I just finished listening to Peter Thiel's Zero to One on audiobook. I really enjoyed the book, and it got me thinking about several different things.
I particularly enjoyed it because I am not really on any sort of path that is directly tied to Peter Thiel's path, or the path he lays out for founders in his book. I'm not pursuing the VC-backed, moonshot type of route. Rather, I'm very much more so pursuing a bootstrapped, indie hacker, solo founder path. And that's one of the reasons I really enjoyed listening to this book. It exposed me to different thinking and different ideas that are outside of the bubble I'm currently operating in.
One of the main lessons I took away from the book is the importance of thinking differently, and that oftentimes the best businesses are a result of trying to solve problems that no one else is trying to solve, building in places where no one else is trying to build. I'm doing my best to stay in this mindset after having finished the book, and asking myself the question: How can I think differently? How can I continue to think differently and expose myself to new and different ideas? I feel that if I can do so, it will lead to good things down the line. It will lead me to discover new, different, and exciting problems that I can try to solve in my business pursuits, and I can separate myself from the herd.
"Zig when they zag" is one of the core principles on my principles list. And "different is better than better", that's another one. I think for a future blog post, I will actually share this list: a list of great life principles that I curate, keep in Notion, and try my best to live by each day.
I think it's very important to think differently, and the precursor to that is asking, how can I even think differently in the first place? I think that involves taking stock of the current bubble you're in, the media and different inputs you are consuming, and then asking how you can adjust your course and your path a bit to start pursuing more novel insights than everybody else.