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What lessons can we learn from “Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know” by Adam M. Grant?
As always, I also included amazing quotes and a few actionable ideas to help you get the most out of this book review.
Still, there is much value left inside the book, so definitely read it for yourself to not miss out on anything!
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Reading Experience
I LOVED this book!
“Think Again” was not only interesting to read but also funny at times and even contained one or two plot twists that had me stunned.
I simply loved how the book balances theory with real-life stories.
All in all, great to read! In fact, not just great but even important to read. The more people start to think again, the better the world could be.
Lessons
1. It’s not only ok to change your mind but even important to do so
“Intelligence is traditionally viewed as the ability to think and learn. Yet in a turbulent world, there’s another set of cognitive skills that might matter more: the ability to rethink and unlearn.”
– Adam M. Grant (Think Again)
“Changing your mind doesn’t make you a flip-flopper or a hypocrite. It means you were open to learning.”
– Adam M. Grant (Think Again)
I used to be and, to some point, still am reluctant to voice my opinion on anything but trivial matters because I know that I’m far from an expert and could change my mind any day.
In fact, I’ve ended up doing things I once very passionately declared on never doing (i.e., studying law, having my own business).
I used to feel incredibly awkward around admitting that I’ve changed my mind. As if changing your mind is something bad and shows a lack of decisiveness.
But “Think Again” has finally crashed that limiting belief of mine and encouraged me to do what I’ve always been drawn to do: changing my mind and evolving my opinion with each new information presented.
Now, I am allowing myself to change my mind, and I also make sure to question beliefs that have been the same for a long time.
Actionable Idea
Give yourself permission to change your mind frequently. Of course, you shouldn’t change your mind five times within one evening when your partner asks you what you’d like to eat.
But allow yourself to think again on less trivial topics like what career you want, how you can study most effectively, what car you should buy, what your next apartment should cost, or who you should vote for.
Take out your journal and write about an opinion you’ve come to form recently.
Why have you formed this particular opinion?
What facts or feelings don’t align with this opinion?
Why could someone decide to have a different opinion?
Start a list on which you note every opinion of yours that you find yourself clinging to fiercely.
2. Don’t mistrust the urge to correct an answer
“I’ve seen it in my own classroom year after year: my students’ final exams have surprisingly few eraser marks, but those who do rethink their first answers rather than staying anchored to them end up improving their scores.”
– Adam M. Grant (Think Again)
This again hit it perfectly on the head for me. Like many students, I’ve had the experience that I end up falsely ‘fixing’ what was once right every time I try to correct an answer on a test.
Adam M. Grant points out that even though most students claim to have made that experience, statistics actually prove the opposite to be true: Most corrected answers are from false to the right and not the other way around.
I’m assuming that falsely correcting something is especially painful. Those instances stick in mind for longer than positive cases.
Whatever the reason, I’m going to make sure not to blindly stick to my first answer out of fear for losing points through altercations.
Actionable Idea
If there is time left during your next exam or test, take a moment to think again.
This doesn’t need to result in you changing your answer. Just stay open to the possibility of coming up with a better solution at second thought.
3. Sticking with a belief is easy
“We favor the comfort of conviction over the discomfort of doubt, and we let our beliefs get brittle long before our bones. We laugh at people who still use Windows 95, yet we still cling to opinions that we formed in 1995. We listen to views that make us feel good, instead of ideas that make us think hard.”
– Adam M. Grant (Think Again)
The best and most convincing facts are not automatically going to change your mind.
In fact, you will most likely find yourself clinging desperately to your current belief.
Don’t beat yourself up when you start to notice this tendency.
Simply being aware of it is the first step of breaking free from it.
Actionable Idea
Take stock of the most important opinions that shape your path in life.
Did you form this opinion through hard thinking, or have you ignored new information in favor of sticking to your old view?
4. What we know today could be irrelevant tomorrow
“The problem is that we live in a rapidly changing world, where we need to spend as much time rethinking as we do thinking.”
– Adam M. Grant (Think Again)
Suppose you’ve anticipated the day of your graduation in hopes of never having to study again. In that case, you are going to have an unpleasant awakening.
You will never excel in your career field if you don’t update your beliefs regularly.
New discoveries are being made rapidly. They get released into the world through books, studies, articles, conferences, courses, and more.
These information could make your job much easier and help you reach an ‘aha’-moment.
They could also challenge everything you’ve believed so far and render your current work obsolete.
However painful it might be, successful people know that they have to stay on top of these things, or soon their success will be history.
Actionable Idea
Create a routine of exposing yourself to new information and rethinking or unlearning your past knowledge.
You can’t do this in every area of life. That would overwhelm you.
However, you should have this routine of updating your knowledge in the field you’ve chosen for your career.
For me, as a law student, this means staying on top of new legal regulations and reading recent verdicts.
As an online business owner, this means keeping my eyes open for new trends and algorithm changes on the platforms that I use. Also, to always try to find something new and unique to do.
5. Think like a scientist, not a preacher, prosecutor, or politician
“When we’re in scientist mode, we refuse to let our ideas become ideologies. We don’t start with answers or solutions; we lead with questions and puzzles. We don’t preach from intuition; we teach from evidence. We don’t just have healthy skepticism about other people’s arguments; we dare to disagree with our own arguments.”
– Adam M. Grant (Think Again)
Don’t go around promoting your opinions, dashing out arguments to prove wrong, or trying to win over an audience.
Instead, start with a theory in mind, develop hypotheses and use experiments to test them.
6. To Think Again we must fight confirmation bias and desirability bias
“Thinking like a scientist involves more than just reacting with an open mind. It means being actively open-minded. It requires searching for reasons why we might be wrong—not for reasons why we must be right—and revising our views based on what we learn.”
– Adam M. Grant (Think Again)
“When you form an opinion, ask yourself what would have to happen to prove it false. “
– Adam M. Grant (Think Again)
Every time you form an opinion, you should be aware that you might be biased by what you already believe and by what you’d like to happen.
To fight these biases, effectively seek out information that contradicts your opinion instead of ignoring them.
Find the strongest arguments of your opponents and consider them genuinely.
If you can see why they might convince some people, but you are still holding on to your opinion, it is not out of bias anymore.
Always ask yourself what new information would change your mind. If you stubbornly say ‘none,’ then you should worry about being biased.
A truly open mind is always open to thinking again in light of new information.
7. Don’t learn to affirm; learn to grow!
“After all, the purpose of learning isn’t to affirm our beliefs; it’s to evolve our beliefs.”
– Adam M. Grant (Think Again)
You should never approach learning solely to affirm your current opinion.
Rather use learning as a chance to make a new, more accurate draft of your current views that brings you closer to the truth.
8. Become aware of what you don’t know
“If knowledge is power, knowing what we don’t know is wisdom.”
– Adam M. Grant (Think Again)
“You can have confidence in your capacity to learn while questioning your current solution to a problem. Knowing what you don’t know is often the first step toward developing expertise.”
– Adam M. Grant (Think Again)
It’s always been mind-boggling to me how so many people, not exclusively but especially in politics, act as if they are experts.
By contrast, I often start sentences with ‘I’m leaning towards …‘ and end them with ‘but that’s just my opinion now, I might change it with more information.‘
I believe that in a world as rapidly changing as ours, we need to abandon the belief of ever knowing everything about a single topic.
It is pretty much impossible to ever know everything, which is why I have alarm bells going off in my head every time someone acts like an expert.
On the other hand, people who openly admit their lack of knowledge and their awareness of it are deeply impressive.
You get to decide if you want to present yourself to the world as a fake know-it-all or a humble student.
9. The least competent people are the most likely to overestimate themselves
“When we lack the knowledge and skills to achieve excellence, we sometimes lack the knowledge and skills to judge excellence.”
– Adam M. Grant (Think Again)
This is known as the Dunning-Kruger effect.
Maybe you’ve even experienced it yourself once or twice in school or college.
At the beginning of studying for an exam, it sometimes seems totally manageable. You are overly optimistic about knowing everything there is to know in no time.
Fast forward some study hours later, you panicked, realizing that there is soooo freaking much to know, and you’ve barely scraped the surface!
But don’t let this make you paranoid every time you do feel confident in your knowledge!
I think it is safe to say that if you’re worried about not being competent enough and only now, after a lot of effort, you’ve started to feel confident in your competency, that this effect doesn’t apply to you.
10. Humility is crucial to think again
“Humility is often misunderstood. It’s not a matter of having low self-confidence. One of the Latin roots of humility means “from the earth.” It’s about being grounded—recognizing that we’re flawed and fallible.”
– Adam M. Grant (Think Again)
“You can be confident in your ability to achieve a goal in the future while maintaining the humility to question whether you have the right tools in the present. That’s the sweet spot of confidence.”
– Adam M. Grant (Think Again)
Humility is a by-product of the awareness of your lack of knowledge.
Without humility, you won’t open your mind to new information, and therefore you won’t be able to evolve your opinions.
Learn to be confident in your ability to learn yet humble about how much you know!
11. It’s time to say thank you to your imposter syndrome
“The first upside of feeling like an impostor is that it can motivate us to work harder.”
– Adam M. Grant (Think Again)
“Second, impostor thoughts can motivate us to work smarter. When we don’t believe we’re going to win, we have nothing to lose by rethinking our strategy.”
– Adam M. Grant (Think Again)
“Third, feeling like an impostor can make us better learners. Having some doubts about our knowledge and skills takes us off a pedestal, encouraging us to seek out insights from others.”
– Adam M. Grant (Think Again)
Imposter syndrome is often treated as an enemy of success. Yet “Think Again” raises the question if it might actually contribute to success.
I believe that this is the case as long as your default reaction to feeling like an imposter is not freezing.
Let this feeling be your motivator to put in more effort, learn more, and overall improve yourself.
Imposter syndrome can be your personal tough-love coach that’s swinging the whip behind you. So use it for all it’s worth!
12. Don’t wait until you are confident; take action first, and confidence will follow
“We don’t have to wait for our confidence to rise to achieve challenging goals. We can build it through achieving challenging goals.”
– Adam M. Grant (Think Again)
This is such an IMPORTANT lesson if you want to live an extraordinary life.
It is relatively easy to just follow the path society has laid out for you. But if you want more than that, you have to find the guts to step away from that path and out into the unknown.
It’s easy to tell yourself that you’ll do it next week or month, or year when you are more confident.
But the truth is, the quickest and most reliable way to build confidence is to just jump straight into the experience.
13. Find joy in being wrong
“They’re determined to reach the correct answer in the long run, and they know that means they have to be open to stumbling, backtracking, and rerouting in the short run.”
– Adam M. Grant (Think Again)
Failing is the measurement of learning. If we don’t fail, we haven’t pushed ourselves enough.
If you practice questions for your upcoming exam and get them all right, you feel good about yourself. If you get them wrong, you become aware of a hole in your knowledge and learn how to answer them better next time.
We shouldn’t fear being wrong or failing because, with each failure, we get one step closer to succeeding.
Actionable Idea
Make a conscious effort to pat yourself on the back for being wrong and making mistakes.
As long as you don’t brush it under the table, you can learn from it, which will make you a better person all around.
14. Don’t let your opinions become your identity
“Who you are should be a question of what you value, not what you believe.”
– Adam M. Grant (Think Again)
This is a powerful idea that has made quite an impression on me.
Our identity is a very important part of us, and we naturally become fiercely protective when it gets threatened.
Suppose you let your opinion become your identity (i. e., I am a democrat/republican, feminist, minimalist, etc.). In that case, you hold onto that opinion with all your might.
You close yourself off towards opposing opinions and refuse to think again because that could endanger your whole identity.
As “Think Again” teaches us, though, evolving our opinions is important. So don’t tie your identity to them.
You will notice that life becomes a lot easier if you stop identifying with your opinions and instead openly admit to being wrong or changing your mind in light of new information.
15. The more often you think again and try again, the better you will be
“The best forecasters went through more rethinking cycles. They had the confident humility to doubt their judgments and the curiosity to discover new information that led them to revise their predictions.”
– Adam M. Grant (Think Again)
We all know the saying that practice makes perfect.
But did you know that changing your mind more often can make your predictions more accurate, as well?
“Think Again” introduces the reader to forecaster contests that are being held worldwide (I had no idea something like that existed! Isn’t it fascinating?!).
The contenders have to predict the outcome of certain events like, for example, elections.
The answers are given in percentages depending on the likeliness of the event in the forecasters’ eyes.
Over the months leading up to such predicted events, the answers of the forecasters get recorded.
By analyzing these records, scientists have found that the best forecasters rethought their original answer more often than average forecasters.
If you are open to thinking again, you take all kinds of different information into consideration. You are willing to try out different approaches to the topic, and through trial and error, you can achieve more hits than someone who sticks to their first idea.
16. Embrace and encourage constructive conflict
“Agreeableness is about seeking social harmony, not cognitive consensus. It’s possible to disagree without being disagreeable.”
– Adam M. Grant (Think Again)
“In fact, when I argue with someone, it’s not a display of disrespect—it’s a sign of respect. It means I value their views enough to contest them. If their opinions didn’t matter to me, I wouldn’t bother.”
– Adam M. Grant (Think Again)
I get it. There are too many examples in our lives of destructive conflicts that lead absolutely nowhere except pain and misery.
No wonder we might try to avoid conflict altogether.
But this avoidance can rob us of inspiring and productive conflict as well!
The constructive conflict between open-minded people, who don’t turn their opinions into their identity and are willing to think again, can lead to truly life-changing realizations.
Challenging each other in a genuine and non-judgmental manner can push everyone into rethinking their opinions, finding flaws, and discovering new ways of thinking about things that might even strengthen their own opinion even more.
So don’t dismiss every type of conflict, for there is gold to be found in the constructive ones.
17. To change someone’s opinion, common ground is more important than the number of arguments
“We won’t have much luck changing other people’s minds if we refuse to change ours. We can demonstrate openness by acknowledging where we agree with our critics and even what we’ve learned from them.”
– Adam M. Grant (Think Again)
“A single line of argument feels like a conversation; multiple lines of argument can become an onslaught.”
– Adam M. Grant (Think Again)
An interesting lesson learned from debating contests is that the most successful debaters don’t have more good arguments.
Instead, they choose a few good ones and focus the rest of their time on truly listening to their opponent and trying to find common ground.
It’s less of a fight for victory and more like a dance that’s supposed to benefit both.
Next time you want to convince someone, put a bigger focus on the common ground between you instead of actually trying to convince them.
18. Persistence is not always the answer
“There’s a fine line between heroic persistence and foolish stubbornness. Sometimes the best kind of grit is gritting our teeth and turning around.”
– Adam M. Grant (Think Again)
This is a very tricky lesson, as we can rarely be entirely sure when to apply it.
I’ve been working on my business for a while now without making an income. Does this mean I should turn around and find something else? No, that’s not what my heart is telling me.
But considering that question has opened my eyes towards the possibility that I might want to turn my back on certain strategies I’ve been applying.
I get it; it gets harder to turn your back on something the more effort and time you’ve put into it already – especially if you are ambitious and stubborn by nature.
But if your degree is making you miserable, turning your back on it after 3 years of effort is better than staying miserable throughout your whole career.
Actionable Idea
When encountering hardships, you should always stop for a moment and be honest to yourself.
Are you being rightfully persistent or stubbornly foolish?
Take your journal and write down your thoughts. The more you practice listening to your intuition and tuning out all the outside noise, the easier it will be to answer this question truthfully.
19. Happiness shouldn’t be your goal
“It’s left me thinking about happiness less as a goal and more as a by-product of mastery and meaning.”
– Adam M. Grant (Think Again)
“At work and in life, the best we can do is plan for what we want to learn and contribute over the next year or two, and stay open to what might come next.”
– Adam M. Grant (Think Again)
“Think Again” mentioned studies that prove that depending on your definition of happiness, chasing it could actually result in making you less happy.
Of course, we all want to be happy. But happiness is not an emotional state we can be in 24/7. The more you obsess over happiness, the more your emotions will fluctuate to create the natural balance of all things.
It is much easier and rewarding to put your main focus on other goals that bring happiness along with them automatically.
There is so much more goodness in Think Again, but I had to keep this list limited somehow.
I highly encourage you to read the book for yourself; it’s definitely worth it!
What was your favorite lesson, and how did you plan on implementing it into your life?
I’m curious to hear from you!
Sophie
