Inverse Thinking

¶Benefits of Inversion Thinking

• Inversion helps improve understanding of the problem. By forcing you to do the work necessary to have an opinion you’re forced to consider different perspectives.
• Inverting the problem won’t always solve it, but it will help you avoid trouble. You can think of it as the avoiding stupidity filter. It’s not sexy but it’s a very easy way to improve.
• Inversion often forces you to uncover hidden beliefs about the problem you are trying to solve. I remember in elementary school being told to reach sentences backwards to easily identify spelling errors.
• Relativity has been used in several contexts in the world of physics, but the important aspect to study is the idea that an observer cannot truly understand a system of which he himself is a part. For example, a man inside an airplane does not feel like he is experiencing movement, but an outside observer can see that movement is occurring.

¶Extraordinary Tennis Ordinary Players

Scientist and statistician Simon Ramo wrote a fascinating little book that few people have ever bothered to read called Extraordinary Tennis Ordinary Players. In the book, Ramo identifies the crucial difference between a Winner’s Game and a Loser’s Game.

Professionals win points. Amateurs lose them.

• Professionals play a winner’s game – they win by being better than their opponent. The outcome is mostly within their control.
• In a professional game, each player, nearly equal in skill, plays a nearly perfect game rallying back and forth until one player hits the ball just beyond the reach of his opponent. This is about positioning, control, and spin. It’s a game of inches and sometimes centimeters. This is not how amateurs play.

In expert tennis, about 80 per cent of the points are won; in amateur tennis, about 80 per cent of the points are lost. In other words, professional tennis is a Winner’s Game – the final outcome is determined by the activities of the winner – and amateur tennis is a Loser’s Game – the final outcome is determined by the activities of the loser. The two games are, in their fundamental characteristic, not at all the same. They are opposites.

Amateur games are different. Amateur tennis — likely the level you and I play at — is a loser’s game. The winner is the person who makes the fewest mistakes and lets the other person beat themselves. If you keep the ball in play long enough, your opponent will make a mistake. In effect, amateurs win because their opponent makes more mistakes than they do.

• Ordinary people win at games they are not skilled in by letting their opponents beat themselves.

… if you choose to win at tennis – as opposed to having a good time – the strategy for winning is to avoid mistakes. The way to avoid mistakes is to be conservative and keep the ball in play, letting the other fellow have plenty of room in which to blunder his way to defeat, because he, being an amateur will play a losing game and not know it.

While the amateur can’t consistently hit winners, they want to. When amateurs play a Winner’s game, they force shots that have a low probability of winning and a high probability of error. While they might hit the occasional winner, the ratio between winning shots and losing shots is skewed heavily toward losers.

Sometimes amateurs convince themselves they are professionals, but professionals never convince themselves they are amateurs. Professionals know they are not playing the same game as amateurs.

¶Invert Always Invert by Charlies Munger

All I want to know is where I’m going to die, so I’ll never go there - Charlie Munger