If you want to become a good thinker, start preparing yourself for the possibility of becoming unpopular. John Maxwell, in his latest book, motivates the readers to travel on the road not taken. Excerpts:
Am I consciously rejecting the limitations of common thinking in order to accomplish uncommon resultsIJ There are some broad reasons for questioning the acceptance of popular thinking. Now allow me to be more specific:
Popular thinking may mean not thinking
My friend Kevin Myers sums up the idea of popular thinking by saying, “The problem with popular thinking is that it doesn’t require you to think at all.” Good thinking is hard work. If it were easy, everybody would be a good thinker. Unfortunately, many people try to live life the easy way. They don’t want to do the hard work of thinking or pay the price of success. The people who are going to make money on the stocks they recommend have already done so by the time the general public hears about it. When people blindly follow a trend, they’re not doing their own thinking.
Popular thinking offers false hope
Benno Muller-Hill, a professor in the University of Cologne genetics department, tells how one morning in high school he stood last in a line of 40 students in the schoolyard. His physics teacher had set up a telescope so that his students could view a planet and its moons. The first student stepped up to the telescope. He looked through it, but when the teacher asked if he could see anything, the boy said no; his nearsightedness hampered his view. The teacher showed him how to adjust the focus, and the boy finally said he could see the planet and moons. One by one, the students stepped up to the telescope and saw what they were supposed to see. Finally, the second to last student looked into the telescope and announced that he could not see anything.
“You idiot,” shouted the teacher, “You have to adjust the lenses.” The student tried, but he finally said, “I still can’t see anything. It is all black.” The teacher, disgusted, looked through the telescope himself, and then looked up with a strange expression. The lens cap still covered the telescope. None of the students had been able to see anything!
Many people look for safety and security in popular thinking. They figure that if a lot of people are doing something, then it must be right. Popular thinking said the earth was the center of the universe, yet Copernicus studied the stars and planets and proved mathematically that the earth and the other planets in our solar system revolved around the sun. Popular thinking said that women shouldn’t have the right to vote, yet people like Emmeline Pankhurst and Susan B Anthony fought for and won that right. Popular thinking put the Nazis into power in Germany, yet Hitler’s regime murdered millions and nearly destroyed Europe.
Popular thinking is mediocre results
It’s the least of the best and the best of the least. We limit our success when we adopt popular thinking. It represents putting in the least energy to just get by. You must reject common thinking if you want to accomplish uncommon results.
QUESTION THE ACCEPTANCE OF POPUlAR THINKING
Popular thinking has often proved to be wrong and limiting. Questioning it isn’t necessarily hard, once you cultivate the habit of doing so. The difficulty is in getting started. Begin by doing the following things:
Think before you follow
Many individuals follow others almost automatically. But if you want to succeed, you need to think about what’s best, not what’s popular.
Challenging popular thinking requires a willingness to be unpopular and go outside of the norm. Following the tragedy of September 11, 2001, for example, few people willingly chose to travel by plane. But that was the best time to travel: crowds were down, security was up, and airlines were cutting prices. About a month after the tragedy, my wife, Margaret, and I heard that Broadway shows had lots of seats and many New York hotel rooms remained empty. Popular thinking said, stay away from New York. We used that as an opportunity. We got cheap plane tickets to the city, booked a room in a great hotel for about half price, and got tickets to the most sought-after show, The Producers. As we took our seats in the theater, we sat next to a woman beside herself with excitement.
The next time you feel ready to conform to popular thinking on an issue, stop and think. You may not want to create change for its own sake, but you certainly don’t want to blindly follow just because you haven’t thought about what’s best.
Appreciate different thinking
One of the ways to embrace innovation and change is to learn to appreciate how others think. To do that, you must continually expose yourself to people different from your-self.
As you strive to challenge popular thinking, spend time with people with different backgrounds, education levels, professional experiences, personal interests, etc. You will think like the people with whom you spend the most time. If you spend time with people who think out of the box, you’re more likely to challenge popular thinking and break new ground.
Question your own thinking
let’s face it, any time we find a way of thinking that works, one of our greatest temptations is to go back to it repeatedly, even if it no longer works well. The greatest enemy to tomorrow’s success is sometimes today’s success. But every tradition may not be a good idea for the future. In your organisation, if you were involved in putting into place what currently exists, then it’s likely that you will resist change-even change for the better. That’s why it’s important to challenge your own thinking.
Excerpts taken from How Successful People Think by John Maxwell (Hachette India, 160 pg, Rs 275)