Why Rethinking is a Game Changer
“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything” ~ George Bernard Shaw
When people think about what it takes to be mentally fit, the first quality that comes to mind is intelligence. The smarter you are, the more complicated problems you can solve. Intelligence is considered the ability to think and learn and the faster you do it, determines your intelligence. However, in a fast-moving complex world, there is another set of qualities that are more important: the ability to rethink and unlearn.
Story
You probably might have heard this story — If you put a frog in a container of boiling water, it will immediately jump out of the container. But if you drop it in lukewarm water and then increase the water’s temperature slowly, it’ll be cooked to death.
Why won’t the frog jump out?
In the beginning the frog is only little uncomfortable so it tries to adjust and get accustomed to its environment thinking little change in temperature is normal. But once the temperature reaches a danger zone does the frog realises it has signed its own death warrant and has already lost its capacity to jump. This is because the frog lacks the ability to rethink its environment and doesn’t realises the problem until it’s too late.
Interesting?
If you do a little research, you will find that the above frog story is a fake. It turns out that if you throw a frog into boiling water, the following can happen.
- It will get badly burned for sure.
- It may or may not get out of the water.
But in warm water, frogs will immediately jump out of the container as soon as they feel uncomfortable. The problem is not with the frog, but with us. When we heard the story and accept it as true, we hardly bother to question it. Many people see virtue in staying true to their beliefs and having their opinions, but the more willing you are to change your mind after careful reasoning and NOT under pressure from friends or family, the better your chances are of getting ahead in any field. For example, in a study conducted by researchers, they counted the number of eraser marks on students on their exams. The result was that students with more eraser marks reviewed their answers first when taking the test, consistently scored higher than students who didn’t think back to their first answer.
Think of changing your mind is like upgrading your smartphone. You don’t want to be the one going around with a 15-year-old smartphone for obvious reasons. It is slow, easy to crash, and makes communication difficult with others.
Rethinking is not easy
Many of us fail to upgrade our opinions and way of thinking because we get stuck in an Overconfidence Cycle.
Overconfidence Cycle works like this — We form an opinion that feels right and be proud of it. We like feeling right so we seek information to support that opinion while discounting and dismissing information that doesn’t support our opinion. As a result we feel validated for holding the opinion which gives way to more pride and starts the cycle over again.
When you allow an overconfidence cycle to continue, you stop learning and stop listening to anyone that doesn’t support your opinion. Feeling right is more important than being right. And it’s not limited to a normal person, even brilliant minds get stuck in an overconfidence cycle. Einstein refused to support the emerging field of quantum mechanics despite the overwhelming evidence that supported it. What trapped Einstein and what traps other great minds in an overconfident cycle are three modes we all enter from time to time — preaching, prosecuting and politicking. As long as we are stuck in any of these three modes feeling right becomes more important than being right which hampers our learning.
Preaching
When you try to convince someone to adopt your belief, you’ll probably pretend to be 100% certain in your belief to be more persuasive. The more you preach that belief, the more certainty you develop and think that your belief is bulletproof. Example — The more someone preaches about a single type of investment like bitcoin, the more likely they are to dismiss concerning data that could jeopardise bitcoin.
Prosecuting
When we think someone's belief is wrong, we get busy building up a case against them and stop considering any valid points they have to say. If someone is busy bashing bitcoin and looking for reasons why bitcoin is a bad investment just to score points in a twitter battle, they'll ignore or discount good arguments for why bitcoin is a good investment and might miss a great opportunity to diversify their portfolio and protect their savings.
Politicking
Politicking is the act of adopting other people’s views because we want to be liked by them and accepted by them. While I was forming friends in my school days, I used to laugh at some of the stupid things that they used to say just so I won’t be alone eating my tiffin. This led me to take beliefs and hold opinions that they had without giving it a second thought.
Adam Grant says — When we become so wrapped up in preaching that we are right, prosecuting others who are wrong and politicking for support, we don’t bother to rethink our own views and we get trapped in an overconfidence cycle. To get ourselves out of an overconfident cycle we need to think like a scientist. When world-renowned scientist Daniel Kahneman was asked how he reacts when people find flaws in his research, Danny’s eyes lit up and he says — It’s wonderful! I get a chance to be less wrong.
How scientists think?
You can start thinking like a scientist by getting curious every time you experience doubt. The moment your doubt turns into curiosity, you have an opportunity to discover new ideas and experience the joy of learning. You no longer care about sharing untested knowledge to others, thus stopping yourself from getting into preaching mode. You also don’t care about proving somebody else wrong because you know you yourself are in doubt, thus eliminating the chances of getting prosecuting mode. And you don’t care about agreeing with others to please them because you get in a journey to find the truth.
Great scientists like Kahneman see ideas and beliefs as hunches and hypotheses that need to be tested. When they encounter data that casts doubt on their hypothesis, they get an opportunity to discover new ideas and better understand reality. When you think like a scientist your opinions and beliefs are starting points that can be revised based on incoming data.
Grant writes in his book Think Again, in preacher mode — Changing your mind is a mark of moral weakness but in scientist mode it’s a sign of intellectual integrity. In prosecutor mode allowing ourselves to be persuaded is admitting defeat whereas in scientist mode it’s a step toward the truth. In politician mode we flip flop in response to risk and reward, in scientist mode we shift in the face of sharper logic and stronger data.
In 2016 researchers gathered over 100 Italian entrepreneurs and split them into two groups and gave them four-month course on entrepreneurship. Both groups were taught startup strategy, customer interviews and how to build a minimum viable product(MVP) but only one group was taught how to think like scientists and see business strategy as theory, customer interviews as a way to develop hypotheses and their MVP or prototypes as experiments to test those hypotheses. The entrepreneurs who were taught to think like scientists were taught to objectively measure results and determine if the data supported or refuted their hypotheses. One year after completing the course the entrepreneurs who were taught to think like scientists pivoted twice as often and generated 4700% more revenue at the end of the year.
Breaking the Overconfidence Cycle
As you continue to think like a scientist and test your hypotheses you learn and improve upon your ideas, you gain confidence in your capacity to learn well while remaining humble about what you didn’t know and what you still don’t know. This is known as Confident Humility. Doubt leads to curiosity which leads to discovery of new ideas which leads to confident humility, this is known as The Rethinking Cycle. In order to stop the overconfidence cycle, we need to continue the rethinking cycle.
One way to keep the rethinking cycle going is to have a note containing two lists —Things I don’t know and things I’ve learned recently. When you reflect on both lists you become confident in your ability to learn from the list “Things I’ve learned recently” and at the same time you stay humble because of the list “Things I don’t know”.
Another way to stay in the rethinking cycle is to listen to podcasts or read books written by authors who makes you think even if you disagree with what they think.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, an overconfident cycle ensures you spend your whole life defending outdated ideas and refusing to learn. Rethinking cycle just enables you to stay humble and be confident at the same time which in turn increases your mental flexibility and allows you to experience the joy of learning. To avoid an overconfidence cycle be aware of when you’re in preaching, prosecuting or politicking mode and start thinking like a scientist to enter a rethinking cycle.
See your ideas and beliefs as hunches and hypotheses bestowing as the first step towards a new discovery. Stay in a rethinking cycle by keeping a list of things I don’t know and things I’ve learned recently to remain confidently humble and seek out people who make you think even if you disagree with what they think. Whenever you find yourself clinging onto ideas and ignoring conflicting information, ask yourself — Do I value being right or just feeling right?
