I'm reading a lot during the holidays. One of the books I read was: "Think again: The power of knowing what you don’t know" by Adam Grant

Although I've read a lot of books about mindset, planning, thinking etcetera, this book did give me some new insights.

We often hold on to old ways of thinking. Grant states in his book that it would be good when we would rethink things more often.
Reconsidering is scary, why would you reconsider thoughts that have been yours all the time? But we do reconsider our clothes and for instance our old replacing our Windows 95 machine, but the way we think about things often stay the same for many years.

One of the examples in the book is from the Mann Gulch fire. I didn't know about this fire (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mann_Gulch_fire), but the example is striking.
A couple of firemen was dropped by parachute to combat a nature fire. They had to flee because the fire came their way fast.
One fireman didn't do the obvious. He set a small piece of nature on fire himself and laid down in the middle of the burnt grass. This way he had a small area where all the grass was burnt. This way he survived the fire. Unlike many of his colleagues who kept on the idea of fleeing.
Many years later fireman even have been rethinking combatting nature fires overall. Unless there are houses to protect, nature fires can even be good for an area and don't need to be extinguished at all.

Grant states that if you master the art of rethinking, you’ll become better at your work and happier in your life.

I won't spoil all the examples of the book, but the one of Mike Lazaridis is also a very nice one. The name Mike Lazaridis might not ring a bell, but he was the inventor of the Blackberry, which became very popular in the early years of 2000. But Mike kept believing in his idea that people keep wanting a keyboard instead of a touchscreen and would like mails, not all other apps. This stubbornness ment the downfall of Blackberry that got wiped away by Android and Iphones.

We need to get rid of the: We have always done it like that-mentality and look at things as a scientist.
Do research and change your perspective when you have new facts.

Some nice quotes from the book:

Don't believe everything you think!
If you're wrong, you learn something.
Don't make assumptions. Ask; how do you know that?

I really like the book and it did give me some new information. I do try to ask myself more questions and don't take things for granted.
If you are interested in this matter, I would recommend you to read this book too.

Friendlymoose

I'm an amateur photographer with a love for indoor gardening, craft beer, and cycling. As the owner of the Cycling Community and the creator of the Topcomment initiative, I focus on fostering engagement and bringing like-minded people together.
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