Recommendations of things to read in that vein?

Books by Peter Bevelin (From Darwin to Munger etc.) or Rolf Dobelli are decent compilations. But mental models are everywhere. Taleb's books have a bunch. But start with what you have in front of you: pick one and actually apply it programmatically, then add to your repertoire one at a time.

The Wit and Wisdom of Charlie Munger is a good place to start.

Shane's mental models books are packed with a lot of random/disparate domains/insights -- He's a good aggregator there.

Thinking in Systems by Meadows.

Really, once you go down the rabbit hole, you find new threads to pull. That's kind of the fun of it