#129 How To Think Like A Genius—Next Level Thinking

Rachel Denning (00:01.23)
Hey my friends, welcome to another episode of the extraordinary family life podcasts. Who wants to think like a genius? I bet you do. In fact, I bet most people do because you can ask the opposite question. Who would like to think like an idiot? The obvious answer is hopefully nobody. I don't want to. I want to think at a different level because I know that thinking at a different level will take my life.

to a different level. And what's interesting is we rarely think that there are levels of thinking. Probably because we're in the level of thinking that we're currently in and it's so hard to know what you don't know and to see outside of what you see and to be conscious and aware of what you're not aware of, right?

Like CS Lewis said, you don't know you're asleep while you're sleeping. It's when you wake up that you realize you were sleeping and we get caught in this, I don't know, this mental space of awareness and we're, we're in a certain level of thinking and we don't realize that we're in that level until we move out of it and go, Whoa, that was awesome. And so we have to bring this awareness and it's tricky. It's hard, right? This is tough. In fact, I'll say that to change your level of thinking.

is one of the hardest things in life. Um, it was, uh, Earl Nightingale. If you guys have not listened to the strangest secret by Earl Nightingale, please do so. If you haven't listened to it for a long time, re -listen to it. Um, I try to go through it at least once or twice a year and I've listened to it maybe 30 or 40 times. It is phenomenal over the last, you know, maybe 15 years. Love, love, love that. And he says, it's thinking is that people don't think because thinking is hard work.

It's tough. And so most people don't do it. And, and the reality is we, most of us don't know how to do it because it takes the effort. It actually takes the effort to find out how to practice it. And it feels strange. And, and even saying that, I remember the first time I listened to this years ago and I heard him say that I'm like, thinking's not so hard. What's he talking about? It's not hard to sit there and think, which reveals.

Rachel Denning (02:26.414)
my ignorance of the subject because it is, it is quite challenging. And then there's an extraordinary book by John Maxwell that I highly recommend called thinking for a change. And he talks about how he has a deliberate scheduled practice of thinking. He has a time and a place and a ritual or routine that's built into his schedule. So he has time to think.

And that's one of those key elements of learning to think like a genius is making. So if you're taking notes, let's, we're going to make a little list here, jot that down, make time schedule it actually. Cause what gets scheduled gets done. So make and schedule time and a place to think. Cause sometimes thinking is better in other places. Well, again,

We have to be strategic about it too, because how many of you have had just a brilliant idea while you're in the shower or on a run, or you kind of just disconnect for a minute, you let your mind just settle or relax into something else and maybe diffused thinking. And all of a sudden, bam, there's the idea, right? So you get your mind and your subconscious mind working on something, you give it a question, right? That's another thing you can add on your list there. Give your mind something to work on. If...

If the only thing we ever give our minds to work on is like, what are we going to do this weekend? And what should I have for dinner? And we're asking just transactional questions. You guys have heard me talk about that, right? The difference between transactional and transformational where most of us are thinking on a transactional level. And so we've got to move to a transformational level. Genius level thinking is, is transformational.

So we got to move away from the transactional thinking of the day to day, the routines, what am I going to say to this person? How I'm, what am I going to wear today? We're just going through this and it's easy. You with me? I'm not, and I'm not, I'm not burning anybody here. I'm not roasting or toasting or judging or condemning anyone. It's just, that's just the normal. That's the default setting. Man, I was stuck in that for a long time.

Rachel Denning (04:53.166)
We all are look around. We're stuck in the default setting. We don't give our minds something to think about something to work on and we don't put in the effort. We don't schedule time. If you could show me your calendar right now, would it show me time to think?

If we, you and I sat down together one -on -one, I'd say, what are you deeply thinking about? What big problem are you trying to solve? And this is, this is why I love when I'm working with my coaching clients. I'll ask them very pointed questions like what is it you want to achieve and, and how do you, how do you want to go after a big dumb goal? What, how are you going to change that? Right? They'll come up with, this is a challenge, this is a problem, this is a desire. Okay. Where are you going? How are you going to do that? How are you going to make that difference?

Because the regular thinking, the default thinking is, oh man, this is just the way things are. This is just how I am. But I love to challenge myself and others to say, oh no, no, no, no, no, what are you gonna, how are you gonna change that? How are you gonna do that differently?

Ooh, right. And when we give our mind something to work on and then we work on it and we get the, the subconscious conscious mind working on it, sometimes it'll come while we're sitting there thinking. And sometimes it'll come when we just step away from it. You sit down and play the piano or practice the violin or you go for a bike ride or, you know, here's, here's where I find they often come. I hear it from a lot of people is ideas literally come like in a shower.

because what happens is you've been thinking about something, you've been working on something, you go for a run or a bike ride or a workout and what it does is it pumps all that blood. So all you're doing is you're hitting the gas pedal to your brain, right? You heard that in a previous episode. You're just hitting the gas pedal to your brain. You're pumping all this oxygen and blood to your brain. Your brain lights up. Holy cow. It's firing in all circuits. And then after that workout, you, you kind of just relax. You're getting in the shower and boom, there comes the ideas, right?

Rachel Denning (07:02.67)
So have a way to capture ideas. That's a key too. So I'm gonna add that to the list. Capture your ideas. Absolutely have to capture your ideas. Man, if you do not have a way, an idea journal, in fact I've got my journal right here in front of me, the one that we now sell. Like it's a, I don't know, we call it the extraordinary life journal, right? This is the life journal where it has the, mine has five booklets in it. So it's handmade.

gorgeous leather journal with replaceable booklets that have sections or categories or, um, you know, areas of your life. You want to focus on life and business. I mean, you, you can organize your entire life right here in one spot. Oh, I love it. So I'm working on mine right now. I got it on my lap here. I'm writing in it. You've got to have a place to capture ideas. You have to, if you don't capture ideas like

they're just going to come and go and you think, Oh, that's so, that's so big. I'll remember that. And we don't, it just goes away. So to learn how to think like a genius and to be wise, you got to capture your ideas. I hope you're, I hope you're taking notes here if you can, if you're doing something else, like even pause and just capture a couple of these, these ideas, because if we, if we can make a little list here and work on the list, implement the list, it's going to take our thinking to an entirely different level.

All right, so let's dive in. So there literally are levels of thinking and first level thinking is just where most people are at. It's, it's what's obvious. It's what's right in front of you. It's just seeing the immediate problem, the immediate potential, the immediate opportunity. It's seeing what's immediate without.

consideration or you know, maybe with little or no consideration for potential consequences for other perspectives, for other paradigms. It's just, it's just seeing what's in front of you. That's first level thinking. And that's what most people do. The vast majority of people around the world, they've never been trained or conditioned or taught or even introduced to the idea. So in many cases, it's not their fault. They just haven't been introduced the idea of like, there's another way to see this. There's another way to think about it.

Rachel Denning (09:21.389)
But we were so stuck on what's right in front of us and what seems obvious. That's, that's probably the most challenging part of moving to another level of thinking is that it seems obvious and everyone's like, well, yeah, look, and you look and you're like, yeah, seems obvious, but that's first level thinking. Next level thinking and then maybe second, third, and maybe it's infinite is to

discipline yourself to see beyond the obvious. We write that down, that add that to the list. So you have to see beyond the obvious.

And that takes discipline, that takes work.

You have to see unconventional opportunities or the unobvious consequences.

You have to learn it's almost like and I got this idea from Earl Nightingale as well years ago He said take your idea and see it like a rotisserie chicken where it's just kind of turning You know turning around around you see it from every side and angle and a mental exercise I like to do is To walk around the idea So see the idea and start walking around and start seeing it from other sides right?

Rachel Denning (10:54.701)
Even from opposing sides, even from sides that you think, nah, that's the opposite of what I think. Go there and see it and see that angle. At least understand it. Start looking beyond the obvious.

Now, where does this apply? Where does next level thinking apply? Maybe the easier question is like, where doesn't it apply? I think it applies to everything, don't you?

Rachel Denning (11:26.285)
Health and fitness. Family, like marriage and parenting. That one is gigantic. In fact, I would be bold enough to say...

that one of the biggest problems in parenting is that most of it is done with first level thinking. It's just right in front of your face and so we're reactive to it. A child does something, we react. Right? We want to get something for our child, so we just get it. They're struggling with something, so we just take care of it.

Right. And there, so this ends up being the helicopter parenting and the snowplow parenting, all these, all these names for all the different kinds of parenting. But it's, I think it's the driving force behind this entitlement problem we're all experiencing that and the failure to launch epidemic that we live in such an affluent time. And we've gotten to this strange place where we, you know, first level thinking what's right in front of us. We don't want our kids to struggle.

We don't want our kids to suffer. We want them to have all these nice things. We want them, ironically, we want them to have all the things we didn't. And so we give it to them. And so we're in many instances crippling our children because we want them to have it easy and nice and we want them to be comfortable. And so we like, we buy them clothes and cars and stuff. We pay their tuition. We.

We clear the road for them, we pay for everything. Because we're in an affluent time, right? We're like, well, geez, I want my kid to have all these great experiences, all this fun stuff. And so we do it all for them, thinking we're going to make their lives so good.

Rachel Denning (13:18.637)
But what happens is we have this child that hasn't earned a whole lot, hasn't learned how to struggle and push and fight and develop grit and discipline and understand the value of generating and creating value in the marketplace themselves so that they get compensated very, very well.

Right? And they miss, they miss a lot of the great stuff that would get them to be able to do it on their own and do it even at a higher level. It's, it's first level thinking. It's transactional thinking. And so we have to see beyond the obvious. Let's, let's, let's talk about maybe taking trips, adventures, traveling, or just experiences.

So many people, because we've traveled so much, so many people have been robbed, taken advantage of, you know, had just rotten, rotten experiences. And they'll go, they'll go out and try something. Maybe it's traveling, maybe it's something else. And they have a such a horrible experience and they come back and here's, here's first level thinking, right? This is what's obvious. I went out, this happened to me. Oh,

Never doing that again. And they go home and they tell everyone, don't do that. Don't do this. It's dangerous. It's that it's the other, Oh, it's terrible. I have this horrible experience. And this happened to me, right? It's, it's very victim level thinking. And I mean, I, I've done, I've done this, right? Have you done this? Man back. And I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm clearly obvious, obviously still in areas of my life, still at first level thinking. And I'm, I'm working through it. I think we all are. There's areas of our life. We're still at first level thinking.

because we haven't moved to the second or third or fourth, fifth levels, right? And we don't know that we don't know. But in other areas of my life, I have clearly and strategically and with discipline and effort and time and struggle moved on to other levels of thinking. So now I look back and go, Oh man, that was so first level thinking. But it's, it's the victim mentality of I went to do this and this happened to me. Like others did this or the situation was like this or it just happened.

Rachel Denning (15:30.125)
That's first level thinking instead of taking absolute ownership. Absolute ownership is another level of thinking where you stop and you say, huh, actually, if I see what, if I take this whole situation, I see it differently. I allowed that to happen because I wasn't thinking at another level. So with travel and I learned, I learned next level thinking a lot because I was out on my own, you know, 16.

and not always in good neighborhoods. And so I started watching and paying attention and knowing what happened. I learned what people call some street smarts, right? So street smarts, just the ability to think and analyze and recognize things in the street to kind of protect yourself. That's another example of next level thinking. Where a lot of us, if we just grow up in a safe environment and we just kind of have this...

And again, see there's different names and titles for this. Sometimes we say somebody would be naive about something and you just think, Oh no, no, nothing would ever happen. And again, this isn't, I don't want this to sound like worrying. It's not like second level thinkers or worry years. In fact, it's the opposite. When we learn how to think through those next levels, we actually can worry less. Let that hit home.

That genius level thinking and next level thinking and seeing it from different angles allows you to worry less and have less fear because you've prepared for contingencies.

and Navy SEALs and, and the elite military forces, they train for so many contingencies. And then they fully expect to come across something they didn't train for and didn't anticipate. They're constantly training themselves for next level thinking at every angle. And so if you think about it clearly, then and you take full ownership of it, you're like, you know, I could have

Rachel Denning (17:34.477)
I could have prevented that and in the future I will prevent that. And so it's not the situation, it's not the circumstance or even the response. Some things you can't prevent. So many things we can, obviously. And I think that's next level thinking to realize we have way, way, way more power than we think we do. We have more potential than we think we do. We have more opportunities than we think we do.

We have more control over the outcomes of our lives than we think we do. Even to, okay, here we go. Here's another level that's way up there. Even to the quantum field. There's a, there's a book that I could recommend about that. It's called Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself. And he explains in a very scientific, very down to earth way, how the quantum field works and how that level of your thinking,

is either bringing things into your life or repelling it sending out and it's not it's not weird it's not just do do do do do it's just every thought is an energy because everything is energy and on that level your thoughts are creating feelings and that thought feeling combination is your way of being and

This is true for all of us. It's true for me and it's true for you and it's true for everybody. Our way of being reacts with everything around us, with the people around us, with life around us. And it either is bringing things in or pushing things out. Right? That makes sense, doesn't it? If your way of being is pretty unpleasant to be around, you're pretty grumpy. You're pretty... You're just... You're not...

and maybe it's just situational, then people are going to react. They'll pick up on it. You do too. People don't even really say anything. You just pick up on an energy. If somebody is just truly grateful and jovial and loving and thoughtful and friendly, Oh man, you want to be around them. They're so approachable. And then other people are just so intense or so you, and maybe it's just moments where you can tell they're so stressed or so angry or so distraught or distracted.

Rachel Denning (19:56.525)
It just sends out an energy. So that's our way of being. And if we get, if we get stuck into a consistent way of being, it's, it's actually having a massive effect on our surroundings and our outcomes. You with me on this? Like this is powerful stuff. This is all next level thinking. Woo. So back to this, let me give you one example. We, and I've told this story before, um, early on in the podcast where we were traveling and I've seen this so many times where, well, it happened to us initially in the beginning where we would get,

robbed or taken advantage of and I, and I, oh, it's terrible. It's this. And, or you have, you are border crossing or miss a flight or have something at airport happen. And, and, and this, you know, your initial reaction, first level thinking is like, well, that just happened to me and it's terrible. Why are we doing this? But then as I learned more and more and more,

and you start thinking at another level, because you don't just take it at face value, what's obvious and walk away, you start thinking, now how could this be different? And I realized I could have prevented it. And so I started thinking differently, I started training differently. And so I learned to think. And so now I see, you know, it's obvious to me when people are like, oh, I went out and did this and this terrible thing happened. And in my mind, I'm like, yeah, that's totally preventable.

And that's happened, I've proved it time and again with a lot of experiences of knowing where to go and when to go and what to observe and how to prevent it. And you've all done this too. You've all had experiences like this where, and I guess that's the key. If you want to add this to your list, the way to improve your thinking is to have lots of experiences, more and more experiences. We have got to be so intense and deliberate about creating experiences for ourselves and for others.

First level thinking is that we have the same experience again and again and again. So we go through life, not having years of experience, but literally having the same experience year after year. That is first level thinking. Next level thinking is intentionally choosing to have experiences that are outside of our comfort zone and outside of our norm, outside of the obvious. How can you start creating experiences for yourself and especially for your children?

Rachel Denning (22:12.301)
please. And for the people you mentor and lead, how can you create outside, unobvious experiences because good judgment comes from experience and from poor judgment. So part of the part of the having experiences is you're going to, you're going to be exposed to things you don't know that. In fact, I would say my friends creating experiences is probably the absolute.

best way to expose yourself to what you don't know. I love to do this. I love trying new things and it is uncomfortable. So it's not always very likable because it feels so uncomfortable and inconvenient. But the more experiences you have, and then think through and process those experiences, the easier it will be to get to higher levels of thinking. Does this make sense? I hope this is hitting home here.

get out and have experiences and be willing to, you know, have poor judgment and expose yourself to something, um, to realize, Oh my goodness, I, I have never thought about that before. I've never realized that I never had considered that you're exposing yourself as much as possible to next level thinking. So we went into, um, the pizza in Italy. And again, this isn't worried thinking, it's prepared thinking it's.

This is just one example of being able to think through it. And I'm not a fearful person. In fact, I'm, I have very few fears. And if I have a fear, I'll intentionally face it and walk right into it and learn from it. So I'm not worrying, but I realize there are people out there who will rob and, you know, take advantage of you and those kinds of things. And I'm not.

I'm not suspicious of everyone. I don't think everyone's bad. In fact, I think the vast majority of the world are very, very good. And most people would do anything for you. They'd give you, you know, as the saying goes, they'd give you the shirt off their own back. And I've, we've experienced that time and again, even in very quote, rough neighborhoods and, and, and poor areas we've seen it just, it's humbling and beautiful and wonderful.

Rachel Denning (24:31.309)
But I do realize and I'm cognizant there are people out there who will rob you and take advantage of you. We pull up and we're looking for a place to park and I immediately identify some guys that were scoping out our vehicle because we had all of our stuff on a rooftop bag on top of our Defender 110 that we owned when we were living in Europe. Which was my dream vehicle by the way, love it. So then,

I noticed I spot them right away because I'm looking, I'm just, and I just do this naturally. Again, it's not worrisome. I just roll in wherever we go, go to a restaurant, go to a store, go to a new area. I'm just, I'm just taking it in and I do it quickly, but I realized I have to articulate it to my children. I have to articulate to other people because in 60 seconds I can take in an insane amount of information and in next level thinking.

where I used to walk up in first level thinking and I'm like, oh, let's find a place to park and I can't wait to go have some pizza and take a selfie with the leaning tower of Pisa, right? Like that, that's first level thinking. You only think about what's obvious. Oh, let's early park and grab some pizza and get some selfies and grab some souvenirs. Woohoo, right? Which is, again, it's not bad, but it's just first level thinking. So now in 60 seconds, no kidding you guys, I'm taking in all kinds of information.

And people who are trained, so those of you who have been in any kind of training with self -defense or executive protection or any like SWAT teams or any Krav Maga stuff, some of my kids and I were taking Krav Maga training right now and they talk about all the time. Like when you walk into a restaurant or store or building, where's the exits? Where are the doors? Just a quick glance, are there any threats here? Any people that look threatening? And this isn't.

We're not like sitting around judging people. We're just, there's this, there's this intuitive sense. It's next level thinking. You can spot it. And so pulling in, I spotted it right away. I'm like, those guys are, they're casing our car. And so, and we, and we do this, we have these rules now as a family. We're like, we just don't, we never leave a car without a paid guard. We have to pay him. We never leave a car without a paid guard or with, with one of us staying with the car. How often to stay with the car? Like this.

Rachel Denning (26:55.373)
Hey, this is fantastic. We can get a picture of the whole family. Nope. We save the car. And again, it's not worry. It's not fear. It's, it's just next level thinking. So we, we left some with the car and sure enough, man, and, and my daughter said, well, I'll stay first, my oldest daughter. And so she kind of sat down and she just kind of sat back in the back and kind of hid, man. And I, when we went down the road and we kind of tucked into a store and I was watching these guys, sure enough, as soon as we got out, as soon as they thought we were out of sight, they all walked down there one on each side and they went down and they started, you know, they were.

They were casing and they went down and they started, they were looking inside and my daughter sat up and they hurried and ran off and I could tell they were, they were watching it. Right. So it's just next level thinking and in adventures and trips and you have to think through the potential consequences. So make a note of this, please learn to discipline yourself, to think through potential consequences, not just the first level consequences. Like if I do this, this will happen. What are the other intended consequences?

Now this plays into business. It plays into investing. There was a brilliant investor who taught, he called it second order thinking, and it was specifically about investing. He says, you know, most people look and say, Whoa, that business is great. It's doing great. Holy cow. We should buy that. Look, everybody's buying it. We should buy two. That's, that's first level thinking. It's obvious the company's doing well. Everyone's buying. I should buy.

Next level thinking or what he calls second order thinking is like, whoa, everyone's buying in a frantic. We should sell.

Right? Same, the opposite. Oh man, everyone's freaking out. Something's wrong with this. It's tanking. Everyone's in a selling frenzy. They're kind of in freak out factor, fear that the economy is going to tank. They're selling like crazy. The stock's bombing on a good company. What's second level thinking? We should buy. We should buy stock that is falling of a good company. Do your research, do your homework.

Rachel Denning (28:58.349)
You know, do second and third level thinking all around it. Make sure, yeah, this is still a solid company. People are just being fearful when the stock's dropping and everyone else is selling. That's when you should buy. Right. That's next level thinking.

It's thinking through the unintended consequences. So for example, you know, teenagers and young adults, and again, note, we're not condemning them, no fault of their own. Their brain literally is not fully developed yet. The human brain is not fully developed until 25. So we can't, we can't expect them to make, or do you have next level thinking? And what's tragedy is most adults have never learned next level thinking either. We just.

We pick up thinking habits and patterns in our teens and 20s and they stick. So they're not thinking through the unintended consequences of what we're eating. Think about that. If you guys haven't read Superhuman yet, you need to read that. Or The Brain Warrior's Way, or there's another great one called Chris Beats Cancer. About the research he did in there. And we're not thinking.

next level thinking about the unintended, the unobvious consequences of what we're consuming.

from junk food to fast food to the heavy metals that's in some of the stuff we're consuming and how it has long -term consequences. Again, first level thinking is what are the immediate consequences? I eat this, it's not killing me. That makes me happy, right? I like eating this food, so I'm gonna eat this, right? That's first level thinking. Second level, third level, next level thinking is to go.

Rachel Denning (30:46.317)
What's the longterm effect of this on a cellular level? What is the here's, here's the next level thinking. What is the effect of this on my brain, on my physiology? If I consume something has a lot of sugar in it, like soda or those, you know, so -called energy drinks, they're just stacked with caffeine and sugars. What is the effect of that on my brain? And if you haven't done the research on that, please do it. That's next level thinking.

How does this affect my brain? The same is true with sleep. Many of us are operating on sleep deprivation. And youth and young adults are like, man, I stay up. I just love to stay up, right? It's just stay up all night. Hey, let's do all nighters. Let's do the stay up belay. We have to stay up belay. This is awesome. So staying up super late, sleeping in groggy. That's a lack of next level thinking. And then I think, well, I'll be a little tired. No big deal. But next level thinking is saying, what are the...

the not so obvious consequences. And what's interesting is you do your homework, you realize there is a significant mental tax you pay by staying up late consistently and not getting enough sleep or not getting good quality sleep. So you combine eating lots of junk food and ice cream and soda and crap or those who are consuming alcohol or vaping or smoking or all those things, you combine that with poor sleeping and what...

what they don't know. And how do you know it when you're in it, right? When you're in it, you don't know it. So again, this isn't condemning, we just got to we have we have to be aware of this, we have to learn about it, we have to teach people about it. The the mental tax they're paying for eating junk food and staying up late or not sleeping well is huge. Some studies have found they you know, in school, they'll drop a full grade level cognitively.

just within days. Right? But you don't know that you don't sit down and like, I'm a grade level lower right now. He just don't know it's not there. Man. So get out, get out my friends, have tons of experiences. expose yourself to what you don't know. Get out of what's the you know, the Disneyland syndrome, where the only thing you ever do is go to Disneyland, right? That's your

Rachel Denning (33:11.501)
You do one vacation a year and you take your family to Disneyland. That's the same. You do the same thing again and again and again. Get out of the Disneyland syndrome. Get out of the vanilla syndrome, right? Where you have all this variety of life and so many opportunities, so many privileges, so many things you could do and try and you're like, nah, I'll just take vanilla. Like, why? Well, because I like vanilla. I'm gonna stick with what I know. I mean, just always get vanilla.

And so we miss out on so many experiences and so many opportunities to expose ourselves to next level thinking. So will you please do this? My friends, get it on your calendar. In fact, I challenge you right now, get some big experiences, well, big experiences and small experiences, but just different experiences on your calendar. Go take some Krav Maga classes. They're awesome. Go get try different genres. If you've never been to an orchestra or symphony, go.

concerts or read different books. Well, let's go to reading. Reading is the next one. So if you're keeping a list, reading is the next one. Please read voraciously across all kinds of genres and disciplines and topics. Just read so much because reading from some of the greatest thinkers of all time, so across cultures, across centuries, read.

And that will expose you to what you don't know and do it voraciously. I'm still trying to average about a book a week. And just that constant flow of input just it makes you who you are and it shapes your life and it shapes your thinking. So I can pretty confidently say either if not every day pretty close to every day I'm getting exposed to a new idea at least a couple of new ideas.

Different ways to see things because I'm reading all these different thinkers from different backgrounds from from business to philanthropy to war to philosophers, right Just to travelers all of it just exposing yourself to all these ideas So life is way too short to have all those experiences yourself and to think all those thoughts yourself And so expose yourself to those other ideas read like crazy. It will open your

Rachel Denning (35:29.805)
your mind to next level thinking. And so there's so many things in life now that I've learned to think about at another level because of reading and consistently reading and rereading. And then there are levels inside of that. Once you're exposed to a couple of new ideas, it's like, Whoa, I didn't even know this was a whole world. There's other possibilities. And then you start exploring that. And then you can get to higher levels of thinking there as well. Next, if you're taking notes here on your list to ask, ask.

Please beware and be aware that first level thinkers they all think alike.

So if you see somebody who's doing things differently, ask them. Ask for mentors. Get mentors. Get coaches. And get competent ones. There are so many incompetent coaches out there. I think they can go to like a three -day training and get a certification and now they have something to offer. Like ask people who are getting different results, who are doing things differently at another level. Ask questions.

Ask questions of yourself. Ask questions of your own mind. In fact, ask questions of first level thinkers. Ask a lot.

because it's gonna expose you to thinking. You have to be able to think like they think and then to think differently. So to notice what's called the herd mentality. You gotta be able to notice that and notice when you're being a part of it and then step outside and look back and understand it, cognitively understand it, and then just ask yourself, is there another way to see this? And struggle with it, wrestle with it, it's not easy. And learn to think differently.

Rachel Denning (37:20.365)
And a little warning here on this one, well on all of this. When you start thinking at a different level, you'll start noticing how first level thinkers respond to you or view you. They may think you're weird. They might think you're odd. They might think you're extreme or rash. They might think you're reckless. And I'll throw this in there. You actually are kind of reckless if you don't.

think at a higher level. If you go into things that could be potentially dangerous without thinking through all the potential consequences, short term and long term, you are being reckless. But if you think through it thoroughly and other levels, higher levels, you you actually mitigating risk. But people, though, some will criticize you, some will ostracize you.

Some will just kind of disregard you or dismiss you. But that's to be expected. When you step away from the herd mentality and first level thinking, again, we're not doing this and I'm better than you. There's no pride here of that. Like, I'm better than that. I left that lowly. It's not that. It's just most people just don't know. We don't know. We don't know. We don't know.

And so when we step away from it, it often makes, it makes some people feel really uncomfortable. Others will admire it. Others will wish they could do it. Some will follow you or ask you or want you to lead them, which is an awesome privilege. Some will be mean. Oh man, they'll be mean.

and someone will attack you.

Rachel Denning (39:18.893)
But look around, study the lives of great men and women, especially ones that live very unconventional lives. And look how they were attacked and hated because they were willing to think differently. They were willing to think at a different level. And hopefully you're thinking of examples right now. My mind is just running with all these examples of men and women who thought at different levels. And look what they were able to accomplish, but also look at the...

what they had to respond to and the receiving end of all the first level thinkers. So anyways, you got a great list there. My friends, that's how we think like geniuses. That is how we learn to gain wisdom. This is how we make this happen. You work through and discipline yourself. I'm going to remind you again, it is hard work. It's still, it's still hard for me. I've been trying to do this for years.

It's still challenging. It still takes effort. It still takes discipline. It still takes exposure to uncomfortable and inconvenient things. It takes... It's a struggle to think outside of what you normally think.

But but do this and watch how your life can level up as your thinking levels up. And please let us teach our children and the people we lead and mentor how to think differently. How to think at a different level to get beyond first level thinking, get beyond what is obvious for outcomes, potential, dangers, opportunities, all of it.

Oh man, this is I love this stuff. I love it. So go go through this list again. And make it Joe make it make it make it time. I'm going to go through the list real quick and head off. So you just repeat it one more time. Make a time and place for thinking get it on your calendar. Think beyond the transactional to the transformational. See beyond the obvious. Create lots of experiences. capture your ideas have a place where you're capturing ideas have a

Rachel Denning (41:36.397)
have one of these booklets, um, get one of these journals we have with, with separate booklets and have one of them be about thinking or about wisdom. You could label it wisdom and just capture anything you capture it, or you can label it next level thinking, anything you come across. And especially, can I, can I give a little thought here? I've done this so many times where an idea would be introduced to me and my first response to it, because I was a first level thinker,

My first reaction to next level thinking is that's weird. That's dumb. That's wrong. I remember now painfully remember dismissing second level, third level, fourth level ideas and thinking as wrong because I was such a first level thinker and I would hear it in a book or somebody mentioned, I'm like, that's so stupid. I would actually get like fired up about it. Right. And I'd say it like it would disdain. That's so stupid.

Of course not. I was so stuck in my own first level thinking that I would immediately dismiss those other ideas. And then years later, and sometimes months later, it didn't take me that long, I'd come back to it. But often years later, remorsefully with regret. Years later, I'd be like, wow, actually, that was spot on. That person was right. And I missed it.

And so I condemned myself to remain at first level thinking about that for all these years because I had immediately dismissed and condemned next level thinking. Ooh, ouch. So capture your ideas, read voraciously, ask. Ask a lot of people. Ask a lot of questions. Ask better questions. Your mind will get to work. That's critical. That is a critical component right there.

Next level thinking the catalyst for next level thinking is asking next level questions because if you're just constantly asking yourself simple first level questions, your mind will produce first level answers. But if you start giving your brilliant mind and brain something to work on another level, you start asking harder questions, you're going to get harder answers and it's beautiful. Oh my friends, this will change everything, change the whole course of your life.

Rachel Denning (44:01.421)
and the lives of those around you and the impact you can have in the world if you'll get to next level thinking. Okay, I love you guys. Remember, awesome is always an option every day. I get a chance to train for greatness and that training must, absolutely must, training our brains to next level thinking. Ready, jumper.