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

by Ozan Varol

The credit for first-principles thinking goes to Aristotle, who defined it as “the first basis from which a thing is known.”12 The French philosopher and scientist René Descartes described it as systematically doubting everything you can possibly doubt, until you’re left with unquestionable truths.13 Instead of regarding the status quo as an absolute, you take a machete to it. Instead of letting your original vision—or the visions of others—shape the path forward, you abandon all allegiances to them. You hack through existing assumptions as if you’re hacking through a jungle until you’re left with the fundamental components. Everything else is negotiable. First-principles thinking allows you to see the seemingly obvious insight that’s hiding under everyone’s nose. “Talent hits a target no one else can hit,” philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer said, but “genius hits a target no one else can see.” When you apply first-principles thinking, you switch from being a cover band that plays someone else’s songs to an artist that does the painstaking work of creating something new. You go from what author James Carse calls a finite player, someone playing within boundaries, to an infinite player, someone playing with boundaries.