Unveiling the power of Inversion, a vital yet often overlooked thinking skill. Discover how this unique approach to problem-solving and decision-making can revolutionize your cognitive abilities, and why it's high time we started teaching it.
The Stoics believed that by imagining the worst-case scenario ahead of time, people could overcome their fears of negative experiences and make better plans to prevent them.
This way of thinking, in which you consider the opposite of what you want, is known as inversion
- Nearly all great thinkers use inversion
The Benefits of Thinking Forward and Backward
Inversion can be particularly useful in the workplace: Leaders can ask, “What would someone do if they were a terrible manager?”
- Productivity: Identify challenges and points of failure so you can develop a plan to prevent them ahead of time
- Decluttering: Marie Kondo uses inversion to help people declutter their homes
- Relationships: Inverting a good marriage can show you how to avoid a bad one
- Personal Finance: Avoiding financial stress can lead to unchecked shopping and spending habits that eventually lead to self-inflicted financial stress
Consider the Opposite
Inversion is counterintuitive. It forces you to treat your decisions like a court of law. In court, the jury has to listen to both sides of the argument before making up their mind. Inversion helps you do something similar.
- What if the evidence disconfirmed what you believe? What if you tried to destroy the views that you cherish?
How Great Thinkers Shatter the Status Quo with Inversion
The German mathematician Carl Jacobi believed that one of the best ways to clarify your thinking was to restate math problems in inverse form
- Inversion is a powerful thinking tool because it puts a spotlight on errors and roadblocks that are not obvious at first glance
- Great thinkers, icons, and innovators think forward and backward
- They consider the opposite side of things
- This way of thinking can reveal compelling opportunities for innovation
Success is Overvalued
Avoiding Failure Matters More
- Sometimes it is more important to consider why people fail in life than why they succeed.
- In most jobs, you can enjoy some degree of success simply by being proactive and reliable-even if you are not particularly smart, fast, or talented in a given area.
