Linkedin Learning (formerly Lynda.com) offers more than 14,000 online courses that fall into three broad categories: business, creativity, and technology. Many of these courses are geared towards developing new, in demand skills, such as coding, marketing or web design. 

Whether your goal is to generate more business ideas, figure out how to get new ideas for your writing, or just have better ideas in general, the State Shift Technique works.

With that, let's dive right in and start with a story.

Discovery

In August of 1928, at St. Mary's Hospital, ​the celebrated medical researcher Alexander Fleming was working on a strictly academic problem.

His task was to identify and isolate different strains of the bacteria Staphylococcus Aureus. There was no promise of any groundbreaking discoveries or historical legacy. In fact, it was a rather straightforward process of cataloguing and classification. 

And so, Fleming did what any creative, respectable scientist would do when faced with a drawn-out stretch of work.

He went on vacation.

Mental models are essential for improved decision-making, clearer thinking, and a deeper understanding of reality. 

Having access to high-quality mental models can yield long-term success in business, academics,  and personal life. 

They are the tools that moguls like Warren Buffett, Elon Musk, and Peter Thiel have used to build their billion-dollar companies. 

Without further ado, let's dive right in and cover what mental models are, how they work, some key examples of mental models, as well as some further reading on the topic.

What are Mental Models?
9 Key Models
     1) First Principles Thinking
     2) Thought Experiments
     3) Diminishing Returns
     4) Process vs. Outcome
     5) Inversion
     6) Fixed vs. Growth Mindset
     7) Compounding 
     8) Iteration
     9) Skin in the Game/Incentives
​Further Reading