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Is your mind running on outdated mental models?
My father always uses to say: “You have to pay attention to your surroundings!”
As a kid and teenager, I found this phrase absolutely annoying because most of the time he would drop it after I wasn’t paying attention and when this behavior would result in a negative outcome such as losing a toy, spilling a cup of coffee, or stepping into dog poo on the street.
In later years, however, I realized that he was actually using a mental model and that he was trying to install it into my brain.
The writer Julian Shapiro wrote that “Mental Models are to your brain as apps are to your smartphone.”
Your brain is a supercomputer, but it needs good software to run at full capacity.
Mental models are pieces of software that attempt to improve your perception of reality. They simplify decisions and drive better outcomes.
Good mental software can drastically improve your life experience. But it’s a double-edged sword because conversely bad mental software can dramatically worsen your life. They can — like badly coded software — slow down or harm your system. Worse, some of them could even be classified as viruses for your mind.
Moreover, like every other tool, mental models can be very useful in some situations, but in…
