# The Great Mental Models Volume 1 ## Metadata * Author: [Shane Parrish and Rhiannon Beaubien](https://www.amazon.comundefined) * ASIN: B07P79P8ST * Reference: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07P79P8ST * [Kindle link](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B07P79P8ST) ## Highlights In life and business, the person with the fewest blind spots wins. Removing blind spots means we see, interact with, and move closer to understanding reality. We think better. And thinking better is about finding simple processes that help us work through problems from multiple dimensions and perspectives, allowing us to better choose solutions that fit what matters to us. The skill for finding the right solutions for the right problems is one form of wisdom. — location: [99](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B07P79P8ST&location=99) ^ref-7001 --- When understanding is separated from reality, we lose our powers. Understanding must constantly be tested against reality and updated accordingly. This isn’t a box we can tick, a task with a definite beginning and end, but a continuous process. — location: [155](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B07P79P8ST&location=155) ^ref-38123 --- Our failures to update from interacting with reality spring primarily from three things: not having the right perspective or vantage point, ego-induced denial, and distance from the consequences of our decisions. — location: [166](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B07P79P8ST&location=166) ^ref-31889 --- The first flaw is perspective. We have a hard time seeing any system that we are in. Galileo — location: [169](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B07P79P8ST&location=169) ^ref-35142 --- The second flaw is ego. Many of us tend to have too much invested in our opinions of ourselves to see the world’s feedback—the feedback we need to update our beliefs about reality. — location: [179](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B07P79P8ST&location=179) ^ref-21272 --- The third flaw is distance. The further we are from the results of our decisions, the easier it is to keep our current views rather than update them. — location: [184](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B07P79P8ST&location=184) ^ref-38007 --- We also tend to undervalue the elementary ideas and overvalue the complicated ones. — location: [199](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B07P79P8ST&location=199) ^ref-11557 --- For a long time people believed that bloodletting cured many different illnesses. This mistaken belief actually led doctors to contribute to the deaths of many of their patients. When we use flawed models we are more likely to misunderstand the situation, the variables that matter, and the cause and effect relationships between them. Because of such misunderstandings we often take suboptimal actions, like draining so much blood out of patients that they die from it. — location: [257](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B07P79P8ST&location=257) ^ref-36483 ---