Latticework

“You’ve got to have models in your head and you’ve got to array you experience – both vicarious and direct – onto this latticework of mental models….fortunately, it isn’t that tough—because eighty or ninety important models will carry about 90% of the freight in making you a worldly wise person. And, of those, only a mere handful really carry very heavy freight.” Charlie Munger.

The brain is a factory, not a warehouse. I have just enough room for a few pieces of wisdom. Here they are…

Build or Buy

Build gets customization, takes long, incurs debt. Buy is presets, fast, and replaceable. Think carefully when selecting.

Burn Dirty or Burn Clean Fuel

Run away from something you don't want to be (dirty) or towards something you want to be (clean)

Constraint Theory in the Value Chain to Find Leverage

Identify the system's bottleneck and exploit it

Dee Hock's Wisdom Funnel

Noise —> Data —> Information —> Knowledge —> Understanding —> Wisdom

Spend less time at the top of the funnel trying to accumulate data and information and more time converting understanding to wisdom

Focus on the Fundamentals

Do the basics excellently

Grey Thinking / Third Way

Avoid the binary, find the answer in the middle

In Media Res

Just get started, rip the bandaid off, and do it now

Invert, Always Invert

What does it look like to do X wrong? Now avoid that at all costs

Just in Time or Just in Case

Adapt or plan ahead

LIFO (Lindy Effect) or FIFO (Hacker News Syndrome)

Idea lasts as long as it's been around vs chasing a shiny object.

Path Dependency

Past events or decisions constrain later events. One ways doors.

Race your Strengths

Focus on what you're good at, don't try to become well-rounded and work on weaknesses

Right Person Right Seat

Does this person match your values and do they Get It, Want It, and have Capacity to do it

Run the Simulation

Think it through in detail, scenario plan

Strategic. Operational. Tactical.

Strategic - the why. Operational - the how. Tactical - the what.

What's Not Being Said

Say the thing, the taboo thing, that no one else wants to say but everyone is thinking