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

by Ozan Varol

In the last chapter, we explored how to refine and reframe the ideas you generated in the first part of the book (“Launch”) by asking better questions and finding better problems. In this chapter, we’ll take those refined ideas and learn how to stress-test them. I’ll reveal the rocket scientist’s tool kit for spotting flaws in your decision making, rooting out misinformation, and detecting errors before they snowball into catastrophe. You’ll learn the test of a first-rate intelligence and the one question that will make you a better problem solver. I’ll explain why a simple change in vocabulary can make your mind more flexible and what you can learn from a basic puzzle that 80 percent of people fail to solve. We’ll explore the benefits of switching our default from convincing others that we’re right to convincing ourselves that we’re wrong.