Think Again Quotes

“the totalitarian ego, and its job is to keep out threatening information.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“I actually thrive on the growth that comes from the self-doubt.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“Some surveys suggest that more than half the people you know have felt like impostors at some point in their careers. It’s thought to be especially common among women and marginalized groups. Strangely, it also seems to be particularly pronounced among high achievers.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“As we gain experience, we lose some of our humility. We take pride in making rapid progress, which promotes a false sense of mastery.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“When we lack the knowledge and skills to achieve excellence, we sometimes lack the knowledge and skills to judge excellence. This insight should immediately put your favorite confident ignoramuses in their place.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“blind to his blindness: he didn’t know what he didn’t know.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“blind to his blindness:”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“They found that in many situations, those who can’t . . . don’t know they can’t. According to what’s now known as the Dunning-Kruger effect, it’s when we lack competence that we’re most likely to be brimming with overconfidence. In the original Dunning-Kruger studies, people who scored the lowest on tests of logical reasoning, grammar, and sense of humor had the most inflated opinions of their skills.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“In a meta-analysis of ninety-five studies involving over a hundred thousand people, women typically underestimated their leadership skills, while men overestimated their skills.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“few seconds to capture eyeballs with a catchy headline. It’s true that complexity doesn’t always make for good sound bites, but it does seed great conversations.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“multiple experiments have shown that when experts express doubt, they become more persuasive. When someone knowledgeable admits uncertainty, it surprises people, and they end up paying more attention to the substance of the argument.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“Anton’s syndrome—a deficit of self-awareness in which a person is oblivious to a physical disability but otherwise doing fairly well cognitively. It’s known to be caused by damage to the occipital lobe of the brain. Yet I’ve come to believe that even when our brains are functioning normally, we’re all vulnerable to a version of Anton’s syndrome.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“Just four years after it launched, the iPhone accounted for half of Apple’s revenue.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“Being good at thinking can make you worse at rethinking.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“With advances in access to information and technology, knowledge isn’t just increasing. It’s increasing at an increasing rate. In 2011, you consumed about five times as much information per day as you would have just a quarter century earlier. As of 1950, it took about fifty years for knowledge in medicine to double. By 1980, medical knowledge was doubling every seven years, and by 2010, it was doubling in half that time. The accelerating pace of change means that we need to question our beliefs more readily than ever before.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“just as sexism is not only a women’s issue, racism is not only an issue for people of color.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“A dose of complexity can disrupt overconfidence cycles and spur rethinking cycles. It gives us more humility about our knowledge and more doubts about our opinions, and it can make us curious enough to discover information we were lacking.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“An antidote to this proclivity is complexifying: showcasing the range of perspectives on a given topic. We might believe we’re making progress by discussing hot-button issues as two sides of a coin, but people are actually more inclined to think again if we present these topics through the many lenses of a prism.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“Presenting two extremes isn’t the solution; it’s part of the polarization problem. Psychologists have a name for this: binary bias. It’s a basic human tendency to seek clarity and closure by simplifying a complex continuum into two categories. To paraphrase the humorist Robert Benchley, there are two kinds of people: those who divide the world into two kinds of people, and those who don’t.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“David Dunning and Justin Kruger. They had just published a “modest report” on skill and confidence that would soon become famous. They found that in many situations, those who can’t . . . don’t know they can’t. According to what’s now known as the Dunning-Kruger effect, it’s when we lack competence that we’re most likely to be brimming with overconfidence.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“it’s worth remembering that the means are a measure of our character. When we succeed in changing someone’s mind, we shouldn’t only ask whether we’re proud of what we’ve achieved. We should also ask whether we’re proud of how we’ve achieved it.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“Listening well is more than a matter of talking less. It’s a set of skills in asking and responding. It starts with showing more interest in other people’s interests rather than trying to judge their status or prove our own.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“Motivational interviewing pioneers Miller and Rollnick have long warned that the technique shouldn’t be used manipulatively. Psychologists have found that when people detect an attempt at influence, they have sophisticated defense mechanisms. The moment people feel that we’re trying to persuade them, our behavior takes on a different meaning. A straightforward question is seen as a political tactic, a reflective listening statement comes across as a prosecutor’s maneuvering, an affirmation of their ability to change sounds like a preacher’s proselytizing.”
― 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. When contemplating a change, many people are ambivalent—they have some reasons to consider it but also some reasons to stay the course. Miller and Rollnick suggest asking about and listening for change talk, and then posing some questions about why and how they might change.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“When people ignore advice, it isn’t always because they disagree with it. Sometimes they’re resisting the sense of pressure and the feeling that someone else is controlling their decision. To protect their freedom, instead of giving commands or offering recommendations, a motivational interviewer might say something along the lines of “Here are a few things that have helped me—do you think any of them might work for you?”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“The process of motivational interviewing involves three key techniques: Asking open-ended questions Engaging in reflective listening Affirming the person’s desire and ability to change”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“Motivational interviewing starts with an attitude of humility and curiosity. We don’t know what might motivate someone else to change, but we’re genuinely eager to find out. The goal isn’t to tell people what to do; it’s to help them break out of overconfidence cycles and see new possibilities. Our role is to hold up a mirror so they can see themselves more clearly, and then empower them to examine their beliefs and behaviors. That can activate a rethinking cycle, in which people approach their own views more scientifically. They develop more humility about their knowledge, doubt in their convictions, and curiosity about alternative points of view.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“motivational interviewing. The central premise is that we can rarely motivate someone else to change. We’re better off helping them find their own motivation to change.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“This is a common problem in persuasion: what doesn’t sway us can make our beliefs stronger. Much like a vaccine inoculates our physical immune system against a virus, the act of resistance fortifies our psychological immune system.”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

“It’s a rare person who wants to hear what he doesn’t want to hear. —Attributed to Dick Cavett”
― Adam M. Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know