Think Like a Freak

All we've done is encourage you to think a bit differently, a bit harder, a bit more freely.

Concrete costs are usually easy to calculate, but opportunity cost is harder.Quitting is at the very core of thinking like a freak.

It is tempting to believe that once you're invested heavily in something, it is counter-productive to quit.

In your most honest moments, it's easy to see that things aren't working out.

Pre-conceptions lead us to rule out a huge set of possible solutions.

Because kids know so little, they don't carry around the preconceptions that often stop people from seeing things as they are.

When it comes to generating ideas and asking questions, it can be really fruitful to have the mentality of an 8-year-old.

But when you are dealing with root causes, at least you know you are fighting the real problem and not just boxing with shadows.

It takes a truly original thinker to look at a problem that everyone else has already looked at and find a new avenue of attack.

Before spending all your time and resources, it's incredibly important to properly define the problem or, better yet, redefine the problem.

Whatever problem you're trying to solve, make sure you're not just attacking the noisy part of the problem that happens to capture your attention.

We tend to pay attention to what other people say and, if their views resonate with us, we slide our perception atop theirs.

If it takes a lot of courage to admit you don't know all the answers, just imagine how hard it is to admit you don't even know the right question.

When you are consumed with the rightness or wrongness of a given issue, it's easy to lose track of what the issue actually is.

It costs almost nothing to pretend you know what will happen in the future.

A huge payoff awaits anyone who makes a big and bold prediction that happens to come true.

In most cases, the cost of saying "I don't know" is higher than the cost of being wrong; at least for the individual.

Incentives can also explain why so many people are willing to predict the future.

None of us want to look stupid, or at least overmatched, by admitting we don't know an answer.

Every time we pretend to know something, we are protecting our own reputation rather than promoting the collective good.

With complex issues, it can be ridiculously hard to pin a particular cause on a given effect.

Everyone's entitled to their own opinion but not to their own facts.

It’s time to bury the idea that there's a right way and a wrong way.

So, rather than trying and probably failing to answer most of the hard questions, it might be better for everyone to learn to think differently.

If a given problem still exists, you can bet that a lot of people have already come along and failed to solve it.