Think Like a Rocket Scientist: Simple Strategies You Can Use to Make Giant Leaps in Work and Life

by Ozan Varol

What’s the secret to solving the puzzle? What set apart the successful participants from the unsuccessful ones? The unsuccessful participants believed they found the rule early on and proposed strings of numbers that confirmed their belief. If they thought the rule was “increasing intervals of two,” they generated strings like 8, 10, 12 or 20, 22, 24. As the experimenter validated each new string, the participants grew increasingly more confident in their initial brilliant hunch and assumed they were on the right track. They were too busy trying to find numbers that conformed to what they thought was the right rule, rather than discovering the rule itself. The successful participants took the exact opposite tack. Instead of trying to prove themselves right by generating strings that confirmed their hypothesis, they tried to falsify it. For example, if they thought the rule was “increasing intervals of two,” they would say, “3, 2, 1.” That string doesn’t follow the rule. They might then say, “2, 4, 10.” That string follows the experimenter’s rule, but doesn’t follow what most participants assumed was the right rule. The numbers game, as you may have guessed, is a microcosm for life. Our instinct in our personal and professional lives is to prove ourselves right. Every yes makes us feel good. Every yes makes us stick to what we think we know. Every yes gets us a gold star and a hit of dopamine. But every no brings us one step closer to the truth. Every no provides far more i...