you're in the situation where
1131. 01:18:30 Your significant other hasn't contacted you they're not home when they're supposed to be and your brain goes and creates all these worst case scenarios
1132. 01:18:38 That is a form of conspiracy theory. It is it is
1133. 01:18:42 It's not on the same level as we typically think of when we say conspiracy theory
1134. 01:18:48 We're trying to hide something. It's on a national level yada yada yada
1135. 01:18:54 But yeah, just don't go there
1136. 01:18:56 It's true and that kind of gets into the last one here hamlins razor
1137. 01:19:01 This is my favorite. I think out of these
1138. 01:19:03 Hamlins razor says that we should not attribute to malice that which is more easily explained by stupidity
1139. 01:19:11 And that's a little crass maybe in how it's stated, but it's 100 true
1140. 01:19:19 We judge other people by their actions, but we judge ourselves by our intentions
1141. 01:19:26 and
1142. 01:19:28 Really, we should be giving people the benefit of the doubt. We shouldn't assume that bad results are
1143. 01:19:34 Necessarily the fault of a bad actor the example they use in this chapter is someone cuts you off in traffic
1144. 01:19:42 What do you do? Do you automatically think well? They probably just didn't see me
1145. 01:19:48 Or do you instantly fly into a rage and leave those jerks? They totally did that on purpose
1146. 01:19:53 Even if you don't physically react that way if you're honest with yourself, there's a little bit of that
1147. 01:20:00 maybe you're able to control it, but
1148. 01:20:02 it just
1149. 01:20:04 It's fascinating and scary to me at the same time that our bodies our brains naturally go there
1150. 01:20:11 yeah, I've tried to
1151. 01:20:13 I've tried for years to
1152. 01:20:17 Think about things from somebody else's perspective
1153. 01:20:20 and this this struck me
1154. 01:20:23 This has been years ago now, but I had to have
1155. 01:20:26 An intestinal surgery which meant that I couldn't lift
1156. 01:20:30 Heavy things so I couldn't pick up my kids. They were in car seats at the time which meant my wife had to do it all the time
1157. 01:20:36 and it was
1158. 01:20:39 very common
1159. 01:20:40 We would be walking back to a vehicle from say going to the farmer's market
1160. 01:20:45 and we would get to the door and
1161. 01:20:47 I would stop and let my wife put
1162. 01:20:50 Kids in the car and there were a few times when people would see me do that
1163. 01:20:55 And I was thinking at the time like I'm not a jerk
1164. 01:20:58 Like I just I can't pick up my kids because of like you but you don't know this like how do I want to explain it to people
1165. 01:21:05 I feel bad because I'm I'm putting something on my wife and I don't feel that I should be
1166. 01:21:12 Ever since that time I've been trying and I'm still bad at it
1167. 01:21:16 Trying to see things from somebody else's perspective
1168. 01:21:20 Yes
1169. 01:21:22 There may be somebody who cut you off in traffic. Yes, there may be somebody who's doing something that seems to cause a lot of problems for other people or
1170. 01:21:31 Seems to be rude
1171. 01:21:33 Why is that?
1172. 01:21:35 You don't necessarily know the full
1173. 01:21:39 Story take the mask thing somebody's not wearing a mask in a store
1174. 01:21:43 That's the whole political mess we've got now people shaming because someone else isn't wearing
1175. 01:21:48 A mask I have a couple friends that will faint if they put a mask on for more than about five minutes because the oxygen is so like
1176. 01:21:56 They're so sensitive to that they will actually faint so
1177. 01:21:59 If you see them in a store
1178. 01:22:02 They look fine
1179. 01:22:04 If you critique them for not wearing a mask
1180. 01:22:07 Sure, they'll put it on but you're gonna have to pick them up off the floor here shortly and then you got an even bigger problem on your hands
1181. 01:22:12 So you don't know that whole story
1182. 01:22:15 so my judging of that other person
1183. 01:22:18 Is often unfounded?
1184. 01:22:22 Because they're they're not trying to be malicious in many of these cases
1185. 01:22:26 A lot of cases is just we don't understand. We don't know what's going on. So
1186. 01:22:32 Anyway, that's probably a little bit of a distortion of what they intend by Hanlon's razor, but
1187. 01:22:37 That's the way I took it
1188. 01:22:39 I think it's I think it's accurate though
1189. 01:22:41 I mean really the point they make at the very end is that there are fewer true villains than you suppose
1190. 01:22:47 And the big takeaway for me is that when we assume someone's out to get us we take action to defend ourselves
1191. 01:22:53 We don't always want to be playing defense. We don't always want to be responding to perceived threats that aren't really threats
1192. 01:22:59 Right because that can have dire consequences. In fact, they tell a story from
1193. 01:23:06 1962
1194. 01:23:08 when
1195. 01:23:09 the us and the Soviet Union were in the middle of the
1196. 01:23:13 the cold war
1197. 01:23:15 That the Americans had informed the Soviets that they were going to drop these charges and these international waters in order to force
1198. 01:23:22 Soviet submarines to surface
1199. 01:23:25 However, the Soviet headquarters did not pass that information along to the nuclear submarines that were in those waters
1200. 01:23:33 So there was a nuclear sub that heard this charge go off and they assume that there's a battle going on
1201. 01:23:41 and
1202. 01:23:42 Everybody on the sub wants to fire the nuclear warheads except for one guy now fortunately they had to
1203. 01:23:49 all be in agreement or they couldn't fire the
1204. 01:23:51 the the missile, but this guy vesele
1205. 01:23:55 Archipov
1206. 01:23:58 He was
1207. 01:24:00 Abroad this sub when the charge went off he wouldn't sign off on the on firing the nuclear torpedo
1208. 01:24:05 And they credit him with single-handedly stopping nuclear war
1209. 01:24:09 But no one
1210. 01:24:11 Credited him as a hero until the documents were declassified 40 years later or whatever it was
1211. 01:24:16 I thought that was fascinating and it instantly I put myself in that situation like how would I have responded
1212. 01:24:25 I hope that I would have passed the test and not destroyed human civilization
1213. 01:24:30 But I can't honestly say that
1214. 01:24:33 It's true, but we jump to conclusions so fast we do yeah, and that's kind of the ancillary point here is the causation versus correlation
1215. 01:24:44 Don't need to spend a ton of time here. This is pretty straightforward
1216. 01:24:47 I think just because two things happen and they're correlated does not mean that one caused the other but again
1217. 01:24:53 Our brain wants to fill in the blanks and connect all the dots even if it's in an incorrect way. I like it
1218. 01:24:59 Is that it that all of them that's the whole book we covered it in a record time
1219. 01:25:06 Good job mike. Do you have any action items from this think more? I yeah, maybe I
1220. 01:25:14 This is one of those that's it
1221. 01:25:19 How many books have we had where it's like this is really good
1222. 01:25:22 This is super helpful, but I don't know what to technically practically do
1223. 01:25:29 With this like this is a lot of how you think and the way you perceive things
1224. 01:25:35 So I don't know what to
1225. 01:25:38 Like what do I write on this outline to act on? I don't know. So no I don't
1226. 01:25:43 Did you figure this out? I don't have any either and I think that's okay
1227. 01:25:48 They were pretty upfront at the beginning when they said that these are some mental models that can help you make
1228. 01:25:55 Better decisions see things right
1229. 01:25:57 Think about things more completely, but it's up to you to figure out when to use them and where I really appreciated that
1230. 01:26:03 And I think that sets the tone for the book itself
1231. 01:26:08 And it's very very different than a lot of the books that we read which I mean in the productivity space specifically
1232. 01:26:16 There's a lot of emphasis on like action items and doing something with the information that you've read
1233. 01:26:21 And there's reason for that because an idea is kind of worthless until you act on it
1234. 01:26:27 but
1235. 01:26:29 The that's very contradictory to the whole objective of this book
1236. 01:26:33 So I don't think it's really set up for any sort of action items
1237. 01:26:37 Sure, I suppose you could have one if there is one of these mental models that you're just like totally blown away by
1238. 01:26:45 Because it's the first time you've heard it and you're like, I'm gonna apply that in this situation
1239. 01:26:50 I don't have any of those situations that come to mind like oh, I need to
1240. 01:26:53 Apply this socratic thinking process in this particular scenario
1241. 01:26:58 This is all kind of just like nice no information that I can apply when I need it
1242. 01:27:02 But that's why they wrote the book in the first place. So I don't feel bad doing that
1243. 01:27:06 Right
1244. 01:27:07 That's kind of what I was thinking is like if you had a big decision you were trying to make or a big problem you're trying to solve
1245. 01:27:13 I could see you taking an action of I'm going to apply
1246. 01:27:16 X mental model
1247. 01:27:19 To this situation to try to understand it better so I can have a better answer on the other end
1248. 01:27:24 Like I could see that yep, but that's really the only place I think an action item would come
1249. 01:27:29 Otherwise, it's just kind of reference and that's completely within the author's original intent in my opinion going back to how to read a book by mortimer abler
1250. 01:27:38 Yep
1251. 01:27:38 So style and rating I mentioned at the beginning. I love the style of this book
1252. 01:27:44 I cannot wait to read the rest of them
1253. 01:27:47 And that's because it's really just
1254. 01:27:51 presenting some information on a lot of concepts that I had known already as I get into the other volumes and the science and the math
1255. 01:27:58 I guarantee I'm going to run into stuff that I don't know anything about or I learned it
1256. 01:28:02 maybe when in high school or college, but completely forgot about it and
1257. 01:28:07 What I like about this is that they present these models and they present them in a way where it's like, okay
1258. 01:28:12 so here's the principle and
1259. 01:28:14 You can probably figure out how to use this in a lot of different arenas
1260. 01:28:18 So like the science and the math ones in volume two for example
1261. 01:28:21 You're not just going to be using those models and science and math and that's really where the value of the models comes from I think
1262. 01:28:27 Is figuring out new arenas to use these in in an accurate way?
1263. 01:28:33 Now you may try something and it's not the right model for the right situation and so you recognize
1264. 01:28:37 Well, that wasn't the very great very great decision and I'm not going to use that one that way in the future
1265. 01:28:43 But this is kind of like a ongoing journey of figuring out when and where to use these
1266. 01:28:50 But that being said like these models themselves are awesome
1267. 01:28:56 They start the whole models section by talking about charlie mungar or worn buffets
1268. 01:29:01 buddy who
1269. 01:29:03 Really is talking about the value of these things and how it helps him make right decisions
1270. 01:29:07 And when you think about some of those really really smart people where you're like, how do they make those decisions?
1271. 01:29:13 How do they do what they do?
1272. 01:29:15 And maybe they're oversimplifying it in this book, but they're basically saying well
1273. 01:29:19 They've got these these awesome models to make these decisions by I
1274. 01:29:23 I can see that and I believe that and so I I kind of view in terms of
1275. 01:29:28 mental ammunition
1276. 01:29:32 For lack of a better term things that you can use to improve your situation
1277. 01:29:37 There is so much value to be had from this book and the way that they present it is really really great
1278. 01:29:43 The stories I think are are really good. It's a very interesting
1279. 01:29:47 book in terms of
1280. 01:29:50 the visual presentation
1281. 01:29:52 lots of
1282. 01:29:53 color photos lots of like pictures of historical and
1283. 01:29:58 artifacts and things like they tell a lot of
1284. 01:30:01 Stories about how these things have been applied historically and then like the visuals kind of make it more real
1285. 01:30:08 It's not overly done, but it's done really well
1286. 01:30:12 And it's a very easy read I feel the book itself is absolutely beautiful
1287. 01:30:18 It's got this cloth cover. It's kind of like the discipline equals freedom book by jocko willink that we read
1288. 01:30:23 As long as it's not printed upside down and backwards
1289. 01:30:28 But I would recommend this I would recommend this to anybody that the thing about this is that they give you enough
1290. 01:30:34 I think for these mental models for you to understand them and start applying them right away
1291. 01:30:38 Without having to go into all of the details like I already mentioned daniel conneman thinking fast and slow probabilistic thinking
1292. 01:30:46 If you really want to dive into that particular model
1293. 01:30:49 There's 400 something pages in that book to scratch that itch for you
1294. 01:30:54 But I don't really care for all that that detail. I want to know like how it works the 80 20
1295. 01:31:00 Maybe that's another mental model for another book. I don't know
1296. 01:31:03 But I feel like they do a really good job of delivering just that
1297. 01:31:06 So I think this book is a five star book
1298. 01:31:11 Maybe you go through this and you're like I already know all this stuff already
1299. 01:31:16 but
1300. 01:31:18 If anybody was going to do that I feel like you and I are pretty good candidates for falling into that category because we've read
1301. 01:31:24 So many books that have spoken to these specific topics and yet I didn't find myself
1302. 01:31:27 Thinking at any point. Oh, I already know this
1303. 01:31:30 They present the information in a way where it feels fresh
1304. 01:31:35 It feels easy to understand. It doesn't feel overly academic like over your head
1305. 01:31:41 But it also doesn't feel dumb down and stupefied. I mean you're thinking about ways that you think this is a kind of complex topic
1306. 01:31:49 But they do it in a way where it's very very approachable and I think there's value for anybody who would want to read this book
1307. 01:31:55 So well done five stars can't wait to read the next one
1308. 01:32:00 nice
1309. 01:32:02 Well, I will echo some of your thoughts like the book is just top notch as far as style of
1310. 01:32:08 printing as long as it's printed correctly
1311. 01:32:11 And like they have these little red card type
1312. 01:32:16 dividers for each of the new chapters, which makes it very easy to find
1313. 01:32:21 The next one, which is really kind of cool. I don't think I've run across a book that has a different size page
1314. 01:32:27 That's a more of a card stock inside of it. That's not meant to be torn out
1315. 01:32:32 That's just kind of a unique thing. So I love the printing on it
1316. 01:32:35 I get that it was originally an ebook and that's kind of the way that most people would have access to it
1317. 01:32:42 I like that they went ahead and did the reprinting of the hardback though. Definitely a fan of having the printed version of that
1318. 01:32:48 um
1319. 01:32:50 I will say that going through this list of
1320. 01:32:54 mental models
1321. 01:32:56 Like I'm familiar with circle of competence. I've heard that one before friends first principles thinking actually studied that one to some degree thought
1322. 01:33:03 Experiments second order thinking probabilistic thinking aakam's razor hand lens razor. Those are all ones that I have
1323. 01:33:11 explored
1324. 01:33:12 used been aware of
1325. 01:33:14 before the inversion principle and the map is not the territory those two were
1326. 01:33:20 I wouldn't say they were groundbreaking to me, but they were
1327. 01:33:24 Definitely refreshing to have added to this list. It's kind of cool to see this whole list
1328. 01:33:29 And work through it like you were saying we've read how many books about things around this now
1329. 01:33:36 that you would think
1330. 01:33:38 that even though like i've
1331. 01:33:41 gone through seven of the nine here and
1332. 01:33:44 yet this was
1333. 01:33:47 As if I was learning about it the first time like it was very the way it's written and the way it's explained is very unique
1334. 01:33:54 Even if you understand what aakam's razor is you're still going to pick up a lot from
1335. 01:33:59 From reading this if you're very familiar with how first principles thinking works
1336. 01:34:04 You're still going to get some value from
1337. 01:34:08 From going through this and it's written again very well like you were saying it's easy to read
1338. 01:34:12 So I I appreciate that I didn't feel like I was
1339. 01:34:15 dredging along
1340. 01:34:18 Through this one trying to get through it and just hoping to be done
1341. 01:34:21 No, it was it was an easy read it was an entertaining read too because of the stories involved
1342. 01:34:26 Uh and the explanations of those i'll join you at five oh
1343. 01:34:29 I think it it fits that
1344. 01:34:32 Even though we don't have an action items from them and I know that that's a thing that we generally would require
1345. 01:34:38 When we get up in the four fives and five ohs like that's generally something like it has to impact us enough to make us want to do something
1346. 01:34:44 I get that it doesn't really fit that but at the same time
1347. 01:34:48 I know for a fact that this is going to change the way that I
1348. 01:34:54 view so many things already has so
1349. 01:34:57 Very grateful for having read this highly recommend it. I don't know when i'm going to read the next ones
1350. 01:35:04 But I need to at some point because this was this was top notch
1351. 01:35:08 So very grateful for having gone through this so good choice mic
1352. 01:35:12 Good choice martin mcgowan who originally recommended this in the bookworm club many moons ago when the hardcover was not available
1353. 01:35:21 Sure
1354. 01:35:23 Good job. So all right. So we'll put great mental models on the shelf
1355. 01:35:27 What's next?
1356. 01:35:29 We're going to dive into one of these mental models a little more. I think
1357. 01:35:34 By going through thinking and bets by annie duke
1358. 01:35:37 I know that she has a follow up on this if I understand things correctly that follow up is more of a workbook type
1359. 01:35:45 scenario it's similar to
1360. 01:35:48 Willinks
1361. 01:35:50 Discipline equals freedom where it's more of a handbook a manual of sorts to implement
1362. 01:35:54 So it's if I understand it right that's what the newest one is that recently came out
1363. 01:35:59 So I kind of want to go through this one
1364. 01:36:02 Have some thoughts on what we maybe could do with the next one, but I've not had a chance to talk through that with mic
1365. 01:36:07 So i'm not going to say anything. So
1366. 01:36:09 Thinking in bets by annie duke, that's the one that we're going to cover next time
1367. 01:36:13 All right
1368. 01:36:15 And then and when we went through the organized writer
1369. 01:36:19 We kind of glossed over the whole email section
1370. 01:36:22 You made a comment though about
1371. 01:36:25 making tasks out of emails
1372. 01:36:30 And I feel like now is the perfect time to revisit the topic because our
1373. 01:36:37 Our buddy cal newport has a new book out. I say buddy because he's an aspirational buddy
1374. 01:36:44 I would love to we've done everything. Yes written except one
1375. 01:36:47 I think big fan of cal newport, but he's got a book coming out a world without email
1376. 01:36:51 Which is being released as we record this it's going to be released march 2nd amazon says
1377. 01:36:56 So that will give us a little bit of time before we have to record it
1378. 01:36:59 But uh, I have been looking forward to this book
1379. 01:37:03 I know some people who got advanced copies of the book of this book and they said it's very good
1380. 01:37:06 I'm approaching this one as a skeptic. Yeah, I figured you might be
1381. 01:37:11 If there's one book where joe's going to disagree with cal newport it may be this one this might be it
1382. 01:37:18 It's true
1383. 01:37:21 So true
1384. 01:37:23 Generally, I love his stuff. So I've been very hesitant on this one
1385. 01:37:26 From the day I heard about it. It's like oh no, he went there
1386. 01:37:30 Yep, which you knew he was going to after digital minimal is that some point? Yeah, it's true
1387. 01:37:36 All right thinking abets a world without email
1388. 01:37:39 You doing anything in the meantime? I am not how about you? I am not either
1389. 01:37:45 All right life it happens. It does happen
1390. 01:37:51 I have a sabbatical coming up. So maybe I will crank through a book during sabbatical and i'll share that next time
1391. 01:37:58 But no promises. I may just be recreating text files inside of obsidian instead
1392. 01:38:03 Sure, all right. So thank you everybody for listening
1393. 01:38:10 Thank you specifically to our paying bookworm club premium members
1394. 01:38:14 If you want to support the show you can do that by tapping on little icon inside of overcast or by going
1395. 01:38:21 to
1396. 01:38:22 club.bookworm.fm/membership
1397. 01:38:25 Or just bookworm.fm/membership
1398. 01:38:27 There are a couple perks that you get if you decide to support the show, but really
1399. 01:38:31 It just means a lot to joe and myself. It helps us keep the lights on
1400. 01:38:35 Pay for the hosting things like that. So thank you to everybody who was willing to
1401. 01:38:39 Throw some money our way in order to keep the show going means a lot to us
1402. 01:38:44 Huge thanks to you you folks
1403. 01:38:46 We certainly couldn't do this
1404. 01:38:49 Without all the support that you guys give us so super grateful for everyone who's chosen to to join that membership
1405. 01:38:56 so
1406. 01:38:57 For those of you who are
1407. 01:38:58 Watching us live. Thank you for doing that if you're interested in doing that in the future bookworm.fm/live
1408. 01:39:04 We'll take you where you need to be
1409. 01:39:06 And uh, if you're reading along with us thinking in bets by any duke
1410. 01:39:10 And we'll review that one in a couple weeks