#204: You make decisions on a daily basis about your career, family, friendships, health and investments; these choices shape your life. But how much have you thought about how to think? There are common threads and collective wisdom across disciplines. These common threads create mental models, which are frameworks for understanding the world. Mental models allow us to apply insights from a variety of unrelated fields, using reasoning by analogy to make better choices about our lives. For example: Critical mass is a concept from physics that can be applied to our understanding of microeconomics or entrepreneurship. The availability heuristic and filter bubble are concepts that we can use to check in with ourselves whenever we’re assessing risk in our businesses, careers or personal safety. Loss aversion and information aversion are notions that, when articulated, allow us to understand why we hesitate to learn more about investing during recessions. Mental models can make us better thinkers. Warren Buffett’s business partner, Charlie Munger, says he relies on mental models to evaluate businesses and make investing choices. What we know is that we’ll never be right. But mental models can help us become less wrong. On today’s episode, Gabriel Weinberg and Lauren McCann join us to discuss Super Thinking, their book about how to use mental models to improve the skill of thinking. Enjoy! For more information, visit the show notes at https://affordanything.com/episode204  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

#202: In 2006, Matt Kepnes worked at a hospital in Boston, and he felt miserable. He dreaded fighting traffic, spending his days under his offices’ fluorescent lighting, drinking stale coffee. He decided to take one year off -- a “gap year” -- thinking that after his sabbatical, he’d resume another 40 years of punching the clock. He worked 60-hour weeks in order to save money for his sabbatical year. He saved $30,000, then handed his boss a resignation letter. Matt traveled for 18 months, returned to Boston, and realized he had lost his willingness to punch the clock. He couldn’t sit still in an office any longer. He re-packed his bags, bought a one-way flight to who-knows-where, and reinvented himself as a travel writer known as Nomadic Matt. He lives on a budget of $18,250 per year, or $50 per day. In the last decade, his travel information website, NomadicMatt.com, has become one of the most popular travel blogs in the world, drawing millions of visitors. His writing has been featured in The New York Times, CNN, National Geographic Travel, and the BBC. He’s a New York Times bestselling author, and he’s traveled to more than 100 countries. In today’s episode, Matt and I discuss the art of slow travel. For more information, visit the show notes at https://affordanything.com/episode202 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices