Think Again The Power of Knowing what You Don't Know

I did not like Grant's previous book, Originals, very much. So I didn't have very high expectations for this one. Nevertheless, the subject matters to me, and this book has received some good ratings, so I thought I'd give it a shot. It was good. I learned a lot of things that I didn't know. Some things I thought I knew I learned were wrong. This is what I love in good books - they challenge your beliefs. They make you think. Rethink. My critique of this book is that the examples feel too drawn out. This made the book cumbersome to read because I was bored sometimes. It was like a rollercoaster of thinking. Either way, I got through it, and I'm happy I did.

I've been trying to finish this for 3 months now and it's just not happening.

I might not be the audience of this book. It looks like it is for people reading/loving books like “poor dad, rich dad”, the finance bro wannabes of the world, Elon Musk fans, you get I mean! I hoped the book is going to be like Dan Ariely’s books, but it was super shallow, no/little depth or amount of content, the whole book could have been an 2-3 pages article. The author starts with stating in the first chapter that people can think/act like three moods: preacher, politician, prosecutor. No explanation where it comes from, why it is, and why three and not 4, no research on it, it sounds like his ***king gut feeling that is it. And couple of line after drops a fourth and calls it scientist. The rest of book is a combination of name droppings, shallow TED talk-y stuffs like: “think twice, maybe, idc”. More power to him, it seems like a popular book, and he is a good writer, so he gets two starts for that.

** spoiler alert ** You will start seeing fundamental thinking constructs, modes of thinking, mental models, way to change how you think and finding your current limits. If you apply rethinking in your life, year from book, your life will see dramatic change, in better probably! Would give it 6 out of 5 if possible 🤙 ≥People who rethink their solutions generally improve their scores. ≥People’s problem is not about rethinking their answers but hesitation to rethink. ≥We embrace rethinking when it concerns our possessions. ≥we slip into 3 major modes as we think and talk; preacher mode, prosecutor mode, and politician mode. We engage preacher mode when expressing our core beliefs, prosecutor mode when examining other people’s opinions, and politician mode when we want to promote ideas that we support. But there is a 4th mode we all need to engage to become rethinkers. It is a Scientist Mode. ≥Confirmation bias and desirability bias make intelligent people contort their intelligence into a weapon against the truth. ≥Scientific thinking requires an active search for evidence that might prove us wrong. ≥The purpose of learning isn’t to affirm our beliefs; it’s to evolve our beliefs. ≥If knowledge is power, knowing what we don’t know is wisdom. Scientific thinking favors humility over pride, doubt over certainty, curiosity over closure." ≥The opposite of the rethinking cycle is the overconfidence cycle. ≥Instead of pressure-testing our beliefs, we fall victim to the fat-cat syndrome and rest on our laurels. ≥Components of the Rethinking Cycle are: • Humility • Doubt • Curiosity • Discovery Components of the Overconfidence Cycle are: • Pride • Conviction • Confirmation and desirability biases • Validation ≥Knowledge puffs up. Good judgment requires that we possess the skill and the will to open our minds. ≥Impostor syndrome occurs when a person’s competence outweighs their confidence. ≥Armchair quarterback syndrome occurs when a person’s confidence level is greater than their competence level. ≥The Dunning-Kruger effect states that those who can’t...don’t know they can’t. This effect describes the arrogance of ignorance. It is incompetent people who brim with overconfidence on any subject matter. ≥Ego, a tendency to deny our weaknesses, prevents us from rethinking. The ability to think about our thinking is called a metacognitive skill. People who are able to rethink must possess a good dose of this skill. ≥Confidence is a measure of how much you believe in yourself, not how much you believe in your methods. ≥Humility is not about having low self-confidence. It is about being grounded and recognizing your fallibility. ≥Confident humility is the sweet spot of confidence that improves the quality of our rethinking. ≥Arrogance leaves us blind to our weakness. Humility is a reflective lens; it helps us see them clearly. Confident humility is a corrective lens; it enables us to overcome those weaknesses. ≥To unlock the joy of being wrong, we need to detach. ≥We need to detach our present from our past and our opinions from our identity. ≥Detach your identity from your opinions. ≥Your identity should be tied to your values not your beliefs. ≥Values are core principles in life like excellence, generosity, freedom and fairness, or security and integrity. These principles enable you to be open-minded about the best ways to promote them. When you define yourself by values, you become flexible and open to update your beliefs in light of new evidence. ≥Insecure people make fun of others. ≥Turn your past misconceptions into sources of present amusement. A paradox in great scientists and superforecasters is that they are so comfortable being wrong because they are terrified of being wrong. ≥If you don’t change your mind frequently, you’re going to be wrong a lot. ≥Teams that have more relationship conflicts than task conflicts generally perform poorly. High performing teams begin with high task conflicts but keep relationship conflicts as minimal as possible. ≥Productive disagreements make us more civil and develop our creative muscles. ≥Strong leaders engage their critics and make themselves stronger. Weak leaders silence their critics and make themselves weaker. ≥To have productive conversations, it pays to employ perspective-seeking rather than perspective-taking. ≥Perspective-taking requires us to read people’s minds while perspective-seeking demands that we talk to people to gain insight into the nuances of their views. ≥Rethinking helps us to lead a more fulfilling life.

Overall, I enjoyed some of the topics of the book. Particularly, I liked the sections on the strategy how to navigate the complex nature of having an argumentation or a conflict of thesis and opinions with another person and how to make it productive instead of toxic.

I love Adam Grant, but this one was a no-go for me. No new facts or tools, just a collection of anecdotes.

See my review on Storygraph

Relatable examples, no boring parts and very valuable in helping me rethink the way we stick with old beliefs. Love This book!

Cuando escuchas el término de "debes reinventarte" es mucho más complejo de lo que suena y en este libro Adam Grant, nos da aspectos propios y del entorno que pueden permitirnos re-pensar y re-aprender no de manera acumulativa a lo que ya sabemos sino de manera discerniente, ampliando la perspectiva propia y de quienes nos rodean. 100% recomendado!

A must read

I was surprised that I enjoyed this book. A friend gifted it to me on audible a while back, and I started listening to it yesterday. From the beginning, the topics were all interesting to me and the conclusions felt well reasoned. The book didn’t feel like it was saying the same things over and over - instead, it explored different aspects of rethinking and applying this technique in different contexts. I also appreciated that the book was narrated by the author - too often narrators feel inauthentic and I think it does the authors a disservice. I recommend this book to anyone that wants to learn more about being more flexible with their thinking and how to introduce these concepts in a variety of contexts such as at work, to children, and in difficult situations.

Nada de novo por aqui. Adam Grant escreveu um livro inteiro para nos dizer que é preciso repensar, que é importante assumir que as primeiras impressões nem sempre são as mais corretas. Que as nossas crenças tendem a contaminar essas mesmas decisões. Que podemos ser melhores se assumirmos o erro como parte da construção de conhecimento. Ou seja, nada que já não fosse discutido na Antiga Grécia. Mas percebe-se porque Grant o faz, mas essa razão também já não tem nada de novo. Trump, Brexit, vacinas, redes sociais, polarização, etc. Já percebemos que muito dos livros não-ficção de sucesso dos próximos anos falarão destes temas. Mas correm demasiados riscos quando o fazem. Desde logo, tratar temas que ainda estão a decorrer impede o distanciamento necessário para compreender completamente as causas. Por outro lado, usar estes grandes casos como objetos de tratamento de novas teorias é imensamente pretensioso, porque acabam por criar um quadro no qual se apresentam como salvadores de acontecimentos que não são passíveis de reduzir a meia-dúzia de variáveis de causa-efeito, por sinal aquelas que a alegada nova teoria pretende solucionar.

Pretty insightful book; it definitely got me to think again. This was a slow read for me but it was mainly because I would read a chapter at a time and let it really soak in before moving on. Not a favorite but definitely worth reading if you want to learn how to be more open to questioning your and others opinions!

The second book that I've read by Adam Grant. Very deep and will definitely make you think, but Adam can get a little bogged down in the details.

Adam Grant's latest book Think Again challenges you to rethink your long-held beliefs and opinions. I like his emphasis on a relearning mindset and actively listening to your opponents to find more common ground instead of arguing just to win. My biggest take from this book is to detach your opinions from your personality - we can get very defensive about our positions when challenged, because we take it personal. At the end of day, opinions can be changed/updated, it doesn't reflect badly on you, as a person. We all get a new phone every few years and why should we hold on to an opinion we formed 10 years ago? "Insist on your values, not your opinions." Second thing I found helpful is to schedule a bi-annual life checkup with myself - to reflect how my aspirations may have changed in the past 6 months and identify past images of my life that are no longer relevant to the future. Rethink my plans. And, I can't help but feel the target audience of this book is upper class white men... So there's that..

Great book with practical tips. I had a lot of "wow" moments reading this one.

(+) Loved this book so much! Makes you rethink how you think, learn and discuss ideas!

I really liked the audiobook. Pretty solid advice throughout.

It’s worth your time.

Unfortunately I listened to this book. Now I need to go buy a physical copy. It was so good, I need to re-read it and take more notes.

Another gem from Adam Grant. This is a quick read and with all the political events and happenings, this book is well-timed. We should teach this topic in our high schools.

Really enjoyable to read and give some good arguments and stories regarding the power of rethinking. Favorite quote: “What we want to attain is confident humility: having faith in our capability while appreciating that we may not have the right solution or even be addressing the right problem. That gives us enough doubt to reexamine our old knowledge and enough confidence to pursue new insights.”