Think Again Quotes

“It’s when we progress from novice to amateur that we become overconfident. A bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing. In too many domains of our lives, we never gain enough expertise to question our opinions or discover what we don’t know. We have just enough information to feel self-assured about making pronouncements and passing judgment, failing to realize that we’ve climbed to the top of Mount Stupid without making it over to the other side.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“It’s when we progress from novice to amateur that we become overconfident. A bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing. In too many domains of our lives, we never gain enough expertise to question our opinions or discover what we don’t know.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“Kids might be better off learning about careers as actions to take rather than as identities to claim.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“We all have blind spots in our knowledge and opinions. The bad news is that they can leave us blind to our blindness, which gives us false confidence in our judgment and prevents us from rethinking”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“You’ve probably met some football fans who are convinced they know more than the coaches on the sidelines. That’s the armchair quarterback syndrome, where confidence exceeds competence. Even after calling financial plays that destroyed an economy, Davíð Oddsson still refused to acknowledge that he wasn’t qualified to coach—let alone quarterback. He was blind to his weaknesses. Jason Adam Katzenstein/The New Yorker Collection/The Cartoon Bank; © Condé Nast The opposite of armchair quarterback syndrome is impostor syndrome, where competence exceeds confidence. Think of the people you know who believe that they don’t deserve their success.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“This tendency matters because it compromises self-awareness, and it trips us up across all kinds of settings. Look what happened when economists evaluated the operations and management practices of thousands of companies across a wide range of industries and countries, and compared their assessments with managers’ self-ratings:”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“We needed to burst filter bubbles in our news feeds and shatter echo chambers in our networks.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“The curse of knowledge is that it closes our minds to what we don’t know. Good judgment depends on having the skill—and the will—to open our minds. I’m pretty confident that in life, rethinking is an increasingly important habit. Of course, I might be wrong. If I am, I’ll be quick to think again.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“Our convictions can lock us in prisons of our own making. The solution is not to decelerate our thinking—it’s to accelerate our rethinking. That’s what resurrected Apple from the brink of bankruptcy to become the world’s most valuable company.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“Scientific thinking favors humility over pride, doubt over certainty, curiosity over closure. When we shift out of scientist mode, the rethinking cycle breaks down, giving way to an overconfidence cycle. If we’re preaching, we can’t see gaps in our knowledge: we believe we’ve already found the truth. Pride breeds conviction rather than doubt, which makes us prosecutors: we might be laser-focused on changing other people’s minds, but ours is set in stone.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“When we’re in scientist mode, we refuse to let our ideas become ideologies. We don’t start with answers or solutions; we lead with questions and puzzles. We don’t preach from intuition; we teach from evidence. We don’t just have healthy skepticism about other people’s arguments; we dare to disagree with our own arguments.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“Mental horsepower doesn’t guarantee mental dexterity. No matter how much brainpower you have, if you lack the motivation to change your mind, you’ll miss many occasions to think again.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“I’m beginning to think decisiveness is overrated . . . but I reserve the right to change my mind.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“Two decades ago my colleague Phil Tetlock discovered something peculiar. As we think and talk, we often slip into the mindsets of three different professions: preachers, prosecutors, and politicians. In each of these modes, we take on a particular identity and use a distinct set of tools. We go into preacher mode when our sacred beliefs are in jeopardy: we deliver sermons to protect and promote our ideals. We enter prosecutor mode when we recognize flaws in other people’s reasoning: we marshal arguments to prove them wrong and win our case. We shift into politician mode when we’re seeking to win over an audience: we campaign and lobby for the approval of our constituents. The risk is that we become so wrapped up in preaching that we’re right, prosecuting others who are wrong, and politicking for support that we don’t bother to rethink our own views.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“Rethinking is a skill set, but it’s also a mindset. We already have many of the mental tools we need. We just have to remember to get them out of the shed and remove the rust.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“This book is an invitation to let go of knowledge and opinions that are no longer serving you well, and to anchor your sense of self in flexibility rather than consistency. If you can master the art of rethinking, I believe you’ll be better positioned for success at work and happiness in life. Thinking again can help you generate new solutions to old problems and revisit old solutions to new problems. It’s a path to learning more from the people around you and living with fewer regrets.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“This book is about the value of rethinking. It’s about adopting the kind of mental flexibility that saved Wagner Dodge’s life. It’s also about succeeding where he failed: encouraging that same agility in others.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“It’s not the frogs who fail to reevaluate. It’s us. Once we hear the story and accept it as true, we rarely bother to question it.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“We favor the comfort of conviction over the discomfort of doubt, and we let our beliefs get brittle long before our bones. We laugh at people who still use Windows 95, yet we still cling to opinions that we formed in 1995. We listen to views that make us feel good, instead of ideas that make us think hard.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“In motivational interviewing, there’s a distinction between sustain talk and change talk. Sustain talk is commentary about maintaining the status quo. Change talk is referencing a desire, ability, need, or commitment to make adjustments.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“The more anger and hostility the other person expresses, the more curiosity and interest you show. When someone is losing control, your tranquility is a sign of strength.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“Psychologists have long found that the person most likely to persuade you to change your mind is you.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“A single line of argument feels like a conversation; multiple lines of argument can become an onslaught.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“We won’t have much luck changing other people’s minds if we refuse to change ours. We can demonstrate openness by acknowledging where we agree with our critics and even what we’ve learned from them. Then, when we ask what views they might be willing to revise, we’re not hypocrites. Convincing other people to think again isn’t just about making a good argument—it’s about establishing that we have the right motives in doing so.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“This book is an invitation to let go of knowledge and opinions that are no longer serving you well, and to anchor your sense of self in flexibility rather than consistency. If you can master the art of rethinking, I believe you’ll be better positioned for success at work and happiness in life. Thinking again can help you generate new solutions to old problems and revisit old solutions to new problems. It’s a path to learning more from the people around you and living with fewer regrets. A hallmark of wisdom is knowing when it’s time to abandon some of your most treasured tools—and some of the most cherished parts of your identity.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“A hallmark of wisdom is knowing when it’s time to abandon some of your most treasured tools—and some of the most cherished parts of your identity. PART I Individual Rethinking Updating Our Own Views”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“Advancing from novice to amateur can break the rethinking cycle. As we gain experience, we lose some of our humility. We take pride in making rapid progress, which promotes a false sense of mastery. That jump-starts an overconfidence cycle, preventing us from doubting what we know and being curious about what we don’t. We get trapped in a beginner’s bubble of flawed assumptions, where we’re ignorant of our own ignorance.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“As we think and talk, we often slip into the mindsets of three different professions: preachers, prosecutors, and politicians. In each of these modes, we take on a particular identity and use a distinct set of tools. We go into preacher mode when our sacred beliefs are in jeopardy: we deliver sermons to protect and promote our ideals. We enter prosecutor mode when we recognize flaws in other people’s reasoning: we marshal arguments to prove them wrong and win our case. We shift into politician mode when we’re seeking to win over an audience: we campaign and lobby for the approval of our constituents. The risk is that we become so wrapped up in preaching that we’re right, prosecuting others who are wrong, and politicking for support that we don’t bother to rethink our own views.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“My colleagues and I ran an experiment testing two different messages meant to convince thousands of resistant alumni to give.14 One message emphasized the opportunity to do good: donating would benefit students, faculty, and staff. The other emphasized the opportunity to feel good: donors would enjoy the warm glow of giving. The two messages were equally effective: in both cases, 6.5 percent of the stingy alumni ended up donating. Then we combined them, because two reasons are better than one. Except they weren’t. When we put the two reasons together, the giving rate dropped below 3 percent. Each reason alone was more than twice as effective as the two combined.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“Sunk costs are a factor, but the most important causes appear to be psychological rather than economic. Escalation of commitment happens because we’re rationalizing creatures, constantly searching for self-justifications for our prior beliefs as a way to soothe our egos, shield our images, and validate our past decisions.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know