There is no instruction manual to replace using your brain
Why books and YouTube gurus won't save you from bad judgment or lack of critical thinking (PJ Thoughts #9)
You probably don’t need more books - you need better thinking skills
To be the at the top 0.1% of high-performing founders, you have to build insanely good judgment.
An absurd number of leaders look for step-by-step instruction manuals on how to run their companies. This is wrong. You can’t expect a blog post, write-up, doc, or video to teach you how to run your company. That personalized manual does not exist. If there was, everyone would already have billion dollar companies.
I’m not saying there aren’t articles and posts out there with generalized guidance based on pattern-matching - there’s plenty of useful content out there. But these should act as thought-prompts, not one-size-fits-all answers.
Everyone is different. Your company is different, your teams are different, and your timing is different. Anyone who says, “Do it this way every time for perfect results” is a liar and grifter.
To run your company successfully, you have to learn how to think critically. Nothing substitutes critical thinking. You can’t outsource judgment and good discernment. You must be the one reviewing the facts, stepping away from any emotional bias, and making decisions based on your analysis of the problem in front of you.
For every project or initiative, you have to decide how in-the-weeds you get, or how much you let your team go at it. All of this will depend entirely on what project it is, how complicated it is, how mission-critical it is, and how much prior context will be needed to execute this project well. The answers will totally depend business line to business line, company to company.
To be frank, if you want to be the best, you have to be incredibly self-aware on what your strengths and weaknesses are.
Do this by doing feedback analysis: when you make a key decision, write it down and see what happens. You’ll see how often you’re right — and more importantly, how often you’re wrong.
Feedback analysis takes months. So instead of waiting months for results, start by making a list of what you think you’re good at, what you’re just OK at, and what you’re terrible at.
When making this list, don’t compare yourself to existing people on your team. You will naturally make the list so you say you’re good at the things that you want to own, and you’ll say you’re bad at the things you want the rest of the team to own.
Instead, think back to your mental track record. Where do you honestly suck and lack judgment? Where have you gotten repeat feedback that you might not be the best in that domain?
If it’s something you love that you’re told you suck at, take an even closer, harder look. These are the things that are hardest for us to admit to ourselves that yes, maybe we suck here. Be careful not to fall into intellectual arrogance - simply being smart isn’t a good substitute for learning real, hard facts.
Peter Drucker said it’s hard to improve from having no talent or skill to becoming simply mediocre. It’s better to spend time investing in the things you’re good at to become great at it:
Once you know what you’re great at, focus there. Then, spend the rest of your time improving the things that will compound your level of expertise in the stuff you’re already great at.
On improving your critical thinking
You won’t know how to operate well or learn well if you don’t know your strengths and weaknesses. And you can’t know your strengths and weaknesses if you don’t know how to think deeply.
So here’s a few things you can try out to improve your critical thinking:
Get yourself a coach. Your coach should not be your best friend. Your coach should be a hard-ass who isn’t afraid of telling you exactly what you need to hear. You don’t have to like your coach, but you must respect them, and trust that they will tell you the truth, even if it hurts to hear. No one else is going to be more honest to you than a coach - no cofounder, no teammate, no investor, no c-suite.
Build your resilience for harsh feedback, and prove that you can take it graciously. This will help you see your blind spots more clearly. When you get defensive or angry, ask yourself, “Why does this person think this?” Allow yourself to practice curiosity.
Exercise good intuition on who you want to take feedback from. In Think Again, Adam Grant suggests assembling small councils of people who can provide you with different perspectives and insights. No single mentor has all the answers, so build your own path based on what you learn. But in the end, you must take radical ownership and responsibility for whatever decisions you make, so don’t listen and follow advice blindly - only you know what’s best for you and your company.
Practice developing your concentration and focus. Most people lack good judgment and critical thinking because they can’t hold a train of thought for longer than two seconds. Their minds begin to wander, and it gets pulled down multiple rabbit holes. They can’t see what their most important priorities are, for themselves and for their companies, because they can’t control their racing minds.
Stop watching short-form videos as your default mode of consumption, stop reading pithy 280-character posts to collect information, and stop listening to things at 2.5x speed to race through content without truly digesting or consuming what you’re listening. This is like junk food for the mind and erodes your ability to think.
Practice meditation, read books and slowly process what you’re learning. Go for walks to allow your learnings to sit in. Learn to appreciate silence; we do our best thinking when we silence the inner chatter (or external if you need sound all the time), and listen more intently instead. You know you’re getting there when you learn to savor the sound of silence.
Do this over and over again, until you begin to think clearly. Or — if you’ve learned anything from this post — think deeply about what will actually help you improve your concentration. (This is not a literal how-to guide, after all.)
You’ll know you’re on your way when you become less afraid of making good decisions. You will no longer feel like you have to get approval from people with more power than you before doing something.
And this is a very good thing.