The Surprising Habits of Original Thinkers
Some see what is and ask 'why'. Others see what could be and ask 'why not'?
- Pablo Picasso
Have you wondered what separates original thinkers from the rest? Some say it’s I.Q. Others say it's confidence. Some believe it's genetics. But according to psychologist Adam Grant, it’s none of these things. In fact, he says that what really separates original thinkers are their habits.
"Originals" as Grant describes them are non-conformists; people who not only have new ideas but take action to champion them. Originals drive creativity and change in the world. They're the people you want to bet on.
In his Ted Talk, Grant reveals the unexpected habits of original thinkers and offers up ways to recognize them. Surprisingly their habits aren't all together different from those of the average person. For example, original thinkers procrastinate.
The night before Martin Luther King Jr. gave the biggest speech of his life, he was up past 3 am rewriting it. Then, while sitting in the audience waiting to be called onstage he was still scribbling. When he got onstage, he left his prepared remarks altogether to utter four words that changed the course of history: “I have a dream”.
That was not in the script.
By delaying the task of finalizing the speech until the very last minute, MLK left himself open to the widest range of possible ideas. Procrastinating can be a vice when it comes to productivity, but it can be a virtue for creativity.
Another surprising habit of original thinkers is that they doubt their ideas. Elon Musk didn't think Tesla would succeed. And he was convinced that the first few SpaceX launches would fail to make it to orbit, let alone get back. But it was too important not to try.
And Originals have plenty of bad ideas. They fail often. But Originals have a different approach to failing. They understand that you can fail by starting a business that goes bankrupt – or you can fail by not starting a business at all.
Originals are not that different than the rest of us. They feel fear and doubt and they procrastinate. They have bad ideas. Grant's research reminds us that being quick to start and slow to finish can boost our creativity. That we can motivate ourselves by doubting our ideas, and that we need a lot of bad ideas to come up with a few good ones.
So here's a question: which Internet browser do you use? Watch the talk below to find out why Firefox and Chrome users significantly outperform Internet Explorer and Safari users.