Thinking skill no one ever taught you

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Ancient Stoic philosophers such as Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, and Epictetus regularly performed the exercise known as premeditatio malorum, which translates to "predestination of bad."

The purpose of this exercise was to imagine negative things that can happen in life. For example, Stoics might imagine what it would be like to lose their job and become homeless or suffer trauma, be paralyzed, ruin their reputation, lose their status in society.

Philosophers believed that by presenting the worst case scenario in advance, they could overcome their fears of negative experiences and develop more effective plans to prevent them. While most people focused on how to succeed, the Stoics also thought about how they would cope with failure. How will events turn out if everything goes wrong tomorrow? And how should we prepare for this today?

This way of thinking is called inversion. When I first found out about him, I did not understand how powerful he can be. As I studied it more and more, I began to realize that inversion is a rare and useful skill that almost all great thinkers use to achieve their goals (inversion is different from working backwards or “starting from the end.” These strategies pursue the same goal, but approach it in different ways. Meanwhile, inversion asks you to consider the opposite of the result you want - author's note).

How great thinkers change the status quo

During his career, the German mathematician Karl Jacobi made important contributions to the development of various scientific fields. In particular, he was known for his ability to solve complex problems by following the strategy of muss immer umkehren or, loosely translated, “invert, always invert” (a variety of mathematics textbooks claim that “invert, always invert” was one of Jacobi's favorite phrases).

Jacobi believed that one of the best ways to clarify your thinking is to solve math problems in reverse form. He wrote down the opposite of the problem he was trying to solve, and found that the solution often came to him more easily.

Inversion forces you to consider aspects of the situation that are often hidden from your eyes. What if it were the other way around? What if I focus on the other side of this situation? Instead of asking how to do something, ask how not to do it.

As Josh Kaufman writes, "By studying the opposite of what you are working on, you can identify important elements that are not immediately obvious."

Great thinkers, connoisseurs and innovators think both forward and backward. They look at the opposite side of things.

Art offers us a good example

Inversion is often at the heart of great art. There is a status quo in society at any given moment, and the artists and innovators who stand out are often the ones who convincingly upset it.

Great art changes the established rules. This is the inverse of what it used to be. In a way, the secret of unconventional thinking is simply changing the status quo.

Success is overrated. Strive to avoid mistakes

This type of reverse logic can be extended to many areas of life. For example, ambitious youth often focus on how to succeed. But billionaire investor Charlie Munger thinks it's worth focusing on the downside instead.

"What should be avoided?" - he asks - “The answer is simple: laziness and non-obligation. If you are optional, it doesn't matter what your merits are. You will be defeated immediately. Performing your tasks conscientiously should be an automatic part of your behavior."

Avoiding mistakes is an underrated way to achieve success. In most jobs, you can achieve some degree of success simply by being proactive and committed - even if you aren't particularly smart, quick, or talented in the field. It is sometimes more important to study why people fail in life than why they succeed.

The Benefits of Thinking Forward and Backward

Inversion can be especially useful in the workplace

Leaders may ask themselves, "What does a bad manager do every day?" Those who strive to manage well should probably avoid these things.

Likewise, if innovation is a core part of your business model, you might ask, "How could we make this company less innovative?" Removing these barriers and obstacles can help creative ideas emerge faster.

Every marketing department wants to attract new business, but it's helpful to ask, "What might turn off our core customers?" A new perspective can reveal amazing ideas.

By the method of determining what is not working, one can realize what, on the contrary, is effective. What mistakes and shortcomings do you want to avoid? Inversion is not about looking for good advice, but about looking for anti-advice. It shows what to avoid and what we are missing.

Here are a few more ways to use inversion in work and life

Project management

One of my favorite inversion techniques is called Failure Premortem. It looks like the intentionality of evil for modern business.

It works like this:

Imagine the most important goal or project you are currently working on. Now mentally move forward six months and assume that the project has failed or the goal has not been achieved.

Think about how it happened. Something went wrong? What mistakes have you made? Why did it end in failure?

This exercise is sometimes called “kill the company” in organizations because the goal is to understand the ways in which a company can fail. Similar to the predestination of bad, the idea is to identify problems and moments of failure, and then develop a plan to avoid them.

Productivity

Most people want to do more in less time. When you apply inversion to productivity, you might be wondering, “What if I wanted to be less focused on my work? How can I be distracted? The answer to this question can help you discover the points to address in order to free up more time and energy each day.

This strategy is not only effective, but often safer than outright pursuit of success. For example, some people use drugs or psychotropic substances to increase their productivity. These methods can help, but you also run the risk of negative side effects.

In the meantime, leaving your phone in a different room, blocking websites and social networks, giving up television is unlikely to do any harm. Both strategies deal with the same problem, but inversion allows you to view it from a different angle and with less risk.

This understanding reveals a more general principle: blindly trying to achieve success can have negative consequences, but preventing failure usually carries very little risk.

Unloading

Marie Kondo, author of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, uses inversion to help people unload. Her famous thesis: "We must choose what we want to keep, not what we want to get rid of."

In other words, by default, you should give up what does not “spark joy” in your life. This shift in thinking inverts the unloading by focusing on what you want to keep rather than what you want to discard.

Relationship

What behavior can destroy a marriage? Lack of trust. Disrespect for another person. Suppressing your partner's personality. Spending all of your time with children, not developing joint relationships. Lack of joint discussion of finances and expenses. Inverting your perspective on a good marriage can show you how to avoid a bad one.

Personal finance

Everyone wants to make more money. But what if we invert the question? How can your financial well-being be ruined?

Spending more than you earn is a proven path to financial failure. No matter how much money you have, the math cannot be fooled. Likewise, rising debt is an emergency that needs to be addressed as quickly as possible. And gradually uncontrolled purchases, spending habits can lead to financial problems.

Before you worry too much about how to make more money, make sure you learn not to lose it. If you manage to avoid these problems, you will be far ahead of others and will avoid pain and anguish along the way.

Considering the opposite

Inversion is counterintuitive. Wasting time thinking about the opposite of what you want is not obvious.

Yet inversion is a key tool for many great thinkers. Stoic practitioners visualize negative consequences. Innovative artists invert the status quo. Effective leaders avoid mistakes that hinder success, just as they learn skills that accelerate success.

Inversion can be especially useful for changing your own beliefs. It forces you to treat your decisions like a court of law. In a trial, a jury must listen to both sides of a dispute before making a decision. Inversion helps you do something similar. What if the evidence refutes what you believe? What if you try to destroy the views you cherish? Inversion prevents you from making a decision after the first conclusion. It is a way to counter the gravitational pull of confirmation bias.

Inversion is a necessary skill to lead a logical and rational life. This allows you to go beyond conventional thinking patterns and see situations from a different angle. Whatever problem you face, always consider the opposite side of things.

By James Clear