How to Think for Yourself

Moreover if you subscribe to the dichotomy you're probably doing a poor job of creating an environment that encourages people to be independent minded.

At the organizational level it feels completely normal that it will become more conventional within it's own bubble as it grows. Companies are mostly trying to move in one direction and having lots of independent people off doing their own thing runs counter to that. Other similar structures follow this pattern as well. Part of it is cultural norms developing but part of it is recognizing that a company is very much exerting pressure on the people that work within it. Which is probably why founders find it easier to talk to other founders as they both have the luxury of the freedom to think independently within this context as they are steering the company itself.

You see this with attempts at internal startups or R&D teams where independence is encouraged but it's impossible or hard to spin anything out of them because you end up bumping back into the company pressures trying to do so. You're basically asked to "go do something amazing" ... "but not like that!"

Personally I love small companies primarily for the autonomy it provides and as a designer really value applying myself to different problems. So I get the joy of independence but I think I'm fairly conventional on other topics.

In practice most people absolutely despise originality. It isn't that something original is merely disinterested or disagreeable. It is a thing of emotional revulsion that frequently brings forth hostility.

Ray Dalio, as I discovered when I interviewed at BridgeWater in 2014, had figured out how to test for originality as a psychological personality characteristic and comparatively measure people using a standard metric. Strangely enough if you score high enough on such a metric people will be interested in you for interesting reasons such that they might be able to identify or measure the concept and yet not have any idea how to explorer it or exploit it.

What I have learned most from originality is rejecting feedback and scoring ideas not in what people say but what they do next or whether they come back. I have also learned that originality appeals highly to a very specific class of people eager to explore new things. These rare people are precious to early stage ideas of any kind. Identify them and go out of your way to appreciate their time even when they disagree with you.

> When you hear someone say something, stop and ask yourself "Is that true?"

This is one of my favorite things to do, though the list of people who will talk to me again after I do it is very short. (Edit: To be extra clear... While this is a bitter pill - I do not like it when others do it to me - I do find it to be very effective for reinforcing good faith in close, trusting relationships. I also do appreciate when others use this question on me; the temporary frustration/discomfort is worth reminding me to center myself.)

When someone is feeling outraged about something (often politics) simply ask: "but are they correct?" The answer is almost always: "I'm not sure" (myself included). When doing this to myself, this is often enough for me to shrug off the outrage and realize that I actually do not care. It really doesn't matter to me what political statements a mayor from a town in another state made.

> In the most independent-minded people, the desire not to be told what to think is a positive force.

This subject implies another that is closely related, and is my biggest complaint about ads. Ads try to tell you what to think, and they are sometimes successful. But more importantly, they tell you what to think _about_, and they are much more successful at this. I like being focused on the problems that I have, and ads try as hard as they can to take that focus away.