Think Like a Freak – Page 1
THINK LIKE A FREAK
The Authors of Freakanomics
Offer to Retrain Your Brain
STEVEN LEVITT and STEPHEN DUBNER
STEVEN LEVITT is professor of economics at the University of Chicago and a founding partner in The Greater Good, a
consulting firm. He has won numerous awards as a teacher including the John Bates Medal for the most outstanding economist
in America under the age of 40. In 2006, Time magazine named Dr. Levitt as one of the 100 People Who Shape Our World. He is
a graduate of Harvard University and M.I.T. Dr. Levitt and Stephen Dubner are the co-authors of three books including
Freakanomics and SuperFreakanomics.
STEPHEN DUBNER is a journalist and TV and radio personality. He is author of several books including Turbulent Souls and
Confessions of a Hero-Worshiper. His journalistic works have been published in the New York Times, The New Yorker and
Time magazine. He is a graduate of Columbia University where he also taught English.
The Web site for this book is at www.freakanomics.com
ISBN 978-1-77544-802-0
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Think Like a Freak – Page 1
MAIN IDEA How to Think like a Freak – and Solve Hard Problems
"Freakanomics" is both a well-known expression
and an ideology which was introduced to the world 1 Start by putting away your moral compass
in two bestsellers titled Freakanomics (2005) and
SuperFreakanomics (2009). These two books have 2 Be quick to admit and to say: "I don't know"
now sold more than 7 million copies worldwide in 35
3 Attack the root causes of problems, not the symptoms
languages.
The essence of Freakanomics is that the theories 4 Think like a child – don't be afraid to ask obvious questions
economists develop and use can be applied to
problems in society at large with equal relevance 5 Always remember incentives work – they drive behavior
and effectiveness. Economists insist on letting the
data speak for itself rather than applying their own 6 Make your garden weed itself
hunches, preferences or ideologies.
7 Tell more stories
8 Quit sooner rather than later – as soon as the results are in
0. A primer in Freakanomics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 2
1. Start by putting away your moral compass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 2
Put another way, Freakanomics is the art and It's hard to solve problems if you approach them with your mind already made up. Insist on
science of thinking for yourself and letting the facts letting the facts speak for themselves and always test your assumptions.
speak for t hemselves. I f you can apply
Freakanomics consistently well – or in other words 2. Be quick to admit and to say: "I don't know.” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 3
if you can learn to "Think Like a Freak" – you stand a To get good answers, you usually have to redefine the question or questions you ask.
better chance of solving the really difficult problems Often, the first step to discovering something interesting is to admit you don't know.
other people generally ignore and hope they will go 3. Attack the root causes of problems, not the symptoms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pages 3 - 4
away.
It's easy to get sidetracked into treating the symptoms of a problem rather than its root
“The fact is that solving problems is hard. If a given cause. If you do that, all you end up with is a band aid. Always go for the roots.
problem still exists, you can bet that a lot of people
4. Think like a child . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 4
have already come along and failed to solve it. Easy
problems evaporate; it is the hard ones that linger. When it comes to generating fresh ideas and asking questions that make you think, it can
Furthermore, it takes a lot of time to track down, be helpful to have the mentality of an eight-year-old. Question everything.
organize, and analyze the data to answer even one 5. Incentives work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 5
small question well. We’d like to bury the idea that People respond to incentives. They always have and they always will. Yet it's amazing
there’s a right way and a wrong way, a smart way how quickly people forget this. Get incentives right and you can get people to do anything.
and a foolish way, a red way and a blue way. The
modern world demands that we all think a bit more 6. Make your garden weed itself . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 6
productively, more creatively, more rationally; that People with different motives respond to the same incentive in different ways. If you're
we think from a different angle, with a different set of smart, you will use this to your own advantage by getting people to reveal their intentions.
muscles, with a different set of expectations; that 7. Tell more stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 7
we think with neither fear nor favor, with neither
When you think like a freak, people will get upset. Don't waste your time trying to persuade
blind optimism nor sour skepticism. That we think
people who don't want to be persuaded. Instead, tell them stories.
like—ahem—a Freak.”
– Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner 8. Quit sooner rather than later – as soon as the results are in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 8
The sooner you abandon what doesn't work, the more resources you will have left to try
something new. Be quick to run experiments and even quicker to quit what doesn't work.
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