Being a Thought Leader — Step 3

In college, or university, or whatever you want to call it, I had a bad habit of writing papers (often supposed research papers) based on my own opinion of how the world might work and then finding sources which agreed with me to flesh out my required citation quota. This was sometimes a tough putt as the practice of citing internet sources was still somewhat frowned upon in certain courses and with certain professors. Luckily for me I was a Computer Science major and that department had a more progressive (or naive some might argue) view on the matter. Now it’s extremely trivial to find someone footnoteable online who agrees with your assertions no matter how asinine.

My error, aside from not actually doing research in advance of writing a research paper, was not going outside myself to consider my ideas, and then further not going outside those circles already in agreement with me to test my ideas. Thus we come to the third step in becoming a Thought Leader — talk to a dang person.

Thoughts remain dull unless honed through trial. The best way I have found to test my ideas is to find people who disagree with them to discuss them with. Unfortunately, in my experience, such people are very hard to find. I can post my opinion on Twitter, or Reddit, or Xanga, or whatever the kids are using, and thus discover any number of people who are in violent agreement, disagreement, or neutrality, but finding that one person who both disagrees and is in want of open and honest dialog in pursuit of truth and a higher ideal is an Indiana Jones level quest.

The juice, however, is worth the squeeze as they say. A contrary view will strike against your ideas, bludgeoning them into submission or honing them into a fine edge. And those which are able to stand the trial are the better for it.