Use the “Five Whys” technique, not just fixing the symptom, to find the root cause.
The Relentless Toddler Who Solves Mysteries
Imagine a puddle on your kitchen floor. You fix the symptom by mopping it up. But the next day, it’s back. The “Five Whys” is like a relentless toddler. “Why is there a puddle?” Because the sink is leaking. “Why is the sink leaking?” Because a fitting is loose. “Why is the fitting loose?” Because the vibration from the garbage disposal loosened it. “Why is the disposal vibrating so much?” Because a bearing is failing. By repeatedly asking “why,” you travel past the symptom and uncover the true, hidden root cause of the problem.
Stop assuming you’re right. Do a conscious effort to find disconfirming evidence instead.
The Detective Who Tries to Prove Their Own Theory Wrong
Imagine a detective who is convinced the butler did it. A bad detective will only look for clues that support this theory, ignoring everything else. A brilliant detective, however, does the opposite. They take their theory and try their absolute hardest to prove it wrong. They actively search for evidence of the butler’s innocence. If, after every conceivable effort, they cannot prove the butler is innocent, then and only then can they be truly confident that they have the right person. That is the path to the truth.
Stop just looking for a solution. Do a clear definition of the problem first.
The Doctor Who Prescribes Before Diagnosing
You go to a doctor and say, “I feel sick!” If the doctor immediately starts handing you random pills without asking any questions, you should run. A good doctor will spend 90% of their time asking questions and running tests to get a precise, crystal-clear definition of the problem. Is it a virus? Is it a broken bone? Is it a bacterial infection? You cannot find the right solution if you haven’t first accurately and specifically defined the actual problem you are trying to solve.
The #1 secret for solving any problem that geniuses don’t want you to know is to explain it to someone else (or a rubber duck).
The Magic of Saying It Out Loud
A problem can be a tangled, chaotic knot of thoughts in your head. You can stare at it for hours and get nowhere. The act of explaining that problem to another person, step-by-step, forces your brain to untangle that knot. You have to arrange your thoughts into a logical, linear sequence. In the process of structuring the explanation, you will inevitably spot the one, simple, glaringly obvious flaw in your logic that you had completely missed. The other person doesn’t even have to say a word.
I’m just going to say it: “Common sense” is often wrong.
The “Common Sense” of a Flat Earth
For thousands of years, “common sense” dictated that the Earth was flat. The ground looks flat, it feels flat, so it must be flat. This was a perfectly logical conclusion based on limited, everyday observation. But it was completely and utterly wrong. “Common sense” is just a collection of biases and assumptions based on our own limited experience. True understanding often requires us to abandon our comfortable, common-sense intuitions and instead trust the data, even when it leads to a conclusion that feels strange and counter-intuitive.
The reason your solution isn’t working is because you’re suffering from confirmation bias.
The Treasure Hunter Who Only Looks for Gold Coins
Confirmation bias is like being a treasure hunter who is convinced the treasure is a chest of gold coins. As you sift through the sand, your brain will unconsciously filter out everything that is not a gold coin. You might completely ignore the priceless diamond ring or the ancient silver goblet that is right in front of your face because you are only looking for the evidence that confirms your initial belief. Your perfect solution might be right in front of you, but you are literally blind to it.
If you’re still changing multiple variables at once while troubleshooting, you’re losing the ability to know what the fix was.
The Gardener with Too Many Secrets
Imagine a struggling garden. To fix it, you change the fertilizer, you change the watering schedule, and you change its location all on the same day. A week later, the garden is thriving. This is great, but you’ve learned absolutely nothing. Which of the three changes was the miracle cure? You have no idea. To truly solve a problem and gain knowledge, you must be a scientist. You must change only one single variable at a time, observe the result, and then proceed to the next.
The biggest lie you’ve been told about problem-solving is that it’s a linear process.
The Hike Through a Dense Forest
We imagine problem-solving is a straight, paved road from “Problem” to “Solution.” In reality, it is a messy, meandering hike through a dense, uncharted forest. You will hit dead ends, you will have to backtrack, you will get lost, and you will discover unexpected shortcuts. It is a cyclical process of hypothesizing, testing, failing, and learning. The solution is not found by following a map; it is found by patiently and persistently exploring the terrain.
I wish I knew about Occam’s Razor (the simplest explanation is usually the best) when I was starting out.
The Hoofbeats in Wyoming
You are standing in the middle of a field in Wyoming. You hear the sound of hoofbeats behind you. Is it more likely to be a horse, or is it more likely to be an escaped zebra from a traveling circus that is being chased by a unicorn? While both are technically possible, one explanation is dramatically simpler and more probable than the other. Occam’s Razor is the principle that reminds us to always start with the horse. Don’t invent a complex, multi-part conspiracy when a simple, mundane explanation will suffice.
99% of people make this one mistake when faced with a complex problem: not breaking it down into smaller, manageable parts.
How Do You Eat an Elephant?
Being faced with a huge, complex problem is like being told you have to eat an entire elephant. The task is so massive, so overwhelming, and so intimidating that you don’t even know where to begin. You will be paralyzed by the sheer scale of it. The only way to eat an elephant is one single, small, non-threatening bite at a time. The same is true for your problem. You must break that giant, scary elephant down into a hundred tiny, manageable bites. “Solve world hunger” is impossible. “Make one sandwich” is easy.
This one small action of asking “what is the opposite of this?” will change the way you generate new ideas forever.
The Upside-Down World of Innovation
If you are trying to figure out how to make your customers love your coffee shop, you will come up with predictable ideas. Now, ask the opposite question: “How could we design the absolute worst, most hated coffee shop in the world?” You would have terrible service, uncomfortable chairs, and bad coffee. This reverse-brainstorming will give you a crystal-clear, and often humorous, roadmap of exactly what to avoid. It will also spark new, unconventional ideas by forcing you to look at the problem from a completely different and inverted perspective.
Use a decision matrix, not just your gut feeling, for important choices.
The Pro-Con List on Steroids
A simple pro-con list is a good start. A decision matrix is a professional’s tool. Imagine you are buying a car. You list your options in the rows. In the columns, you list the criteria that actually matter to you, like “Price,” “Reliability,” and “Gas Mileage.” Then, you give each criterion a weight—Reliability is more important than color. By scoring each car and doing the simple math, you get a logical, weighted, and unemotional final score. It is the rational, data-driven way to make a complex choice, free from your emotional biases.
Stop just consuming information. Do a critical evaluation of the source instead.
The Water from a Gutter vs. a Mountain Spring
Information is like water. Some of it comes from a pure, clean, and trusted mountain spring. Some of it comes from a dirty, contaminated puddle on the side of the road. You would never drink the water without first considering its source. You must treat information the same way. Before you “drink” an article or a study, you must ask: Who is the author? What is their expertise? What are their biases? Are they trying to sell me something? Evaluating the source is the essential filtration system for your brain.
Stop just rebooting. Do a documentation of the error message first.
The Dying Man’s Last Words
An error message is the last, dying breath of a crashing program. It is using its final moments to try and tell you exactly what went wrong. Just immediately rebooting is like walking away while the dying man is trying to whisper the name of his killer. Taking a screenshot or writing down the exact, specific error code is like leaning in and listening carefully to those last words. It gives you the critical, specific clue you need to solve the mystery and prevent it from happening again.
The #1 hack for getting unstuck is to walk away from the problem for a little while.
The Knot You Can’t Untie by Pulling Harder
When you are stuck on a difficult problem, your brain is like a tense, knotted muscle. Trying to solve it by focusing harder is like trying to untie the knot by just pulling on it with more force; it only makes it tighter. Walking away—taking a walk, doing the dishes, taking a shower—is like letting that muscle relax. It allows your brain’s subconscious “background processor” to gently work on the knot while your conscious mind is distracted. The solution will often just pop into your head, as if by magic, when you’re not even trying.
I’m just going to say it: The first answer you find on Google is not always the best one.
The Loudest Person in the Room Isn’t Always the Smartest
The Google search results page is a crowded room full of people shouting for your attention. The person at the very top is often just the loudest, the one who is the best at shouting (Search Engine Optimization), or the one who paid to be there. They are not necessarily the smartest or the most correct person in the room. True understanding requires you to listen to a few different voices, compare their arguments, and come to your own, informed conclusion.
The reason you can’t find the solution is because you haven’t reproduced the problem consistently.
The Car That Only Makes the Noise for the Mechanic
You take your car to the mechanic because it’s making a weird noise. But when the mechanic drives it, it’s completely silent. You cannot fix a problem that you cannot see. If you have a bug in a system, your first and most important job is to become a detective and find the exact, specific, repeatable sequence of steps that will make the problem appear, on command, every single time. Only then can you start to test your theories and see if your fix is actually working.
If you’re still blaming the user (or yourself), you’re losing an opportunity to improve the system.
The Door That Needs a “Push” Sign
If you design a door that looks like it should be pulled, but it actually needs to be pushed, and you watch a hundred people walk into it, who is at fault? The hundred “stupid” users? Or the designer of the confusing door? Blaming the user is a lazy and unproductive response. The more powerful approach is to assume the user is trying their best and to ask, “How can I make this system, this process, or this door better so that the next person will not make the same mistake?”
The biggest lie you’ve been told is that you have to be an “expert” to troubleshoot effectively.
The Curious Child vs. the Arrogant Professor
Troubleshooting is not about knowing all the answers. It is about knowing how to ask all the right questions. An expert who is blinded by their own assumptions can often be a worse troubleshooter than a curious beginner who is willing to ask the “stupid,” obvious questions. A methodical, patient, and logical process is infinitely more valuable than a deep well of pre-existing knowledge. Don’t be afraid to start. You don’t need to be an expert; you just need to be a detective.
I wish I knew that the problem is often in the step you’re most sure is correct.
The Locked Door You Never Bothered to Check
When you are troubleshooting a complex system, you will have a mental map of the process. In that map, there will be certain steps that you are 100%, absolutely, and completely sure are correct. “Of course the power is on. Of course the cable is plugged in.” These assumptions are your biggest blind spots. The most frustrating, “unsolvable” problems are almost always hiding behind one of these locked doors that you were so confident was already open that you never even bothered to check the handle.
99% of people make this one mistake when they find a workaround: not going back to fix the root cause.
The Permanent Detour Around the Broken Bridge
A workaround is a clever, temporary detour you build to get around a broken bridge. It allows the traffic to keep flowing, which is great. But the mistake is to leave that bumpy, inefficient detour in place forever. It is a form of technical debt. A true professional will always go back and do the hard work of actually fixing the bridge. A workaround should be a temporary patch, not a permanent solution.
This one small habit of checking the basics first (Is it plugged in? Is it turned on?) will save you from embarrassment forever.
The IT Professional’s First Question
There is a reason that the very first question any IT professional asks is, “Is it plugged in?” It is because a huge percentage of the time, that is actually the problem. We are complex creatures who often look for complex solutions. Our brains will jump to a dozen elaborate, complicated theories—”Maybe the power supply is fried! Maybe the motherboard is dead!”—while completely ignoring the simple, obvious, and often embarrassing reality that the plug has just been kicked out of the wall.
Use inversion (thinking about what to avoid), not just focusing on what to achieve.
The Secret to a Happy Life is to Not Be Miserable
If you ask someone how to have a happy life, you will get a thousand vague and complex answers. But if you use inversion and ask, “What are all the things I could do to guarantee a miserable life?”, the answers become crystal clear: get into debt, eat unhealthy food, never exercise, and surround yourself with negative people. By simply avoiding all of those things, you will have a happy life by default. Sometimes, the clearest path to success is to simply identify and avoid all the paths to failure.
Stop just asking for help. Do a summary of what you’ve already tried instead.
The Patient Who Has Done Their Homework
Imagine going to a doctor and just saying, “I’m sick, fix me.” Now imagine going to a doctor and saying, “I have a sharp pain in my side, my temperature is 101, and I’ve already tried taking Tylenol, but it didn’t help.” The second patient will get a much faster and more accurate diagnosis. When you ask for help, you must first show that you have respected the other person’s time by doing your own homework. It turns a lazy request into a collaborative, problem-solving session.
Stop assuming correlation equals causation. Do a check for confounding variables instead.
The Ice Cream That Causes Drownings
A study shows that on days when ice cream sales are high, the number of drownings also increases dramatically. Does this mean that eating ice cream causes people to drown? No. This is a classic correlation/causation fallacy. There is a hidden, third variable: the sun. On hot, sunny days, more people buy ice cream, and more people go swimming. The sun is the cause of both. Always be on the lookout for the hidden “sunny day” that is the true cause of the relationship.
The #1 secret for effective troubleshooting is keeping a log of changes and their outcomes.
The Scientist’s Lab Notebook
A good troubleshooter is a good scientist. A good scientist would never just randomly mix chemicals together without writing anything down. They keep a meticulous lab notebook. Your troubleshooting log is that notebook. “10:05 AM: Changed the filter. Result: No change.” “10:15 AM: Restarted the pump. Result: The pressure returned to normal.” This log prevents you from trying the same failed experiment twice, and it provides a clear, logical map of your journey that will eventually lead you to the solution.
I’m just going to say it: Sometimes the best solution is to start over.
The Hopelessly Tangled Ball of Yarn
You have a giant, hopelessly tangled ball of yarn. You can spend the next ten hours patiently trying to untie the thousand tiny, impossible knots. You can try to follow each strand, getting more and more frustrated with every passing minute. Or, you can make the bold and courageous decision to just get a pair of scissors, cut the entire mess away, and start fresh with a new, clean piece of yarn. Don’t be a victim of the “sunk cost fallacy.” Sometimes, the time you save is worth more than the yarn you lose.
The reason you’re making the same mistakes is because you’re not performing a post-mortem after a failure.
The Team That Never Watches the Game Tape
Imagine a football team that loses a big game. The worst thing they could do is to just shrug and say, “Oh well, better luck next week.” A winning team will spend the next day in a dark room, meticulously watching the game tape. They will analyze every single play, identify every mistake, and create a specific plan to make sure it never happens again. A post-mortem is the game tape for your projects. It is the disciplined, unemotional process of learning from your failures so that you are guaranteed not to repeat them.
If you’re still looking for a single “magic bullet” solution, you’re losing sight of incremental improvements.
The Quest for the One Magic Pill
We are all seduced by the idea of the “magic bullet”—the one single, dramatic, and effortless solution that will solve all of our problems. But in the real world, magic bullets don’t exist. True, sustainable progress is almost always the result of a dozen small, boring, and incremental improvements. It is the slow, patient, and consistent process of getting just one percent better every single day. Stop searching for the magic pill and start focusing on the small, daily disciplines.
The biggest lie you’ve been told is that you should trust your gut.
The Pilot Who Ignores Their Instruments
Your “gut feeling” is a powerful, but deeply flawed and biased, instrument. It is your brain’s fast, intuitive, and often irrational response. A modern airline pilot is trained to do one thing in a crisis: ignore their gut and trust their instruments. Their gut might be screaming “Pull up! Pull up!”, but the hard, objective data from their instruments is telling them the truth. You must learn to treat your gut as one single, biased data point, not as the infallible voice of a god.
I wish I knew about the “isolate and test” methodology when I was younger.
The Christmas Light Detective
One of the bulbs in a long string of old Christmas lights has gone out, causing the entire string to go dark. How do you find the one bad bulb? You don’t just stare at it and guess. You use the “isolate and test” method. You take one single, known-good bulb, and you systematically swap it with every single bulb in the string, one by one. The moment the string lights up, you have isolated the faulty component. This is the fundamental, bedrock principle of all troubleshooting.
99% of people make this one mistake when reading statistics: ignoring the sample size.
The “4 out of 5 Dentists” Who Are My Friends
A headline proudly proclaims: “4 out of 5 Dentists Recommend This Toothpaste!” It sounds incredibly impressive. But what if the sample size was only five dentists? What if the company just asked five of their friends who happen to be dentists? A small sample size is statistically meaningless. The results could be a complete and total fluke. A trustworthy statistic must always be based on a large, diverse, and unbiased sample. Otherwise, you are just listening to a very small, and possibly very biased, group of friends.
This one small action of considering the second-order consequences will change the quality of your decisions forever.
The unintended consequences of building a dam
When making a decision, we often only think about the immediate result. This is first-order thinking. “Let’s build a dam to get clean energy!” But a great decision-maker will always ask, “And then what happens?” This is second-order thinking. “The dam will stop the salmon from spawning, which will devastate the local fishing industry, which will lead to an economic collapse in the town.” By thinking one or two steps ahead, you can avoid the disastrous, unintended consequences that are invisible to the first-order thinker.
Use first-principles thinking, not just reasoning by analogy.
The Chef Who Knows Chemistry vs. the Cook Who Follows a Recipe
Reasoning by analogy is like being a cook who just follows a recipe. You know that if you mix these ingredients, you will get a cake. You are just copying what has been done before. First-principles thinking is like being a chef who understands the fundamental chemistry of baking. They know why the baking soda reacts with the acid, and the flour creates gluten. This allows them to deconstruct the “cake” and invent something completely new and revolutionary. It is the difference between copying and creating.
Stop looking for someone to blame. Do a focus on the process that failed instead.
The Pilot Who Crashed the Plane
When a plane crashes, the goal of the investigation is not to find a single pilot to blame and then fire them. The goal is to assume the pilot was trying their best and to find the flaw in the system that allowed the crash to happen. Was the checklist confusing? Was the training inadequate? Was the instrument panel poorly designed? By focusing on the process, not the person, you can create a safer, more resilient system that will prevent the next pilot from making the same mistake.
Stop just accepting the default option. Do a conscious consideration of the alternatives.
The Path of Least Resistance
The “default” option is the path of least resistance. It is the pre-selected choice that the designer of the system wants you to make. It is rarely the choice that is in your own best interest. Whether it’s the default settings on a new piece of software or the default investment option in your retirement plan, you must learn to see the default as a suggestion, not a command. A conscious, deliberate choice, even if it’s to stick with the default, is always more powerful than a passive, unthinking acceptance.
The #1 hack for debugging code or any system is to split the problem in half.
The Dictionary Game
You are trying to find a word in a 1,000-page dictionary. You don’t start at page one and flip through every single page. You open the dictionary to the middle, to page 500. You ask, “Is my word before or after this page?” With that one single action, you have eliminated 500 pages from your search. This is the “binary search” method. You can apply this to any system. By testing the halfway point, you can instantly determine which half of the system the problem lives in, allowing you to narrow your search with incredible speed.
I’m just going to say it: Your confidence in your own knowledge is probably too high.
The Peak of “Mount Stupid”
The Dunning-Kruger effect is a dangerous psychological trap. It is a graph that shows that when we are beginners at something, our confidence is often at its absolute peak. We have just climbed to the summit of “Mount Stupid,” where we know just enough to be dangerous, but not enough to know how much we don’t know. True expertise is found in the “valley of despair” that follows, where you realize the vast, humbling scale of your own ignorance. Always assume you are on the slopes of Mount Stupid.
The reason your plan failed is because you didn’t account for Hanlon’s Razor (“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity”).
The Person Who Bumped into You at the Store
Someone bumps into you at the grocery store, knocking your items to the floor. Your immediate, emotional reaction is to assume they are a malicious, evil person who did it on purpose. Hanlon’s Razor is the gentle reminder that it is far, far more likely that they are just a clumsy, distracted, and fallible human being who made a simple mistake. By assuming incompetence or ignorance instead of malice, you will be a far less angry, and a far more accurate, observer of the world.
If you’re still using jargon to explain a problem, you’re losing clarity of thought.
The Doctor Who Speaks in Latin
If a doctor explains your diagnosis to you in a stream of complex, incomprehensible Latin medical terms, have they really explained it at all? Using jargon is often a way to hide a lack of true, deep understanding. The physicist Richard Feynman said, “If you can’t explain it to a six-year-old, you don’t understand it yourself.” The act of forcing yourself to describe a problem in simple, plain language is the ultimate test of your own clarity. It strips away the fuzzy, impressive-sounding words and reveals the core of the issue.
The biggest lie you’ve been told is that you need to have an immediate answer.
The Power of “Let Me Think About That”
In our fast-paced world, we feel an immense pressure to have a smart, confident, and immediate answer to every question. But this is a trap. It encourages shallow, reactive, and often incorrect responses. The three most powerful words you can learn to say are, “Let me think.” This is not a sign of weakness; it is a sign of intellectual confidence. It is the act of a thoughtful person who respects the question enough to give it the time and consideration it deserves.
I wish I knew how to identify logical fallacies in arguments.
The Hidden Traps in a Conversation
An argument is a path through a forest. A logical fallacy is a hidden trap on that path, designed to trick you into falling into a wrong conclusion. The “straw man” is a flimsy scarecrow that’s easy to knock down. The “ad hominem” is a personal attack on the speaker, not the argument. Learning to identify these fallacies is like being given a map of all the hidden traps. It allows you to navigate the forest of conversation safely, without being fooled by the cheap tricks of a bad argument.
99% of people make this one mistake when a quick fix works: assuming the problem is truly solved.
The Blown Fuse That Keeps Blowing
A fuse in your house blows, and you replace it. The power comes back on. Problem solved, right? A week later, it blows again. The blown fuse was not the problem; it was the symptom of a deeper, underlying short circuit. The quick fix is often a temporary patch that is masking a much more serious issue. A true problem-solver is never satisfied with the quick fix; they are relentlessly curious about the reason the fix was needed in the first place.
This one small habit of asking “Compared to what?” will change how you evaluate data forever.
The Statistic Without a Story
A headline screams, “This New Drug Has a 10% Risk of Side Effects!” It sounds terrifying. But the essential, missing question is, “Compared to what?” What if the old drug had a 50% risk? What if the risk of the untreated disease is 100%? A number in isolation is completely meaningless. It is just a floating, context-free fact. By asking this one, simple question, you are forcing the number to tell you the rest of its story.
Use a thought experiment, not just direct action, to explore potential outcomes.
The Architect’s Blueprint vs. Just Building the House
A thought experiment is an architect’s blueprint for an idea. Before a single brick is laid, the architect can explore a hundred different possibilities on paper. What if we move this wall? What if we add another window? It is a low-cost, high-speed way to test the limits of an idea and to discover its fatal flaws before you have invested a huge amount of time and resources. It is the act of building, and breaking, a dozen different houses in your mind before you build one in the real world.
Stop just following the instructions. Do a check to understand why each step is necessary.
The Cook Who Becomes a Chef
A cook is someone who can follow a recipe. A chef is someone who understands why the recipe works. They know why you sear the meat before you roast it, and why you add the acid at the end. By understanding the “why” behind each step, they are no longer just a passive follower of instructions. They are an active, creative participant who can adapt, improvise, and even invent their own recipes. True mastery is found in the “why,” not just the “how.”
Stop just trusting the expert. Do a verification of their claims.
The Second Opinion for Your Life
An expert is a human being. They are a flawed, biased, and fallible human being, just like the rest of us. They can be wrong. They can have a bad day. They can have a financial incentive to give you a certain answer. “Trust, but verify” is the mantra. You should listen to the expert, you should respect their opinion, but you should always, always get a second opinion on the things that truly matter. It is not an act of disrespect; it is an act of due diligence.
The #1 secret for winning an argument is to understand the other person’s point of view better than they do.
The Steel Man Argument
In a debate, most people will create a weak, twisted, and easy-to-defeat version of their opponent’s argument. This is a “straw man.” The secret to truly winning is to do the opposite. You must build a “steel man.” You must be able to articulate your opponent’s position with so much clarity, empathy, and honesty that they say, “Yes, that is exactly what I believe.” Only then, once you have demonstrated a true understanding, can you begin to effectively point out the flaws in their logic.
I’m just going to say it: “I don’t know” is a perfectly acceptable and powerful answer.
The Mark of a True Expert
A beginner is afraid to say, “I don’t know.” They think it is a sign of weakness, so they will guess, they will bluff, and they will make things up. A true expert, however, has nothing to prove. They are confident enough in their own knowledge to be honest about its limits. “I don’t know” is not a failure; it is an invitation to curiosity. It is the starting point for a journey of discovery. It is the humble admission that is the absolute foundation of all learning.
The reason you’re stuck in a loop is because you keep trying the same thing expecting a different result.
The Fly Banging its Head Against the Window
A fly is trapped in a room. It can see the freedom of the outside world through a closed glass window. So, it spends all its energy flying, head-first, into that same pane of glass, over and over and over again. It is a perfect definition of insanity. The open door is just a few feet away, but the fly is so locked into its one, failed strategy that it cannot see it. If what you are doing is not working, the solution is not to do it harder. The solution is to do something else.
If you’re still troubleshooting without a clear hypothesis, you’re just guessing.
The Detective Without a Theory
A detective arrives at a crime scene. A bad detective will just start wandering around aimlessly, picking up random objects and hoping to stumble upon a clue. A good detective will first form a hypothesis: “I believe the cause of death was poison.” This hypothesis then gives them a clear, focused plan of action. They will look for a cup, they will test for residue, they will question the victim’s enemies. Without a testable theory, you are not a detective; you are just a tourist at a crime scene.
The biggest lie you’ve been told is that failure is bad.
The Scientist Who Learns from the Explosion
A scientist runs an experiment, and it ends in a spectacular, and completely unexpected, explosion. Is this a failure? A bad scientist would say yes. But a good scientist would be thrilled. The explosion has just taught them something new, and surprising, and incredibly valuable about the nature of reality. It has revealed a flaw in their understanding. Failure is not the opposite of success; it is a critical, and often painful, part of the process of succeeding. It is the data.
I wish I knew that a different perspective could make a problem trivial to solve.
The Knot That’s Only Tangled from One Side
A complex knot in a rope can seem impossibly tangled. You can stare at it from one angle for hours and make no progress. But if you simply walk around to the other side of the table, you might suddenly see that, from this new perspective, the solution is obvious. A single, simple pull is all it takes. The problem was not the knot; the problem was your fixed, single point of view. A new perspective, from a different person or a different field, can often make an “impossible” problem trivial.
99% of people make this one mistake when something goes wrong: panicking.
The Pilot in a Storm
An airplane is in the middle of a violent, unexpected storm. The worst possible thing the pilot could do is to panic, to start yanking on the controls and making rash, emotional decisions. The best pilots are the ones who are trained to remain calm, to breathe, and to fall back on their checklists and their training. Panic is a loud, screaming emotion that completely shuts down the logical, problem-solving part of your brain. The first step in any crisis is to consciously and deliberately choose not to panic.
This one small action of writing the problem down will change how clearly you see it forever.
The Vague Cloud vs. the Concrete Sentence
A problem in your head is a vague, shapeless, and terrifying cloud of anxiety. It has no edges and no limits. The act of writing it down forces you to take that amorphous cloud and distill it into a single, concrete, and well-defined sentence. The moment the problem is on the paper, it is no longer a scary monster under the bed. It is a tangible, defined object that you can look at, analyze, and begin to solve. It is the act of turning on the light.
Use a pre-mortem analysis (“What could go wrong?”), not just a post-mortem.
The Engineers Who Plan for the Hurricane
A post-mortem is the analysis of why the bridge collapsed. A pre-mortem is the meeting the engineers have before they build the bridge. They ask themselves: “Let’s imagine it’s a year from now, and this bridge has collapsed into a catastrophic failure. What are all the possible reasons, no matter how unlikely, that this could have happened?” This act of “prospective hindsight” is a powerful way to identify the weak points in your plan before they become a disaster.
Stop trying to find the “perfect” solution. Do a search for a “good enough” solution that you can implement now.
The Perfect Is the Enemy of the Good
The quest for the “perfect” solution is a form of paralysis. You will spend so much time analyzing, planning, and debating that you will never actually do anything. A “good enough” solution that you can implement today is infinitely more valuable than a “perfect” solution that only exists in your imagination. Progress is made through messy, imperfect action, not through a state of pristine, theoretical perfection. It is better to have a good plan that you act on today than a perfect plan for tomorrow.
Stop just reading the headline. Do a check of the actual article content.
The Book with the Misleading Cover
A headline is the cover of a book. It is a piece of marketing. It is designed, with scientific precision, to be as sensational, as shocking, and as attention-grabbing as possible. It often has very little to do with the nuanced, complex, and sometimes even contradictory story that is inside. To form an opinion based only on the headline is to judge a book by its cover. It is the hallmark of a lazy, and easily manipulated, thinker.
The #1 hack for critical thinking is to be aware of your own cognitive biases.
The Pair of Distorting Glasses You Don’t Know You’re Wearing
A cognitive bias is a pair of invisible, distorting glasses that you are wearing at all times. The “confirmation bias” lens only lets you see things that you already agree with. The “availability heuristic” lens makes you think that things you’ve seen recently are more important than they actually are. The first, and most difficult, step of critical thinking is to come to the humbling realization that you are wearing these glasses. You cannot take them off, but you can learn to account for the distortion.
I’m just going to say it: The process is more important than the goal.
The Journey Is the Destination
A goal is a single, fleeting moment in time. You will spend 99.9% of your life not on the summit of the mountain, but on the long, arduous, and often frustrating climb. If you can only find happiness in that one, brief moment of achieving the goal, you are setting yourself up for a life of misery. A much more sustainable and joyful approach is to fall in love with the process of climbing. The goal is just an excuse to be on the journey.
The reason you’re not learning from your mistakes is because you’re not taking responsibility for them.
The Bad Carpenter Who Blames His Tools
When a bad carpenter makes a crooked cut, they will blame the saw, they will blame the wood, and they will blame the lighting in the room. They will never blame themselves. As a result, they will never get any better. The moment you take radical, unapologetic ownership of your mistakes—”I made a crooked cut because I was not paying enough attention”—you have given yourself the power to change. The mistake is no longer something that happened to you; it is something that you did. And you can choose to do it differently next time.
If you’re still relying on anecdotal evidence, you’re losing touch with reality.
“My Grandfather Smoked Every Day and Lived to be 95”
Anecdotal evidence is a single, compelling story. It is emotionally powerful, but it is statistically meaningless. Your grandfather’s story is a wonderful anecdote. It is also a statistical outlier. The hard, objective data from a study of a million people will tell you a much truer, and much more useful, story about the actual risks of smoking. To make good decisions, you must learn to favor the boring, but accurate, spreadsheet over the exciting, but misleading, story.
The biggest lie you’ve been told is that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.
The Brain is Plastic, Not Concrete
This is a tired, lazy, and scientifically incorrect cliché. The modern neuroscience of “neuroplasticity” has proven that the brain is not a fixed, concrete object. It is a dynamic, plastic, and constantly rewiring network. You can form new neural pathways and learn new, complex skills at any age. It might be harder, and it might take longer, but the idea that your brain’s capacity for learning and growth just stops at a certain age is a complete and utter myth.
I wish I knew that the solution is often found by questioning the initial assumptions.
The Puzzle You Can’t Solve
You are trying to solve a puzzle, but you are stuck. You have tried every possible combination. The reason you are stuck is that you have made a fundamental, unconscious assumption about the rules of the puzzle. You are operating inside an invisible box. The solution is often found not by working harder inside the box, but by questioning the box itself. “What if this piece can be used in a way I hadn’t considered? What if the goal is not what I think it is?” The moment you challenge the assumption, the puzzle becomes trivial.
99% of people make this one mistake when troubleshooting: not checking the logs.
The Black Box Recorder of Your System
When a plane crashes, the first thing the investigators look for is the “black box”—the flight data recorder. This box contains a detailed, timestamped log of every single event that happened on the plane. A computer’s log file is that black box. When a system crashes, the log file will often contain a precise, specific, and crystal-clear error message that will tell you the exact reason for the failure. Ignoring the logs is like ignoring the single most important piece of evidence at the crime scene.
This one small habit of reading the manual will put you ahead of 90% of users forever.
The Secret Book of Superpowers
The instruction manual is the secret “cheat code” book for a new device or a piece of software. The vast majority of people will throw it in the trash without a second glance. They will then spend the next year fumbling around, using only 10% of the product’s actual capabilities. The person who takes 30 minutes to read the manual will discover a dozen hidden features, powerful shortcuts, and time-saving tricks. It is the single easiest way to transform yourself from a confused amateur into a power user.
Use a checklist for repetitive troubleshooting tasks, not just your memory.
The Pilot’s Pre-Flight Checklist
An airline pilot is a brilliant, highly-trained expert. But they would never dream of taking off without first going through a detailed, written checklist. They know that the human memory is a flawed, unreliable, and treacherous thing, especially under pressure. A checklist is a simple, but powerful, tool that outsources your memory to a trusted, external system. It guarantees that you will not, in a moment of stress or complacency, forget a simple, but mission-critical, step.
Stop making things more complicated than they need to be. Do a simplification of the problem.
The Gordian Knot
The legend of the Gordian Knot tells of a complex, impossible-to-untie knot. For years, people tried to untie it by patiently following each strand. Alexander the Great solved the problem in a single, brilliant move: he took out his sword and sliced the knot in half. When you are faced with a hopelessly complex problem, you must ask yourself: Is there a simpler way? Can I just cut the knot? We often fall in love with the complexity of a problem and forget that the most elegant solution is often the simplest.
Stop just looking at the data. Do a visualization of the data to see patterns.
The Spreadsheet vs. the Chart
A spreadsheet full of a thousand rows of numbers is a wall of meaningless data. Your brain cannot process it. A chart or a graph of that same data is a story. The moment you visualize the data, the hidden patterns, the trends, and the outliers will leap out at you, as if by magic. It is the difference between reading a dense, academic paper and seeing a beautiful, intuitive photograph. You must learn to translate your numbers into pictures.
The #1 secret for solving a mystery is to list all the things you know for sure.
Sherlock Holmes’ Method
When Sherlock Holmes is faced with a baffling case, he does not just sit and guess. He first gathers his facts. He will say, “Watson, what do we know for certain?” He will then list every single, undeniable fact, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant. This act of creating a “foundation of truth” provides the firm ground upon which he can start to build his theories. It separates the known from the unknown and often reveals the one, single fact that cracks the entire case wide open.
I’m just going to say it: Being a generalist is more valuable than being a specialist for troubleshooting.
The Specialist vs. the Systems Thinker
A specialist is a person who knows everything about one single, tiny part of a machine. A generalist is a person who knows a little bit about every part of the machine and, more importantly, how they all connect. When the machine breaks, the specialist will insist that their one part is working perfectly. The generalist, however, is a “systems thinker.” They have the unique ability to see the big picture and to understand how a failure in one part of the system can be causing a symptom in another.
The reason your team can’t solve the problem is a lack of psychological safety to suggest “stupid” ideas.
The Brainstorming Session Where Everyone is Afraid
Imagine a brainstorming session where every time someone suggests a new idea, the boss immediately says, “That’s a stupid idea.” How many more ideas do you think will be suggested? Zero. A team’s ability to solve a creative problem is directly proportional to its level of psychological safety. Team members must feel safe enough to suggest the “stupid,” the “crazy,” and the “impossible” ideas, because it is often from these ideas that the true breakthrough is born.
If you’re still arguing about opinions, you’re losing time that could be spent finding data.
The Argument About the Weather
Two people are standing in a room, having a heated argument about whether it is hot or cold outside. They can argue for hours, based on their own personal feelings and opinions. Or, one of them could simply stop talking, walk to the window, look at the thermometer, and say, “It is 72 degrees.” The argument is over. Data is the thermometer for your business. Stop arguing about what you think is true and go find the hard, objective data that will tell you what is true.
The biggest lie you’ve been told is that smart people have all the answers.
The Expert Who Is an Eternal Student
The smartest people are not the ones who have all the answers. They are the ones who have all the best questions. They are defined not by the vastness of their knowledge, but by the depth of their curiosity. They are the ones who are comfortable with uncertainty, who are not afraid to admit their own ignorance, and who see every problem as an opportunity to learn something new. The goal is not to be the person who knows everything; the goal is to be the person who is always learning.
I wish I knew that “undoing” the last change is the most powerful troubleshooting step.
The “Rewind” Button for Your Mistakes
You are working on a complex system, and it is working perfectly. You make one, single change, and the entire system breaks. The most powerful, logical, and yet often overlooked, troubleshooting step is to simply press the “undo” button. Revert that one, single change and see if the system goes back to working perfectly. This one, simple action can save you from hours of panicked, unnecessary troubleshooting down a dozen different rabbit holes. Always suspect the last thing you touched.
99% of people make this one mistake when they get an error code: not copying and pasting it exactly into a search engine.
The Unique Fingerprint of Your Problem
An error code like “0x80070005” is not a vague suggestion; it is a unique, specific, and often universal fingerprint. It is the exact DNA of your problem. Paraphrasing it or describing it in your own words is like telling a police sketch artist, “He had a face.” By copying and pasting the exact error code into a search engine, you are running a fingerprint against a global database. You will instantly find a dozen other people who have had the exact same problem and have already figured out the solution.
This one small action of taking a deep breath before you react will change the outcome of a crisis forever.
The Space Between Stimulus and Response
In a crisis, something bad happens (the stimulus), and our immediate, emotional, panicked brain wants to instantly react (the response). The tiny, almost imperceptible space between that stimulus and your response is where your power lies. Taking one single, deep, conscious breath is the act of deliberately inserting a wedge into that space. It is a circuit breaker for your panic response. It gives your slow, logical, and rational brain a chance to catch up and to choose a deliberate, thoughtful response instead of a knee-jerk reaction.
Use Occam’s Broom (sweeping inconvenient facts under the rug), not Occam’s Razor, to fool yourself.
The Conspiracy Theorist’s Favorite Tool
Occam’s Razor is the principle of choosing the simplest explanation. Occam’s Broom is its evil twin. It is the act of deliberately and conveniently “sweeping under the rug” any and all facts that do not fit with your preferred, and often more complex, theory. It is the favorite tool of the conspiracy theorist and the person who is desperately trying to protect their own cherished beliefs. It is the act of ignoring the horse so that you can continue to believe in the zebra.
Stop just accepting that “it’s always been done this way.” Do a questioning of the status quo.
The Sacred Cow in the Middle of the Road
“Because that’s the way we’ve always done it” is one of the most dangerous phrases in business and in life. It is the act of blindly worshipping a “sacred cow”—a process, a rule, or a tradition that may have made sense 20 years ago, but is now just a giant, obsolete obstacle that is standing in the middle of the road. You must have the courage to politely, but firmly, question the sacred cows. Is this still the best way? Is there a better way?
Stop just looking for things that are broken. Do a check for things that are missing.
The Car That Won’t Start Because It Has No Gas
You are trying to fix a complex machine. You have checked every single part, and they are all in perfect working order. The machine is not broken. But it still won’t work. The problem is often not what is there, but what is not there. The car won’t start not because the engine is broken, but because it is missing a key ingredient: gasoline. When you are stuck, you must stop looking for the broken piece and start looking for the missing piece.
The #1 hack for getting better at anything is seeking out and embracing constructive criticism.
The Mirror You’re Afraid to Look Into
Constructive criticism is a mirror that shows you your flaws. Most people will spend their entire lives avoiding this mirror. They will surround themselves with people who only tell them what they want to hear. The person who has the courage to actively seek out that mirror, to look into it honestly, and to thank the person who is holding it, is the person who will grow and improve at a spectacular rate. The pain of seeing your own flaws is the price of admission for mastery.
I’m just going to say it: You’re not as good at multitasking as you think you are.
The Brain That Has Only One Spotlight
The human brain cannot multitask. That is a neurological fact. What you are actually doing is “task-switching.” You are frantically and inefficiently shifting your brain’s one single spotlight of attention from one task to another, to another, to another. Every single switch comes with a cognitive cost, a small “re-loading” tax. It is a slow, inefficient, and exhausting way to work. It is the illusion of productivity, not the reality of it.
The reason your predictions are wrong is because you’re overconfident in your analysis.
The Weather Forecaster Who Is 100% Sure It Won’t Rain
A good weather forecaster will never say, “There is a 0% chance of rain.” They will say, “There is a 10% chance.” They understand that the world is a complex, unpredictable, and chaotic system. They build a margin of error into their predictions. Overconfidence is the belief that your model of the world is perfect and complete. It is the arrogant assumption that you have accounted for every possible variable. Humility and a healthy dose of doubt are the hallmarks of a good forecaster.
If you’re still trying to solve a problem in the same environment where it was created, you’re losing perspective.
The Fish Who Doesn’t Know It’s in Water
A fish has no concept of “water.” It is the invisible, all-encompassing environment that it has been in for its entire life. You cannot solve a problem from within the same context and with the same set of assumptions that created it. To truly see the problem clearly, you must temporarily become the scientist who is looking at the fishbowl from the outside. A change of scenery—a walk in the park, a visit to a museum, a conversation with a friend—is often the catalyst for the breakthrough.
The biggest lie you’ve been told is that you need to be creative to be a good problem-solver.
The Plumber vs. the Painter
Creativity is a wonderful thing, but it is not a prerequisite for solving most problems. A plumber who is fixing a leaky pipe does not need to be “creative.” They need to be methodical, logical, and disciplined. They need to follow a proven, step-by-step diagnostic process. Problem-solving is a skill, not an art. It is a process that can be learned and mastered by anyone, regardless of their natural artistic talents. Don’t let the myth of “creativity” intimidate you.
I wish I knew the difference between a simple, complicated, and complex problem.
The Toaster, the 747, and the Weather
A simple problem is like making toast. The recipe is simple, and the outcome is predictable. A complicated problem is like a Boeing 747. It has millions of parts, and it requires a team of experts and a detailed manual, but it is ultimately a knowable and predictable machine. A complex problem is like the weather. It is an interconnected, dynamic, and unpredictable system. You cannot fix the weather, and you cannot predict it with certainty. You can only probe it, sense it, and respond to it.
99% of people make this one mistake when faced with a large number: not putting it into a relatable context.
The Billion Dollars vs. the Stack of Bills
A headline says, “The Government Spent a Billion Dollars.” The number is so large that it is completely meaningless to our brains. It is just a vague, abstract concept. A good communicator will translate that number into a relatable context: “A billion dollars is a stack of hundred-dollar bills that is 67 miles high.” or “With a billion dollars, you could give every single person in this city a check for $10,000.” The number is the data; the context is the story.
This one small habit of mapping out the system will change how you find points of failure forever.
The Blueprint of the Factory
When a factory assembly line breaks down, a good engineer will not just start randomly poking at machines. They will first look at the blueprint of the entire factory. They will map out the complete flow, from the raw materials coming in one door to the finished product going out the other. This “systems map” allows them to see all the interconnections and the dependencies. It is the tool that allows them to logically deduce the most likely points of failure, rather than just blindly guessing.
Use a “steel man” argument (the strongest version of your opponent’s argument), not a “straw man,” to test your beliefs.
The Boxer Who Trains Against a Champion, Not a Scarecrow
A “straw man” is a weak, flimsy, and easy-to-defeat caricature of your opponent’s argument. It is like a boxer who only trains by punching a scarecrow. It might make them feel strong, but they will be completely unprepared for a real fight. A “steel man” is the opposite. It is the act of deliberately building the strongest, most intelligent, and most persuasive version of your opponent’s argument. It is like training against a world champion. If you can defeat the steel man, you can be truly confident in your own position.
Stop blaming bad luck. Do an analysis of your controllable inputs.
The Poker Player Who Blames the Cards
A bad poker player will lose a hand and blame their “bad luck.” A good poker player knows that, over the long run, luck will even out for everyone. They will instead perform a ruthless analysis of their own decisions. Did they make the right bet at the right time? Did they read their opponent correctly? They focus only on the things that they can control—their own choices and their own strategy—not on the uncontrollable, random fall of the cards.
Stop just assuming you have all the necessary information. Do a check for what you might be missing.
The Detective Who Knows They Have a Blind Spot
A good detective will never assume that they have all the facts. In fact, they will operate from the opposite assumption: “What crucial piece of information am I missing? What witness have I not yet interviewed? What is the one fact that would completely change my theory of the case?” This habit of actively searching for your own blind spots and for the “unknown unknowns” is the hallmark of a deep, and humble, thinker.
The #1 secret for troubleshooting is to start with the most likely and easiest-to-check cause.
The Detective Who Checks for a Tripped Breaker First
A woman calls the police and says her house has been robbed because her TV won’t turn on. The bad detective will immediately start dusting for fingerprints and looking for signs of forced entry. The good detective will walk to the fuse box and check if the breaker has been tripped. You must always, always start with the simplest, most common, and easiest-to-verify explanation first. Don’t start a complex, multi-day investigation when a 30-second check will solve the problem.
I’m just going to say it: A good troubleshooter is just patiently lazy.
The Most Efficient Path to the Goal
A good troubleshooter is “lazy” in the sense that they do not want to do any unnecessary work. They do not want to spend three hours disassembling an engine if a 10-minute sensor replacement will fix the problem. This “laziness” is what drives them to be incredibly patient and methodical in their initial diagnosis. They will spend a huge amount of time on the “boring” work of testing and verifying so that they can find the most direct, and therefore “easiest,” path to the solution.
The reason you can’t solve the puzzle is because you’re adding constraints that don’t exist.
The Invisible Walls of Your Own Mind
Many puzzles are designed to trick you into building a set of invisible, imaginary walls in your own head. The famous “nine-dot” puzzle is the classic example. You assume that you have to stay within the “box” of the dots, but that is a rule that you have invented. The solution can only be found the moment you give yourself permission to draw outside the lines. The constraints are not in the puzzle; they are in your own, self-limiting assumptions.
If you’re still troubleshooting when you’re tired or frustrated, you’re losing your effectiveness.
The Surgeon at the End of a 24-Hour Shift
Would you want to be operated on by a surgeon who is exhausted, frustrated, and at the end of a 24-hour shift? Of course not. Their hands will be shaky, their judgment will be clouded, and they are much more likely to make a stupid, life-threatening mistake. Troubleshooting requires a calm, clear, and patient mind. The moment you feel yourself getting tired or angry, you must have the discipline to put down your tools and walk away. You are no longer an asset; you are a liability.
The biggest lie you’ve been told is that some people are just “naturally” good at this.
The “Natural” Talent of the Master Pianist
We watch a master pianist perform a breathtaking sonata, and we say, “Wow, they are a natural.” We are conveniently ignoring the ten thousand hours of grueling, frustrating, and often boring practice that they have put in since they were five years old. Troubleshooting is a skill, like playing the piano. It is not a magical, innate talent. It is a process that is learned through practice, through failure, and through the patient, deliberate study of the instrument.
I wish I knew that every “unsolvable” problem I’ve had was due to a faulty assumption.
The One Flawed Brick in the Foundation
An “unsolvable” problem is a logical tower that reaches to the sky, but is built upon a single, flawed brick in its foundation. You can spend years analyzing the tower, checking every connection and every measurement, and you will find no flaws. The problem is not in the tower; the problem is in the one, single, fundamental assumption that you made at the very beginning, which you have accepted as a perfect and un-questionable truth. The entire tower is a beautiful, logical structure built on a lie.
99% of people make this one mistake when asking for technical help: saying “it doesn’t work” without describing what they expected to happen.
The Patient Who Says “I Feel Bad”
A person goes to the doctor and their only complaint is, “I feel bad.” This is a completely useless piece of information. A good patient will say, “I have a sharp pain in my left arm when I try to lift it above my head.” When you ask for help, you must do the same. Don’t just say, “The program doesn’t work.” You must describe your expectation: “When I click the ‘save’ button, I expect it to save the file. Instead, it is crashing.”
This one small action of trying to replicate the problem on a different system will tell you if the problem is local or global forever.
The Car That Won’t Start vs. the Town with No Gas
Your car won’t start. Is the problem your car, or is it the fact that the entire town is out of gasoline? The quickest way to find out is to try and start your neighbor’s car. If their car starts perfectly, you know the problem is local; it is something specific to your car. If their car also won’t start, you know the problem is global; it is something that is affecting the entire system. This is the fundamental “isolation test” of troubleshooting.
Use a known-good component for comparison, not just guessing if a part is bad.
The Lightbulb Test
You have a lamp that won’t turn on. Is the problem the lamp, or is it the lightbulb? You can stare at the bulb and guess, or you can perform a simple, definitive test. You take a “known-good” lightbulb from a working lamp and screw it into the broken one. If the lamp now works, you know with 100% certainty that the original bulb was the problem. This principle of swapping with a known-good component is a powerful and efficient way to confirm a diagnosis without any doubt.