Not sure if this is anyone's else's experience, but I relate this closely to First Principle's thinking. 1. You start by asking the "obvious" questions, the th

Not sure if this is anyone's else's experience, but I relate this closely to First Principle's thinking. 1. You start by asking the "obvious" questions, the things everyone is supposed to already know. Question every assumption, every bit of "common sense". 2. Along the way, you discover that most people don't truly know what they claim to know. Instead, it's just years of built-up bias. 3. Soon you're asking questions no one thought of asking in the first place. 4. Finally, you understand the subject better than anyone, because you started by questions the foundational assumptions and built up from there. You see how all the pieces connect. (To my fellow programmers: This is, I think, why many of us dislike frameworks... too many levels of abstraction from the real thing.) Related concepts: - Always be willing to be the dumbest person in the room. It means you've surrounded yourself with people smarter than you, so you can learn from them. It also means they'll help you be far more successful than you could on your own. - Don't try to outsmart everyone. Just try to avoid dumb mistakes. While everyone else is trying to impress each other with their brilliance, you can calmly do the next right thing, and avoid the next dumb thing. Charlie Munger credits the success of Berkshire Hathaway to this principle more than any other. It means being willing to LOOK stupid in order to avoid actually BEING stupid.