Sep 21, 2026 · 40 min · 13 segments
Winners never quit. Clear the inbox. Outwork everyone. You've followed rules like these for years without checking them. Charlie Munger kept a latticework of mental models so he'd make better…
Jay PapasanHost
A long time ago, I stumbled upon Charlie Munger, this Warren Buffett's partner at Berkshire Hathaway.
And he talked about, and this was one of the first times that they shared, how much of their investing acumen came from just reading books.
He and Warren Buffett were a collector of frameworks on how people behave and how they think.
And they believed if they had these frameworks, these models for how we approach problems and challenges and our own biases, they could make better decisions for their investors, hopefully better than their competitors over time.
And that weird latticework, I can't remember how many were in there, but it was from every discipline, science, biology, you name it.
And so I learned some from there and I eventually looked up and I thought, you know what, maybe I should start writing these down, not just his, but what are the things that I kind of believe to be true as a business person, as a father, as an investor, so that I'm a lot less likely to keep repeating the same mistakes.
And when I find myself in that situation where, wait, I've thought about this before.
What did I decide last time? I can go quickly search it and think about things a little bit more deeply because I'm logging in to my past self who just made a horrible mistake and then wrote down my learning from it.
And so that's my hope for you by the end of this is that maybe you'll write down your own mental models, create your own little list.
What are the things that are true for me as a business person, as a parent, as a spouse, whatever the categories that are important to you.
Some of them are kind of big thinking, some of them are contrarian thinking, and some of them are pretty conventional, but the truth that we just need to be reminded of My encouragement to you is don't treat them as commandments for you.
Ask the question, do I agree with Jay? Do I not agree with him? Why? And then that becomes your ground truth.
The ones that make you angry or you're like, no frigging way are probably the ones that you need to think about.
Because when we are anchored in a truth that may not be true is when we are most likely to do ourselves some harm.
I think a few of these will actually may even be controversial because my take is not the conventional take.
A long time ago, I stumbled upon Charlie Munger, this Warren Buffett's partner at Berkshire Hathaway.
And he talked about, and this was one of the first times that they shared, how much of their investing acumen came from just reading books.
He and Warren Buffett were a collector of frameworks on how people behave and how they think.
And they believed if they had these frameworks, these models for how we approach problems and challenges and our own biases, they could make better decisions for their investors, hopefully better than their competitors over time.
And that weird latticework, I can't remember how many were in there, but it was from every discipline, science, biology, you name it.
And so I learned some from there and I eventually looked up and I thought, you know what, maybe I should start writing these down, not just his, but what are the things that I kind of believe to be true as a business person, as a father, as an investor, so that I'm a lot less likely to keep repeating the same mistakes.
And when I find myself in that situation where, wait, I've thought about this before.
What did I decide last time? I can go quickly search it and think about things a little bit more deeply because I'm logging in to my past self who just made a horrible mistake and then wrote down my learning from it.
And so that's my hope for you by the end of this is that maybe you'll write down your own mental models, create your own little list.
What are the things that are true for me as a business person, as a parent, as a spouse, whatever the categories that are important to you.
Some of them are kind of big thinking, some of them are contrarian thinking, and some of them are pretty conventional, but the truth that we just need to be reminded of My encouragement to you is don't treat them as commandments for you.
Ask the question, do I agree with Jay? Do I not agree with him? Why? And then that becomes your ground truth.
The ones that make you angry or you're like, no frigging way are probably the ones that you need to think about.
Because when we are anchored in a truth that may not be true is when we are most likely to do ourselves some harm.
I think a few of these will actually may even be controversial because my take is not the conventional take.
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