How to Think Fast Before You Speak: Framework Thinking

Why do some people always know what to say?  It seems like they’re never flustered—they can always answer questions on the fly.  I used to think it was due to a high IQ, but it turns out we can train  our brains to do the same.

Welcome back to my channel! I’m Vicki,  and today we’re talking about the one thing you can train your brain on  to think fast before you speak. In the last video, we talked about the one thing  you need to focus on when you’re under high pressure: steer, don’t follow.

In a nutshell,  this means that when someone is pressuring you or leading the conversation in an unexpected  direction, you want to take back control and steer the conversation towards what you  want to talk about, instead of just following their logic. If you want more details on that,  check out the link in the description below. Before you go, though, I want to address why  so many people struggle with steering the conversation.

It’s because they don’t know what to  steer towards. When you’re scrambling to think of a point or direction, it becomes much harder to  take control. Today, we’ll address exactly that.

The reason it’s so difficult for many of us  to steer a conversation is that we haven’t disciplined our minds to think in frameworks.  Frameworks are structures that help you organize your thoughts so you can quickly identify  the key factors that influence a result. It’s also helpful to reason from first  principles rather than by analogy.

Reasoning by analogy is easier, but reasoning from  first principles involves boiling things down to the most fundamental truths and building up from  there. For example, let’s look at revenue. Revenue equals the number of units sold multiplied  by the price.

This framework makes it clear that there are only two ways to influence revenue:  sell more units or increase the price—or both. So, whenever someone asks, “How can my company  make more money? ” the answer is simple: focus on the number of units, the price, or both. 

No matter how complex their question might seem, you can always bring it back to  these two levers. For instance, they might talk about strategic priorities or  marketing, but ultimately, it’s always about increasing units sold, increasing  the price, or both. Simple, right?

The goal of framework thinking is to build a  mental library of frameworks for the topics that matter to you. Pro tip: if you  can connect different frameworks, you’ll be able to provide even deeper insights. Here’s an example: we just talked about revenue. 

But what if someone wants to focus on profits? The framework for profit is simple too: profit  equals revenue minus cost. We’ve already discussed revenue, so let’s talk about costs.

Costs can be  broken down into marginal costs and fixed costs. If someone asks, “How can I increase my profits? ” you know where to start.

You can  either increase revenue or decrease costs. Then, you can dive deeper into each lever. For  revenue, you’ll look at units sold and price.

For costs, you’ll analyze whether savings can  come from fixed costs or marginal costs. By thinking this way, you can quickly  assess a situation and provide actionable insights. Consulting firms charge  hundreds of thousands—or even millions—of dollars for projects  based on frameworks like these.

As Charlie Munger once said: “You  can’t really know anything if you just remember isolated facts and try to bang them back. If the facts don’t hang together on a latticework  of theory, you don’t have them in a useful form. ” To think fast, you need to organize your  knowledge into frameworks.

This way, when you’re faced with a question or situation,  you can quickly reference the relevant structure. So, where can you find these frameworks?  They’re not really taught in school, but there are two ways to develop them: 1.

Create them yourself This isn’t as hard as it sounds. Let me explain using an example  from Apple. Apple teaches its employees with Picasso’s art of the bull.

Picasso started  by drawing detailed, realistic versions of a bull. But with each iteration, he stripped  away more detail, distilling the essence of the bull into just a few lines. This  represents the spirit of the beast.

We can do the same. By distilling what  we know down to its essence, we make it easier and faster to recall. Instead  of sorting through tons of information, we just reference one structure—a framework.

For example, I work in business storytelling,  and one framework I use often is ethos, pathos, logos—credibility, emotions, and logic. When  someone asks why their presentation isn’t compelling or why their marketing message  isn’t working, I immediately start there. I break it down into these three  levers to diagnose the issue.

By understanding the essence of different  topics and connecting frameworks, you can respond to a variety of  questions quickly and effectively. 2. Find hidden frameworks on the internet When you’re searching for information online,  keep in mind that many authors have already done the work of condensing ideas and identifying  key factors—but they don’t always call them “frameworks.

” Your job is to take that information  and structure it into a framework for yourself. Here’s an example: let’s say you’re  helping someone figure out how to make money doing what they love. You won’t find  an explicit framework for this on Google, but there is the Japanese concept of ikigai,  which breaks this down into four elements: What you love What you’re good at What you can be paid for What the world needs This makes it easy.

Whenever someone asks, “How  can I make money doing what I love? ” you can reference these four levers. The information  you provide might be surface-level unless you have deeper expertise, but at least you  have a framework to guide the conversation.

Final Thoughts Ultimately, building a library of frameworks is key to thinking fast and  responding confidently. As you expand your knowledge, these frameworks will guide you  toward the areas you need to explore further. If you’re interested in learning  more mental models or frameworks, let me know in the comments below.

I’d  love to share some of the ones I use daily. If you found this helpful,  please give it a thumbs up, subscribe if you haven’t already—it really helps  the channel—and I’ll see you in the next video!