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Malcolm Gladwell’s 3-Word Reminder to Stop You from Overthinking
“Hamlet Was Wrong!”
“Nothing kills progress faster than indecision!”
My dad was in the military. I can’t count the number of times he said these words to me when I was a kid. Regardless of the warnings, like a lot of people, I still spend an extreme amount of time in my head either ruminating over past decisions or worrying about future ones.
Recently, however, I came across a line of thinking from author Malcolm Gladwell I’d never heard before that smacked me square on the jaw.
“Hamlet was wrong!”
When asked by podcast host Cathy Heller for suggestions for how to stop overthinking so much, Malcolm immediately shared a piece of advice he learned from one of his heroes: Albert O. Hirschmann.
Hirschmann, a legendary economist and considered by Gladwell and many others to be one of the greatest thinkers of the 20th century, lived his life by one guiding principle: “Hamlet was wrong.”
Like a lot of Gladwell’s sharings, this may sound odd. But after hearing his explanation it makes sense. Hamlet is a classic case of someone who thought too much and did too little. He planned and plotted but his inability to make a decision and take action not only tormented his…
