A Singular Reflection on Malcolm Gladwell’s Most Disruptive Quotes

Deep thinking to deep learning.

The ignorant are ignorant of their ignorance.- Peter Baskerville

I love to talk and argue with people more intelligent than me. Why? Because I love to be wrong.

Being wrong in a discussion, means you have more opportunities to be right in life.

Many times our prejudices, our line of thought, the information we consume, the beliefs that are imposed on us, make us wrong.

Intelligent people make us break the ice, and if we have our spirit open to change, we will always be on the way to a clearer truth.

It’s not easy to have people on our side that challenge us all the time. It’s like we have someone who is constantly removing the carpet from under our feet. But the reality is that only in this way do we grow. Only in this way can we move to different stages of thought.

It doesn’t mean that we are following the immaculately correct path. Especially because this path does not exist yet. What it really means, is that we are evolving. We are building new “selves” that allow us to see the world more broadly.

Feeling more vulnerable by the doubts that are invading our minds is a sign of maturity, contrary to what people may think. The more we read, the more doubts we have. The more we learn, the more doubts we have. The more we are surprised by an intelligent friend with a completely new perspective on a subject, the more doubts we are left with.

Having more doubts means that we are alive, that we do not want to stand still, and that we are faithful to what distinguishes us from other animals — the curiosity that makes us look for the unknown.

“The key to good decision-making is not knowledge. It is understanding. We are swimming in the former. We are desperately lacking in the latter.”

In ancient times, there were wise men, people who devoted themselves to deep thinking on the most complex subjects. The kings and the most important people asked the wise men for advice.

Today we live in a comfortable world of light thoughts. Abundance made us soft, shallow, and somewhat futile.

We work like dogs to buy time to be on vacation. We work like dogs to buy more and more comfortable gadgets for our homes. But we never have time to think deeply about our life, our priorities, our life principles.

If we took a whole year to think about our role on this planet, we would probably be surprised by the response we would hear.

“The older I get, the more I understand that the only way to say valuable things is to lose your fear of being correct.“

The fleeting life that we do today has transformed us into information gobblers. Our brain became addicted to receiving tons of information, selecting only the ones that matter.

A paragraph of complex writing is of no interest to the majority. We are not interested in assimilating literature that disturbs us, challenges us, makes us question everything. Either through negligence or out of fear, we run away from the difficult, to embrace the obvious.

With this, we lose our voice, our opinion, and we become reproducers of messages that we read here and there.

Fortunately, the few who worry us scream loudly about what is in their souls. When we hear them, we feel vulnerable, and one of the two: We either face the words or pretend we don’t listen.

“The 10,000-hour rule says that if you look at any kind of cognitively complex field, from playing guess to being a neurosurgeon, we see this consistent pattern that you cannot be good at that unless you practice for 10,000 hours, which is roughly 10 years if you thing about four hours a day.”

Consistency and persistence are the two main rules to become mature in actions, procedures, and efficiency.

Perhaps because the process is so slow, so few people manage to reach excellence. The relentless quest for process improvement over a decade is a Herculean challenge.

In writing, in thinking, or in any other profession, that restlessness that haunts us, that makes us constantly question all the steps we take, is what leads us to the exuberant way of living.

“The visionary starts with a clean sheet of paper and re-imagines the world.”

Leonardo da Vinci, Michaelangelo, or Aristoteles, in addition to many others, in the history of mankind, had the opportunity to create paths, thought, art, and communication.

Our world is full of creators. Women and men with the art born in their hands, create new paths that immediately became the norm for the ordinary people.

The world is moving towards artificial intelligence, but we will never advance in time without the human touch’s unquestionable importance.

“The underdog winning is the romantic position.”

Life is full of irony. We, humans, long for unlikely stories.

We rely on each other on the events that fill us with hope for tomorrow.

When the underdog wins respect, fights for independence, and reinforces his autonomy, he gives hope to the world that the light that illuminates us is accurate and is present.

“Truly successful decision-making relies on a balance between deliberate and instinct thinking.”

People with the ability to do things, constantly improve their instincts by the action itself. You have to take risks and move on. If you are the type of person who waits for the train to pass without risking jumping into a carriage, you will always be running against the loss.

Risk is part of the action and the action is part of the learning.

There is no greater art than learning from mistakes. Our brain stays more in tune, our body stronger, and our spirit more adventurous.

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