Think Like a Freak

The book stresses the importance of seeing a problem clearly, since no one can solve a problem without knowing exactly what it is. This includes defining the problem correctly, asking the right questions to be able to solve it, finding its real cause, and looking through fresh eyes as children do. These all have to do with identifying a problem or discovering something related to it.

This theme is grouped into Chapters 3 to 5. With many problems, people make assumptions or accept conventional wisdom without questioning things for themselves. The case the authors point to here is education. When people think of improving children’s education, they automatically think of school and the changes that could be made there. However, research indicates that a child’s home environment—especially their parents—has a greater effect on education than anything related to teachers or the classroom (which is not to say that the latter have no effect).

Similarly, one must first ask the right questions on the path to defining a problem clearly. The story of Takeru Kobayashi, the competitive-eating champion, is instructive here. He destroyed the record for eating hot dogs at Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest his first time out, downing two dozen more than the previous record.