The most contrarian thing of all is not to oppose the crowd but to think for yourself — Peter Thiel
Independent thought is a frequent recommendation from successful founders & other figures, but how can we build that skill?
In the primitive era, following the crowd was often the wiser approach to optimize for survival. Chomping on a newfound plant or breaking off from the tribe into enemy territory could be lethal. Fast forward to modern society, this mindset has propagated into traditional education. Standardized testing provides a neat formulaic gauge of smarts and ‘it’s just the way it is’ becomes a common response to open-ended questions.
In the ‘adult world’, through work experience and observations on Twitter, I see two common forces also fighting against unique thought:
- Halo effect — Parroting managers/executives or influencers/’thoughtleaders’ opinions merely on the basis of status
- Groupthink — It’s much easier to just accept the common wisdom and delegate to the ‘experts’ even if you might disagree
In a concerted effort to work against these factors, on topics of high importance to me and especially when everyone is repeating variations of the same thing (red flag), I’m aiming to rely on these strategies:
- Understand opposing views & criticisms
- Do my own research on the facts and understand what pieces of someone’s content is merely an opinion, and what underlying motivations they have
- Write on the topic at hand to force deeper reflection & thought. If I’ve done steps 1 and 2, this last step would hopefully output unique thought or at least thought that I can consider more independent than if I hadn’t done this process.
Hoping I can follow my own recommendation and write more, likely on this platform. :)
