Force Field Analysis: Make Big Changes Easier (With Examples)

What is Force Field Analysis Force Field Analysis is a strategic analysis and decision-making method developed by Kurt Lewin. In this article, you’ll find two personal examples to see how you can use Force Field Analysis in your life. Every decision requires a change. Think about it. If you decide to gain muscle; you have…

Steel-manning: How Better Arguments Can Make You Succeed

Steel-manning is a mental model where you strengthen opposing arguments to understand them better, so you can make the right decisions. Mike presented his project to Jane, the head of marketing. He had prepared for weeks for this presentation. User feedback, technical details, strategy… He had a solid plan for a new product. And he already had…

Association Bias & A Phony Paradise Of An Assassin Master

Association bias is when your mind takes the emotion you feel as a cue to build an opinion about a person, brand, or event. In this article, you’ll see how it becomes a fallacy with a story and how to avoid it. Imagine falling asleep and waking up in a garden. A garden full of beautiful women, musicians playing…

Nassim Taleb’s Optionality: Unlimited Gains With Limited Costs

Optionality is a mental model to make decisions that create possible unlimited gains with limited costs. Nassim Taleb explains the importance of optionality in his book Antifragile. In this article, you’ll find a short story to see how optionality works and then three ways to increase optionality in your life. Is it possible to turn…

Think Laterally: Apple’s Ad Masterpiece and How to Think “Different”

Lateral thinking is a mental model to find creative solutions to complex problems. In 1997, Steve Jobs returned to Apple to revive the company from the ashes. And they wanted a new campaign to announce Apple was back. Apple’s competitor IBM’s slogan was “Think.” So as a response, the ad agency came up with the famous…

Luck Surface Area: How to Get Lucky In Life (Without Being Rich)

Luck surface area is a mental model that explains it’s possible to increase your chances to get lucky in life. If there was a magic potion that makes people lucky, it would be expensive. But people would still buy it. After all, everybody wants to get lucky. Now, since we don’t have such a potion, are there other…

Thinking in Bets: How to Make Decisions Like a Poker Player

Thinking in bets is a decision-making framework developed by former professional poker player Annie Duke. In this article, you’ll find two real-life examples of how people —mistakenly— evaluate decisions based on their outcomes. Then, you’ll see why it’s wrong and how to take luck into consideration by thinking like a poker player. Bad decision, good…