Independent thought is pretty rare these days, partly because those who think differently are ridiculed. Personally, I take immense pride in being a serial contrarian... It helps me muster up the courage to stand my ground when conventional wisdom is totally wrong.

Anyway, I came a cross a very lame article on Pick The Brain about Five Ways To Develop Independent Thought. You can read the article if you'd like to waste precious minutes of your life... in the words of Eric Cartman: Lame! Weak! Totally lame! Was this clown writing for a fourth grade audience??? Why the heck was that thing Dugg, anyway? I sense a fundamental lack of independent thought on behalf of the writer...

Lifehacker came up with some slightly better advice, but I still felt that it was off the mark. Not enough practical information on how to "rewire" your brain for independent thought... just the same old rehashed advice.

After reading them, I decided to put together some less than horrible advice on the subject. Now, I cannot promise that this will help you "Develop Independent Thought," like some lame-o's claims... Rather, this is simply a collection of five steps I take to stimulate new ideas when conventional wisdom and common sense have let me down...

It might not work for you, but it has enabled me to build a reputation for getting things done, despite my preference for doing things very differently:

1. Become Fearless About Failure
2. Force Yourself To Believe The Impossible
3. Stimulate Your Mind With Scary, New Ideas
4. Lecture To Yourself
5. Finally, Uncover The Flaws In Conventional Wisdom

1) Become Fearless About Failure

If you're trying do things that have never been done, your first attempts will inevitably suck. There is no preventing this... You will fail several times if your goal is innovation.

One trick that some people advocate is to always surround yourself with positive, supportive individuals. That way, crazy ideas that might be useful will not immediately be squashed. Its true that a common rule in brainstorming is to never shoot down an idea for fear that negativity would disrupt the entire process.

I agree that if you're on a roll, any and all crazy ideas should be documented for later analysis... but implementation is totally different. You'll never be able to surround yourself with enough positive, supportive people to keep you going unless you can shake the fear of failure.

Start by learning how failure breeds success, and let yourself fail a few times. The worst thing you can do is let those ideas fester in your brain, waiting for the perfect moment. That's how ideas become addictive, and turn into Brain Crack... If this happens to you, the odds of having more ideas is very slim.

In practice: try, fail, learn, repeat.

2) Force Yourself To Believe The Impossible

I discovered this way back in Philosophy class... your brain works on a fundamentally different level when you challenge it to store contradictory pieces of information. I have won, and I have lost. I am the master, and I am the slave. There is no conflict between the goals of the Pro Life and the Pro Choice movement.

If you say these in passing, you brain does nothing special... but if you wake each day and believe it very strongly, a strange thing happens: as your brain struggles to store both ideas, you start to see connections that make the impossible possible. This isn't a magical process: the quality of the new ideas are dependent on the quality of information you can store in your mind. If you read a great deal about science, innovation, and human nature, you'll usually discover interesting connections...

Remember: your brain is nothing like a computer. You can't store information just anywhere: each idea is stored near similar ideas through axonal and dendritic connections. In order to store contradictory ideas, you force your brain to make those connections in strange, new ways. Eventually, simply by thinking about the problem, you can find amazing solutions that eliminate the contradiction!

Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one can't believe impossible things."

"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." -- Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll

In practice, when I start a new software project -- no matter how large or difficult -- I always say to myself "this can be solved with 100 lines of code." I'm usually wrong... however forcing myself to believe this allows my brain to discover simple, elegant solutions to very difficult problems. Also, it feels pretty dang good on the occasions when I'm right, and I actually solve the "impossible" problem with 100 lines of elegant code.

3) Stimulate Your Mind With Scary, New Ideas

If you are a writer, learn to paint. If you are a web designer, learn economics. If you are a software engineer, write music. Learn arts and crafts, languages, fashion, stock trading, carpentry, history, the law, whatever you can get your get your grubbly little mitts on.

Now... every creativity expert gives this same piece of lame-o advice... but don't assume for one minute that new ideas will help you without application. I like reading about stock trading and history, but as a software architect that stuff won't stay in my brain for long, because it has nothing to do with my day-to-day activities.

This means that you should try to apply your new information quickly. One option is to blog your thoughts on what you just read. Even if your observations are incredibly lame, at least now the new ideas are stored twice in your brain.

Another option is to apply new ideas to existing projects. If you learn ideas from completely different fields, this trick will rarely be applicable. However, when it is relevant, it works amazingly well.

In practice, I do something slightly different... It's completely insane, but holy cow does it work:

4) Lecture To Yourself

No, don't talk to yourself, that would be pure crazy. Instead, envision giving a lecture, taking part in a debate, or being interviewed on the ideas you just learned.

I came across this trick during some of my trickier Physics courses... I noticed that I remembered principles much better after going to study group, and explaining them to others. The act of writing the information in my notes helped, but not enough. Instead, I verbalized them, I answered questions, and I defended against challenges. Afterwards, they stuck in my brain like super glue.

This is based on a simple principle of neurobiology: the more connections you have to a specific idea, the more accessible it will be in the future. Depending on your learning style, you may prefer to write the information instead of speak it... I prefer to cover all my bases and do both: blog, and mock lecture.

Richard Feynman said many times that in order to better understand principles of Physics, he would prepare a Freshman lecture on the subject. If he could not explain a concept to the average Freshman, then the odds are that the principle is not well understood by anybody. I'm simply applying this principle to everything I read.

Therefore, for every hour I spend reading new material, I try to spend 1/2 to 2 hours talking about it. If I have a study group, great... or perhaps I can tell somebody "I read something interesting today..." However, in order to not bore my friends to death, I usually compose an extemporaneous speech in my mind regarding the new material. These speeches try to explain the concepts to a layman by making connections to other pieces of knowledge that I have.

This takes practice... but afterwards the new ideas are solidly in my brain, and I've jump-started their usefulness by making initial connections to old ideas. When it's time for the next brainstorming session, I'm fully prepared.

In practice, when trying to stimulate new ideas I pace the hallways, lecturing to myself about the optimal architecture for a specific system... sometimes for a full hour. Many of my friends and coworkers have seen me do this... I wonder if any of them suspected what I was actually doing?

5) Finally, Uncover The Flaws In Conventional Wisdom

Now that you are fearless about failure, you believe the impossible, your mind is stimulated with new ideas, and you've made connections to your existing beliefs, new ideas should start flowing right out of you. Admittedly, most of them will be half baked, but never lose hope. If one in ten pans out, you're doing well above average.

If you need more help getting started, I'd suggest being a contrarian. Start with a piece of conventional wisdom that always struck you as not quite right... Next, take the opposing viewpoint. Believe it, and believe it hard.

Then do some research about it. Try to discover all the ways that it could be wrong. Data, opinions, hearsay, it really doesn't matter. Remember: the goal is not to prove conventional wisdom is wrong, but simply to believe it is.

Now, relax. Have a scotch. Take a nap. Take a walk. Have another scotch. Whatever! As lame as this sounds, after relaxing the solution frequently presents itself. You'll see the flaws in the conventional wisdom, and will be able to design a solution that's significantly better.

Warning! Danger!

This kind of thought process is not for all situations... if you are on a deadline, frequently the best solution is to follow the conventional wisdom. Don't waste too much time daydreaming on the off chance that you'll gain amazing insight. It's not worth the risk.

Also, innovative ideas are highly disruptive. You need to understand how they will affect everybody down the line, and not just yourself. You might believe you have had the best idea in the world, but it could have significant negative effects to others. This means that a great idea from your perspective is a terrible idea to everybody else. If you don't notice this, and press your idea on others, you might create a disaster. Either way, you'll certainly create enemies.

Congratulations! Your brilliant idea is now a liability.

Therefore, there are three other skills that are essential to sifting through great ideas, and bring the best to the world: systems thinking, communication / conflict resolution, and change management. I've discussed these in the past, and will certainly press their importance again in the future... If anybody is interested in those, leave a comment, and I'll suggest a few books.

Otherwise, start innovating!