Ten Disciplines
A cross-disciplinary toolkit for a well-rounded mind.
31 posts · Thinking & Decisions
- 1
Mental Models: A Cross-Disciplinary Thinking Toolkit
A cross-disciplinary thinking toolkit of mental models from systems, economics, psychology, strategy and decision science. Learn to think clearly.
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Systems Thinking 101: Why Structure Drives Behavior
A plain-English guide to systems thinking: stocks, flows, feedback loops, and why structure drives behavior. Learn to fix root causes, not symptoms.
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Stocks, Flows, Feedback Loops: How Every System Works
Learn how stocks, flows, feedback loops, and delays drive every system around you, from your bank account to the climate, and why they fool almost everyone.
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Leverage Points: Where to Push to Actually Change a System
Most fixes fail because they push where the system barely moves. Learn the system traps and leverage points that decide where small effort creates real change.
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How Prices Secretly Carry Information (Economics 101)
Scarcity, opportunity cost, supply and demand, and how a price quietly carries information no single person knows. A plain-language guide to microeconomics.
- 6
How Markets Really Work (and the 4 Ways They Break)
Learn how markets coordinate strangers through prices and incentives, why free trade makes everyone richer, and the four predictable ways markets fail.
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Money, Inflation, and Interest Rates: How the Economy Works
Understand money, inflation, GDP, and interest rates in plain language. Learn the macroeconomics ideas that explain every news headline you read.
- 8
How Your Mind Really Works: Perception, Attention, Memory, and Fast vs. Slow Thinking
Your mind doesn't record reality, it builds it. Learn how perception, attention, memory, and fast vs. slow thinking shape every decision you make.
- 9
Cognitive Biases: Why Smart People Make Predictable Errors
Being smart does not protect you from thinking badly. Learn the cognitive biases behind predictable mental errors and the simple habits that catch them.
- 10
Why the Situation Beats Willpower Every Time
Motivation, emotion, personality, and social behavior decoded: why your situation drives you more than your character, and how to use it to change behavior.
- 11
How to Read Statistics Without Getting Fooled by the Numbers
Learn to read statistics like a pro. Understand mean vs median, standard deviation, outliers, and chart tricks so numbers never mislead you again.
- 12
Bayesian Thinking: How to Update Your Beliefs With Evidence
Learn Bayesian thinking, base rates, and probability the easy way. Discover why a positive medical test can still mean you're probably fine, and decide smarter.
- 13
Correlation vs Causation: How Statistics Quietly Mislead You
Learn how correlation vs causation, p-values, and chart tricks fool even experts, plus a simple checklist to read any statistic without being misled.
- 14
What Strategy Really Is: Moats, Trade-offs, and Winning
Most people use the word "strategy" wrong. Learn what business strategy really is: choice, trade-offs, and a moat rivals cannot copy. With clear examples.
- 15
Why Some Companies Stay Rich While Rivals Get Copied to Death
Learn how real business strategy actually works: industry forces, moats, value creation, and why simply being better than rivals is not a strategy at all.
- 16
Why Good Strategies Die on Monday Morning
Most strategies fail in execution, not on the whiteboard. Learn how execution, growth discipline, and capital allocation decide which strategies actually win.
- 17
Profit vs Cash Flow: How to Actually Read a Business
Learn the difference between profit and cash flow, and how the three financial statements connect, so you can read almost any business with confidence.
- 18
How Money Grows: Time, Risk, and How Investing Really Works
Learn the time value of money, risk versus return, and how compounding, bonds, stocks, and index funds work - the simple rules behind smart investing.
- 19
How to Value Anything: Cash, Time, and Risk Explained
Learn how to value any stock, bond, or business with one idea: how much cash, how soon, how certain. A plain-language guide to advanced finance that works.
- 20
How to Write Clearly: Get Your Idea Into the Reader's Head
Learn how to write clearly by writing for the reader, not yourself. Beat the curse of knowledge, cut clutter, lead with the answer, and edit ruthlessly.
- 21
How to Be Persuasive: Storytelling and Reading Your Audience
Learn how to be persuasive using ethos, pathos, logos, storytelling, and Cialdini's principles, so your ideas get believed, remembered, and acted on.
- 22
How to Persuade, Influence, and Win Hard Conversations
Learn how to persuade people who disagree, give feedback that helps, and stay calm in difficult conversations using proven persuasion and communication skills.
- 23
How Computers Actually Work: From Bits to AI, Explained
A plain-language tour of how computers and software actually work, from a single bit to programs, the internet, the cloud, and AI. No jargon needed.
- 24
What Happens When You Hit Enter? Modern Systems Explained
Trace exactly what happens when you load a web page: DNS, servers, databases, APIs, and the cloud. A plain-language guide to how modern systems are built.
- 25
How AI Actually Learns: ML, Neural Nets and LLMs Made Clear
A clear, no-jargon guide to how machine learning and large language models actually work, why they sound smart yet get things wrong, and how to use them well.
- 26
How to Read History Like a Detective (Not Memorize It)
History isn't a list of dates. Learn how to read history like a detective: weigh evidence, judge any source, and spot the thinking traps that fool smart people.
- 27
Forces That Shaped the Modern World: A Tour Through the Eras
A clear tour through the eras that built the modern world, from the first farmers to AI, and the thinking skills that turn dates into real understanding.
- 28
Does History Repeat? How to Actually Think Like a Historian
Does history repeat itself? Learn to think historically: sort causes, test them with counterfactuals, and spot the inevitability fallacy that fools everyone.
- 29
How to Make Good Decisions When You Can't Know the Outcome
Learn how to make good decisions under uncertainty: separate luck from skill, think in probabilities, and use simple tools that beat being clever every time.
- 30
Expected Value, Decision Trees, and How to Decide Under Uncertainty
Learn how expected value, decision trees, and mental models help you make smarter choices under uncertainty-plus why a good decision can still lose.
- 31
Game Theory, Bias-Proofing, and How to Judge Your Own Judgment
Learn how game theory, prospect theory, and a simple decision journal can bias-proof your judgment and help you make measurably better decisions for life.