You‘ve heard about the business model of the digital age: Software-as-a-Service. The old SaaS.
Today, let me introduce a model for personal development: Solitude-as-a-Skill. The new SaaS.
The importance of social skills has been drilled into our heads from a young age. Be a social butterfly!
Socializing is a critical skill, but its importance is dramatically overblown.
In the social media age, we’re more connected than ever.
Unfortunately, it’s made us lose sight of the importance of solitude.
Warren Buffet is an amazing example of this.
Value investors are a dying breed in this era of hyper-growth tech companies.
Buffett has this uncanny ability to ignore groupthink. He carefully reasons through each investment decision.
He behaves like a Stoic, investing only when he believes in a business.
He doesn’t care to seek validation from analyst opinions.
Groups need the majority to agree before taking action.
This agreement often comes at the expense of your beliefs. You have to bend to do what’s best for the group.
That’s not a bad thing when you and your friends are trying to pick a restaurant.
But when it comes to something like politics, it’s horrible. Yep, we’re going there…
Are you for gun-control & pro-life?
Are you a gun-nut & pro-choice?
Too bad.
In an arena like politics, there’s no room for nuance.
You have to pick Left or Right because the group needs consensus.
Being in a group setting keeps you from thinking for yourself. You’re forced to take shortcuts, rather than going through the hurdles of reasoning.
In other words, you don’t arrive at a conclusion by yourself.
All my life, I loved socializing. I’d drop anything to hang out with my friends.
It wasn’t until I found this quote that I started to question it:
“All of humanity’s problems stem from our inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” —Blaise Pascal
For many of us, our natural inclination is to be social. It’s counterintuitive, but you have to train your mind to understand why you need solitude.
Now, this isn’t easy, because it feels good to be social.
At first, it doesn’t feel good to be alone. You may even feel lonely.
That feeling of loneliness is a fear of having to face your thoughts. A fear of not having somebody to distract you from them.
What’s something you used to believe, that you’ve come to realize is complete BS now?
I’ll go first: you should attend at least one networking event per month.
Bullshit. Aimless networking is not an efficient use of your time.
It’s much better to:
Reach out to people one-on-one.
Make something valuable, and attract people to you.
I want you to write down 5 ideas from your circle of friends.
Think about which of those ideas you alone believe in, and which you believe in because they’re easy.
The results will surprise you.
This isn’t an excuse to be shy or anti-social.
You don’t want to be 100% introverted or 100% extroverted.
People agreeing with you can fool you into thinking you’re correct. Extroverts fall victim to this because they thrive in groups.
Introverts tend to look within, but miss details in front of their eyes.
You want to harness both powers to be exceptional.
Use introversion to think. Use extroversion to communicate.
Your best thinking happens in solitude.
Great minds think alone