The Five Elements of Effective Thinking summary

For years, people looked at birds, bats and insects and concluded, “All these animals flap their wings; flapping must be the secret to flight!”

If you’ve flown in an airplane, you know this conclusion is clearly wrong. But when trying to understand a phenomenon, we often reach for what seems the most obvious answer.

We all have bad days. Yet what distinguishes great thinkers from the average is not the absence of bad days, it’s the way a great thinker reacts to them when they occur.

This is a crucial lesson: whenever you make a mistake, make sure you take time to reflect on it.

Many people are deathly afraid of failure. They believe that in failing, they won’t ever succeed – a perspective that stops many people from ever trying new things.

To be innovative, you cannot be afraid to make mistakes. In fact, because failing can provide you with such useful information, it shouldn’t be avoided but instead welcomed. The element Fire reminds us of this; we have to make the uncomfortable comfortable to truly succeed.

Children ask a lot of questions. Yet as adults, we’re often distracted by our own problems and thus annoyed by this overeager inquisitiveness – especially the persistent, “why?”

This response is wrongheaded. Indeed, constantly questioning is crucial to developing the most effective mind-set.

Two men are walking in the forest when suddenly an angry bear starts to chase them. Both break into a sprint. While they’re running, one asks the other if he thinks they can outrun the bear and survive. The other says, “I don't need to outrun the bear. The question is: Can I outrun you?”

Coming up with good questions is an invaluable skill. But what exactly makes a good question?

In cartoons, a character has an idea and a light bulb switches on over their head. Although this is a popular and visual metaphor, it’s far from accurate.

That’s because every idea has its own history. “New” ideas do not come from nowhere; rather, they are simply variations on existing ideas. Like the element Water, ideas flow from the past to the present.

The American mathematician R. H. Bing once said that the time to work on a problem is after you have solved it. In other words, innovation should never come to a halt.

As we saw in the previous blink, every new idea is the source of another new idea. Thus you shouldn’t stop thinking, just because you’ve reached one solution to a particular problem.

What’s the definition of insanity? Someone once said it’s doing the same thing again and again, and expecting different results each time.

So, if you’re not happy with how your life is progressing, change it. Earlier blinks have shown you what you can do to make a positive change. Now it’s time for you to actually do it!