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!