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People, books, and breakthrough ideas—connected to the mental models and moves you can use.

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Cognitive Move

Guard

Gate outputs, bound authority to verified competence, protect access, plan recovery, and defend human development.

Mental Model

Guerrilla Warfare

The strategy of a weaker force using unconventional tactics—hit-and-run attacks, local knowledge, speed, and flexibility—to offset a stronger opponent's advantages in resources and conventional power

Mental Model

Guiding Structure

A heuristic for examining how an arrangement of resources, constraints, and relationships influences the path actions tend to follow.

Mental Model

Gut Microbiome as Second Brain

The gut microbiome—trillions of microorganisms inhabiting the digestive tract—functions as a quasi-independent organ system that profoundly influences brain function, immunity, metabolism, and mood through the gut-brain…

Mental Model

Gut-Brain Axis

The gut-brain axis describes bidirectional communication between the enteric nervous system (100 million neurons lining the gut) and the central nervous system, mediated through the vagus nerve, immune signaling, and mic…

Mental Model

Habit Loop Model (Duhigg)

Charles Duhigg's habit loop identifies three components: a cue (trigger initiating behavior), a routine (the behavior itself), and a reward (benefit reinforcing the loop)

Mental Model

Habit Scorecard

The Habit Scorecard is an awareness exercise developed by James Clear where you list every action you perform during a typical day—from the moment you wake up until you go to sleep—and rate each as positive (+), negative…

Mental Model

Habit Stacking (Clear)

Habit stacking creates chains of behaviors by using completion of one habit as the cue for the next

Mental Model

Habitus (Embodied Dispositions)

Bourdieu's concept that social conditioning becomes literally embodied—our posture, accent, tastes, mannerisms, and automatic responses reflect our social origins and training

Mental Model

Hacendado vs. Campesino Power Dynamics

The hacendado-campesino dynamic describes the persistent Latin American power structure where large landowners (hacendados) control entire social, economic, and political ecosystems, while laborers (campesinos) depend on…

Mental Model

Hacerse el Loco (Strategic Naivete)

Hacerse el loco ('playing crazy' or 'playing dumb') is the Latin American social strategy of feigning ignorance, incomprehension, or obliviousness to navigate power differentials, avoid unwanted obligations, or resist au…

Mental Model

Hail Mary Pass

A high-risk, low-probability strategy employed when conventional approaches have failed or are unavailable—named after the desperation football play

Mental Model

Half-life

Half-life is the time for a quantity to halve under specified decay conditions

Mental Model

Halo Effect

The cognitive bias where a positive impression in one domain creates a positive bias across ALL domains—and a negative impression in one domain contaminates all others

Cognitive Move

Handoff

Wire every transfer with a trigger, traveling state, required output, decision rights, check, failure path, and feedback.

Cognitive Move

Handoffs

Mark every point where the scarce thing changes hands, moving from one person, account, or stage to the next. Ownership transfers are where things stall or vanish because nobody on either side is watching the seam. Count how much passes through each one.

Mental Model

Hanlon's Razor

A heuristic encouraging consideration of error or situational explanations before treating a harmful outcome as proof of hostile intent

Mental Model

Hansei (Deep Reflection)

Hansei is the Japanese practice of sincere, sometimes painful self-reflection that acknowledges mistakes and shortcomings as the necessary foundation for genuine improvement

Mental Model

Harambee (Collective Effort and Self-Help)

Harambee, a Kiswahili word meaning 'let us all pull together,' is the East African tradition of communal self-help that became Kenya's national motto after independence in 1963

Cognitive Move

Hard constraints

The rules that stay fixed no matter how attractive breaking them looks. Sort every limit you listed and mark the ones that are genuinely non-negotiable, then leave them alone while you test which of the remaining limits can bend.

Cognitive Move

Hard exclusions and stakeholder vetoes

List the combinations that are disqualified outright, no matter how well they score elsewhere, and name who holds an absolute no. These are not dials you can trade against; one hit removes the option from consideration entirely.