Mental models.
Mistakes taught me these. Now they shape how I think, decide, and avoid repeating history.
Signal-Based Adaptive Orchestration
Most people either ask one AI and hope, or ask four and drown in opinions. This framework uses cognitive signals - not arbitrary rules - to know exactly when to scale.
Red Team Thinking
The practice of stress-testing strategies by adopting an adversarial mindset. Break it before they do. Everything will be misunderstood, misused, or attacked. Plan accordingly.
Second-Order Thinking
Always ask: "And then what?" Judge decisions by their downstream effects. First-order thinking stops at the obvious result. Second-order keeps pulling the thread.
Cascade Failure Thinking
Systems rarely fail in a straight line - they cascade. Identify the change point, map the web of dependencies, and trace how stress redistributes. Catch the disaster before the first domino falls.