Un-think your way to Success, Power and Riches
|If we don’t think for our selves, we deserve what we get. But we won’t get what we deserve.
To “Un"think is simple, here’s what you do,
Think and believe that what “they” say is true,
Say it with conviction, as though the thought came from you.
Then you’ll receive the success you are due.
Why do our leaders and those in power defer to ‘experts’?
- Because they are not experts
- Because they can be blamed if they don’t.
- (The “But I Told You So…” Paradox)
Are experts ever ‘wrong’?
One of the benefits of being an expert is that there are other experts who disagree with you. Expert doesn’t mean “One who is right”. Expert means “One who has studied enough that they can speak in a way that you don’t understand, and they might be right, they’ll probably be more right than wrong, and they’ll certainly be more right than you, and you are not expert enough to disagree with them (even if you are right).”
When you follow, or say, what the experts say, then you can bask in their relative glory. If you can parrot what they say with authority, then their years of study become your minutes of superiority over your fellow non-expert who just happened to stray into a world about which they have not found an expert to follow, or they can not parrot their experts well enough to parry your parroting.
Un-thinking for Success means finding the right expert and using them as a shield for your actions and decisions.
- If it all goes wrong, “but we followed our experts advice”
- If it all goes right, “of course, we knew what we were doing”
If you ‘think’ for yourself, then you take responsibility. That is not a sure-fire way to Success, Power and Riches. Watch your “betters” in action. Do what they do. Follow their path. Use them as your experts and un-think your way to Success, Power and Riches.
What to really do?
- Experts disagree.
- Surround yourself with disagreeing experts.
- Critically question their assumptions.
- Identify the points which they agree upon.
- Incrementally test ‘multiple’ paths forward.
- Ultimately take responsibility for a chosen path.
- Recognise that the ‘non-chosen’ experts might have a point, and monitor for evidence that justifies their position.
If we don’t think for our selves, we deserve what we get. But we won’t get what we deserve.
“Your striving for what has already been guaranteed to you, and your remissness in what is demanded of you, are signs of the blurring of your intellect.”
from The Kitab Al-Hikam