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4 Mental Frameworks to Get Almost Anything You Want in Life
These will change your approach to life.
In 1994, Jeff Bezos was 30, well paid, and on a clear upward track as a senior vice president at a New York hedge fund. He also wanted to sell books on the internet. He told his boss, David Shaw. Shaw suggested a walk in Central Park. It lasted roughly two hours. Shaw said it was a great idea, but a better one for someone who didn’t have such a good job. Leaving midyear also meant giving up his annual bonus. Bezos didn’t make a pros-and-cons list. He later described what he did as a “regret minimisation framework.” Picture yourself at eighty, looking back. Which choice would you regret? He knew he could live with trying and failing. He couldn’t live with never trying. That process helped him make a better choice.
Most people never put what they want through any kind of test. Mental models and life frameworks are essentially great decision filters for long-term games. Almost all of life is a game. And most people are playing it linearly. They try to out-effort their problems. You don’t get what you really want from life by pushing harder on the same linear lever. Sometimes you find and apply simple asymmetries. And by structuring your choices so your downside is capped, and your upside is basically as high as it can get. What you want is focused action…
