Thread by @businessbarista

Independent thinking is one of the greatest professional superpowers.

The best part: it is teachable.

Here is the playbook to 10x your independent thinking👇

You must first understand what it looks like to think for yourself.

Per @paulg, there are three attributes of independent thought:

1) Fastidiousness about truth
2) Resistance to being told what to think
3) Curiosity

#1 FASTIDIOUSNESS ABOUT TRUTH

A fancy way of saying being a perfectionist about finding the truth.

You’re allergic to the phrase “we do it this way, because this is how things have always been done.”

#2 RESISTANCE TO BEING TOLD WHAT TO THINK

This isn’t a negative quality, like you’re too good for people or you don’t care what they have to say.

It’s more so that you take pride in finding the answer for yourself.

#3 CURIOSITY

It allows you to think of novel ideas. Ideas that seem crazy and violate conventional wisdom. Ideas that make people laugh when they hear them.

Curiosity is the jet fuel for independent thinking.

Independent mindedness and curiosity are predictive of each other.

Okay, this all sounds great.

But how do we build the muscle of independent thought?

There are 4 practices you should do to think for yourself more than you ever have in your life.

And if I had to sum them up, I’d tell you to "Act like a child."

#1 ASK WHY A LOT

By asking why you aim to understand, not just accept.

It’s such a high-leverage word.

It is also a great way to understand if who you’re talking to is independent in thought.

Each time you ask why forces them to peel back another layer of the onion.

#2 SURROUND YOURSELF WITH INDEPENDENT THINKERS

A child exclusively hangs with independent thinkers...other children.

So how do you do the same?

Go to the places where you can find the most curious people and embark on a journey of curiosity with them.

For me, that’s Twitter.

#3 BE NAIVE TO CONVENTIONAL THINKING

We succeeded with Morning Brew because we had no idea what convention was in media.

That's why we started a newsletter when everyone thought it was crazy.

If we weren’t naive, we probably wouldn’t have started the company at all.

#4 EXPOSE YOURSELF TO MANY CONTEXTS

Different contexts give you inspiration and allow you to connect the dots in ways that other people haven’t before.

It could be learning from one country, one industry, or one customer group and bringing it to another.

And that is the playbook to think for yourself!

I hope you enjoyed and if you want more threads on business & entrepreneurship, follow me on Twitter!

twitter.com/businessbarista

If you want to dive deeper into this topic, check out my @FoundersPod episode on Independent Thinking:

Spotify: spoti.fi/3d2wiqJ

Apple: apple.co/3uCaCYK

And finally, shoutout to @paulg for his thoughts on the topic.

His essay acted as the inspiration for my own exploration into independent thinking:

paulgraham.com/think.html

Going to also shoutout a few of my favorite independent thinkers on Twitter:

@balajis
@naval
@shl
@ShaanVP
@CathieDWood
@ljin18