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How to Train Your Brain to Think in New Ways

Liquefy all your Knowledge

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Develop "liquid knowledge" that flows easily from one topic to the next.

Instead of separating knowledge into different sections, isolating it, we are better off expanding, merging and liquefying the knowledge.

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How to Think

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I wrote a response on quora recently to the question 'how do I become a better thinker' that generated a lot of attention and feedback so I thought I'd build on that a little and post it here too. Thinking is not IQ.

Key Ideas

Thinking is not IQ

We often make the mistake of thinking that people with high IQs think better. But it's not true. That's not the type of knowledge or brainpower that makes you better at life, happier, or more succe...

Principles for seeking wisdom

Go to bed smarter than when you woke up.
"I’m not smart enough to figure everything out myself, so I want to master the best of what other people have already figured out."

If you want to think better...

Become better at probing other people’s thinking. Ask questions. Simple ones are better. “Why” is the best.
Slow down. Make sure you give yourself time to think.
Probe yourself. Try and understand if you’re talking about something you really know something about or if you’re just regurgitating something you heard.

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How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes

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When it comes to using our minds, we all want to learn how to think like Sherlock Holmes. This isn't just a way of solving a crime. It's a way of thinking. Maria Konnikova's book, Mastermind: How To Think Like Sherlock Holmes, takes a deep look at Sherlock Holmes's methodology to develop the habits of mind that will allow us to mindfully engage the world.

Key Ideas

Think like Sherlock Holmes

“What Sherlock Holmes offers isn’t just a way of solving a crime. It is an entire way of thinking."

"Holmes provides... an education in improving our faculty of mindful thought...

Engagement

As children, we are remarkably aware to the world around us. This attention wanes over time as we allow more pressing responsibilities to attend to and demands on our minds to address. And as the demands on our attention increase so, too, does our actual attention decrease.

As it does so, we become less and less able to know or notice our own thought habits and more and more allow our minds to dictate our judgments and decisions, instead of the other way around.

Pitfalls of the Untrained Brain

Daniel Kahneman believes there are two systems for organizing and filtering knowledge:

System one is real-time. This system makes judgments and decisions before our mental apparatus can consciously catch up.
System two, on the other hand, is a slow process of thinking based on critical examination of evidence. Konnikova refers to these as System Watson and System Holmes.

To move from a System Watson- to a System Holmes-governed thinking takes mindfulness plus motivation.

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Using Models to Stay Calm in Charged Situations

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When polarizing topics are discussed in meetings, passions can run high and cloud our judgment. Learn how mental models can help you see clearly from this real-life scenario. *** Mental models can sometimes come off as an abstract concept. They are, however, actual tools you can use to navigate through challenging or confusing situations.

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A Meeting With Conflict

When polarizing topics are discussed in meetings, it can turn into a fight. In these conflicts, where passions run high, people tend to confuse correlation with causation while determining the rea...

Hanlon's Razor

This mental model states that most actions made by people need not be categorized as malicious or intentionally bad, but simply a sign of incompetence and acting out of fear.

Many poor decisions and actions are not intentional but due to ineptitude. By following this mental model, we untie ourselves from unnecessary negativity and work towards a solution.

Relativity

The mental model of relativity states that everyone's outlook, viewpoint and perspective are different from ours.

The same situation is looked in different ways by people, and understanding these variations can help us toward a meaningful dialogue with them. We can diffuse any inherent conflict by hearing out and identifying what we understand, making the other person feel listened to.

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