Critical Thinking | The Mind Collection | How to Think for Yourself

Making Recommendations: 5+2 Principles for Effective Decision-Making Advice

An exploration of seven principles on making recommendations and how to avoid the age-old Cassandra problem.

An exploration of the intelligence cycle, an age-old mental model for analysts to turn raw data into knowledge. Here’s how anyone can use it.

A reflection on the Peter Principle, an explanation for incompetence in the workplace. There’s only one way to avoid falling into this trap.

Take the steelmanning challenge, a three-step method to win arguments whose only downside is that nobody will ever take it.

An exploration of Black Swans from the perspectives of an intelligence analyst, a master negotiator and former risk analyst Nassim Taleb.

A reflection on Joseph S. Nye’s concepts of hard and soft power in world politics. How can we use them to gauge our own influence?

A listicle of nine linguistic oddities. Brain teasers that bend the rules of language for our entertainment – or confusion?

Join me in revisiting Paul Graham’s Hierarchy of Disagreement. Can it help us survive Twitter? And is name-calling ever okay?

A case study featuring the analytical method of Deception Detection applied to Christopher Nolan’s ‘Interstellar’. Can we outsmart Matt Damon?

An exploration of how to say ‘No’ without feeling guilty. Would I be wrong to assume this is a superpower you’d love to have?

My take on the Dead Horse Theory, a classic management enigma. Can it only be solved with more ancient horse wisdom? No. But it’s worth a try.