HOW TO THINK CLEARLY
“Clear thinker” is a better compliment than “smart.”
Real knowledge is intrinsic, and it’s built from the ground up. To use a math example, you can’t understand trigonometry without understanding arithmetic and geometry. Basically, if someone is using a lot of fancy words and a lot of big concepts, they probably don’t know what they’re talking about. I think the smartest people can explain things to a child. If you can’t explain it to a child, then you don’t know it. It’s a common saying and it’s very true.
Richard Feynman very famously does this in “Six Easy Pieces,” one of his early physics lectures. He basically explains mathematics in three pages. He starts from the number line— counting—and then he goes all the way up to precalculus. He just builds it up through an unbroken chain of logic. He doesn’t rely on any definitions.
The really smart thinkers are clear thinkers. They understand the basics at a very, very fundamental level. I would rather understand the basics really well than memorize all kinds of complicated concepts I can’t stitch together and can’t rederive from the basics. If you can’t rederive concepts from the basics as you need them, you’re lost. You’re just memorizing. [4]
The advanced concepts in a field are less proven. We use them to signal insider knowledge, but we’d be better off nailing the basics. [11]
Clear thinkers appeal to their own authority.
Part of making effective decisions boils down to dealing with reality. How do you make sure you’re dealing with reality when you’re making decisions?
By not having a strong sense of self or judgments or mind presence. The “monkey mind” will always respond with this regurgitated emotional response to what it thinks the world should be. Those desires will cloud your reality. This happens a lot of times when people are mixing politics and business.
The number one thing clouding us from being able to see reality is we have preconceived notions of the way it should be.
One definition of a moment of suffering is “the moment when you see things exactly the way they are.” This whole time, you’ve been convinced your business is doing great, and really, you’ve ignored the signs it’s not doing well. Then, your business fails, and you suffer because you’ve been putting off reality. You’ve been hiding it from yourself.
The good news is, the moment of suffering—when you’re in pain—is a moment of truth. It is a moment where you’re forced to embrace reality the way it actually is. Then, you can make meaningful change and progress. You can only make progress when you’re starting with the truth.
The hard thing is seeing the truth. To see the truth, you have to get your ego out of the way because your ego doesn’t want to face the truth. The smaller you can make your ego, the less conditioned you can make your reactions, the less desires you can have about the outcome you want, the easier it will be to see the reality.
What we wish to be true clouds our perception of what is true. Suffering is the moment when we can no longer deny reality.
Imagine we’re going through something difficult like a breakup, a job loss, a business failure, or a health problem, and our friends are advising us. When we’re advising them, the answer is obvious. It comes to us in a minute, and we tell them exactly, “Oh that girl, get over her, she wasn’t good for you anyway. You’ll be happier. Trust me. You’ll find someone.”
You know the correct answer, but your friend can’t see it, because they’re in the moment of suffering and pain. They’re still wishing reality was different. The problem isn’t reality. The problem is their desire is colliding with reality and preventing them from seeing the truth, no matter how much you say it. The same thing happens when I make decisions.
The more desire I have for something to work out a certain way, the less likely I am to see the truth. Especially in business, if something isn’t going well, I try to acknowledge it publicly and I try to acknowledge it publicly in front of my co-founders and friends and co-workers. Then, I’m not hiding it from anybody else. If I’m not hiding it from anybody, I’m not going to delude myself from what’s actually going on. [4]
What you feel tells you nothing about the facts—it merely tells you something about your estimate of the facts.
It’s actually really important to have empty space. If you don’t have a day or two every week in your calendar where you’re not always in meetings, and you’re not always busy, then you’re not going to be able to think. You’re not going to be able to have good ideas for your business.
You’re not going to be able to make good judgments. I also encourage taking at least one day a week (preferably two, because if you budget two, you’ll end up with one) where you just have time to think.
It’s only after you’re bored you have the great ideas. It’s never going to be when you’re stressed, or busy, running around or rushed. Make the time. [7]
Very smart people tend to be weird since they insist on thinking everything through for themselves.
A contrarian isn’t one who always objects—that’s a conformist of a different sort. A contrarian reasons independently from the ground up and resists pressure to conform.
Cynicism is easy. Mimicry is easy. Optimistic contrarians are the rarest breed.
