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Mental model

Circle of Competence

Know the boundary of what you actually understand — and operate inside it.

Mental model

Compounding

Small gains that build on themselves grow slowly, then astonishingly fast.

Mental model

First-Principles Thinking

Break a problem down to what you know is true, then reason up from there.

Mental model

Inversion

Solve a problem by asking how to guarantee the opposite of what you want — then avoid that.

Mental model

Margin of Safety

Build in a buffer so that being wrong — and you will be — doesn't ruin you.

Mental model

Opportunity Cost

The true cost of any choice is the best alternative you gave up to make it.

Mental model

Second-Order Thinking

Ask "and then what?" — trace the consequences of your consequences before you act.

Mental model

The Map Is Not the Territory

Every model is a simplification of reality — useful, but never the thing itself.