A Few Special Updates And 10 Mental Models To Maximize Your Cognitive Potential
Alex Brogan
Three years ago, Alex Brogan was publishing a newsletter called "Mental Models, Concepts, and Frameworks" to a modest audience. By November 2022, he had built enough momentum to rebrand entirely — and launch a curated talent marketplace targeting companies like Figma and Stripe. The rebrand wasn't cosmetic. It was strategic repositioning around a more ambitious thesis: that exceptional performance stems from systematic thinking, not innate talent.
The new name, "A Players," captured something specific. Not the top 10% by accident, but the top 10% by design — people who approach improvement as a deliberate practice. The newsletter's core insight remained unchanged: mental models are the infrastructure of better decision-making. But Brogan expanded the mandate to include anything that elevates cognitive performance.
Mental Models as Competitive Advantage
The ten models Brogan selected aren't academic exercises. They're operational tools used by top performers across domains. Consider the fundamental distinction between systems and goals — James Clear's formulation that "goals determine your direction, systems determine your progress."
Most people optimize for the wrong variable. They set ambitious targets (write a book, lose 20 pounds, build a $10M company) but neglect the daily processes that compound toward those outcomes. The system is writing for one hour daily. The goal is publishing a book. One is under your control; the other isn't.
This connects to effectiveness versus efficiency. Peter Drucker's insight holds: there's nothing more wasteful than doing the wrong thing efficiently. Yet most productivity advice focuses on efficiency — better time management, faster execution, optimized workflows. Effectiveness asks a different question: Are you solving the right problem?
The sequence matters. Effectiveness first, then efficiency. You can't optimize your way out of a strategic error.
The Psychology of Perception and Performance
Several models address how cognitive biases distort decision-making. The Curse of Knowledge explains why experts struggle to teach beginners — once you understand something deeply, you forget what it's like not to know it. This isn't just an educational problem. It's a leadership problem.
Founders who've internalized complex business concepts often communicate past their teams. Product managers who understand user behavior assume customers will intuit their design choices. The best operators maintain beginner's mind — they can shift between expert execution and novice explanation.
Selective Perception operates differently but creates similar blind spots. Ray Dalio's formula — "Pain + Reflection = Progress" — acknowledges that we instinctively avoid information that contradicts our beliefs or threatens our ego. The most dangerous business problems are often the ones hiding in plain sight, filtered out by psychological defense mechanisms.
The Fundamental Attribution Error compounds this issue. When you're running on three hours of sleep and miss a deadline, you know it's situational. When your colleague does the same, you assume it's character. This asymmetry destroys team dynamics and prevents accurate problem diagnosis.
Strategic Thinking in Competitive Environments
The Zero-Sum Heuristic represents a profound shift in how high performers approach competition. Most people default to zero-sum thinking — if you win, I must lose. But the highest-value opportunities are typically positive-sum. Network effects, platform dynamics, and collaborative advantages all benefit multiple parties simultaneously.
Venture capital operates on this principle. The best investors don't just provide capital; they connect portfolio companies, share operational insights, and create ecosystem effects. Everyone benefits when the network strengthens.
The Approval Paradox reveals a related dynamic. Seeking validation signals insecurity, which repels the very approval you're seeking. Lao Tzu's insight — "When you're content to simply be yourself and not compare or compete, everyone will respect you" — isn't mystical. It's practical. Authenticity attracts alignment.
Time, Risk, and Decision Architecture
Time-Saving Bias shows how intuition fails at scale and speed calculations. Driving 80 mph instead of 70 mph on a 10-mile trip saves roughly 90 seconds. But the cognitive overhead of aggressive driving — stress, attention, risk assessment — costs far more than 90 seconds of productivity.
This extends to business decisions. Rushing a product launch by two weeks might seem valuable, but if it compromises quality or team morale, the true cost exceeds the apparent time savings.
The Gambler's Fallacy addresses probability assessment. Past results don't influence independent future events, yet our pattern-recognition systems insist they do. Nine losses don't make the tenth attempt more likely to succeed. Nine wins don't guarantee the tenth will fail.
This applies beyond literal gambling. Investment decisions, hiring choices, and strategic pivots all involve independent probabilities that we incorrectly chain together.
The Moment acknowledges temporal decision-making. We exist as multiple selves across time — present and future versions with different needs and preferences. Optimizing only for immediate happiness often compromises long-term satisfaction. The inverse also holds: sacrificing all present enjoyment for future benefits can leave you with neither.
The best operators balance these tensions consciously. They invest in future capability while maintaining present performance. They build systems that serve both current efficiency and future optionality.
These mental models work because they address systematic errors in human cognition. They don't require exceptional intelligence or extensive training. They require recognition — seeing the patterns that trip up even sophisticated thinkers.
The rebranding from "Mental Models" to "A Players" wasn't just marketing evolution. It reflected a deeper insight: tools matter less than the mindset that uses them. The top 10% aren't defined by what they know, but by how they think. Mental models are simply the infrastructure that makes better thinking systematic rather than accidental.