Analysing your IQ
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We only see the winners and forget the countless failures, skewing our perception of success.
Survivorship Bias is a cognitive framework that changes how you see problems. Once you understand it, you'll notice opportunities to apply it everywhere.
Ask "Where are all the people who tried this and failed?" before emulating success stories.
Survivorship Bias works by providing a reliable heuristic for a common class of problems. Instead of reinventing decision-making each time, you apply a tested pattern.
Every dropout billionaire had millions of dropout failures you never heard of.
Use Survivorship Bias when facing complex decisions with multiple variables. It's especially powerful when conventional wisdom seems wrong or when you're operating in unfamiliar territory.
Over-applying: Not every problem benefits from this model. Match the tool to the situation.
Under-applying: People learn the model but don't practice it. Application takes repetition.
Misunderstanding the principle: Surface-level understanding leads to poor execution. Study the examples.
Ignoring context: The same model works differently in different domains. Adapt accordingly.
Identify a current decision you're facing. Write down the assumptions you're making. Challenge each one.
Look at a past failure. Apply Survivorship Bias retroactively—would it have changed the outcome?
Teach the model to someone else. If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.
Set a reminder to apply this model once per week for the next month. Track the results.
No single model handles every situation. Build a toolkit of complementary frameworks.
Mental models require specific cognitive traits to execute. Do you have the Intelligence for this?
We only see the winners and forget the countless failures, skewing our perception of success.
Ask "Where are all the people who tried this and failed?" before emulating success stories.
Every dropout billionaire had millions of dropout failures you never heard of.
Use Survivorship Bias when facing complex decisions in the reasoning domain, when conventional approaches aren't working, or when you need a structured framework for analysis.
Survivorship Bias is used by strategic thinkers, business leaders, and anyone who needs to make high-stakes decisions under uncertainty. It's particularly popular in investing, startups, and engineering.
Yes. Mental models are learnable skills, not innate talents. The key is deliberate practice—actively applying the model to real decisions, not just reading about it.