Below is an Autogenerated Transcript

Begin with the very essence of thought leader, the word “thought leader”. The first part of it, thought, begins with thinking. And how does one really go about the real thinking part about becoming a thought leader? Yeah, there are two key words here. Thought or as you said, thinking. And then leader, we can talk about that one separately. So, the idea of genuinely thinking is something that very few people think constructively about. We literally use the phrase like, “Well, you know what I think?” Or “So, tell me what you think.” And whatever somebody just blurts out or comes to top of mind, and then we call that thinking. That’s not thinking at all. Real thinking is when you bring yourself to engage with a topic, and engaging with that topic can be with other people. It can be with written texts which were written by other people. It can be through an online study of the history of some area. It can be in whatever manner. But you bring yourself to it not already knowing where you’re going to end up. What do you mean not knowing where I’m going to end up? I suppose I should have a goal in mind. I should know where I’m headed. I mean, you know, clarity. No, no, no. But then you’re not thinking, you’re just planning. Then you’re just executing. Then you’re just fulfilling or following. Real thinking requires a level of creative discovery, a collaborative exploration between yourself and others. Others who’ve come before you, others that, like you and I are doing right now. Then you can say, “You know what? I know we were thinking because we came up with some ideas that I didn’t know we were going to come up with before we had this conversation.” Ah. We were thinking. So, when you say thought leadership, we’re talking about somebody who leads others in the direction of genuinely new thinking. Wow. Wow. That is so much there. And let me just unpack it a little bit by saying that just reiterating what you said, that genuine thinking is really when you have given the time and the space to think about new ideas, new ways of determining solutions for problems either individually or together. And then the second part of it is to actually lead others with that new way of thinking. Right. That’s the leadership part, but be careful with what you just said. You know, new solutions to problems. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Even the idea that we say is this genuinely “a problem”? Is it a problem that needs a solution? In other words, there’s already a lot of assumption in that. So sincere, deep thinking would mean stepping back, challenging, questioning, wondering, being curious about how even our interpretation of a field came to be a certain way. Observing the way that field has evolved, where is it now? How did it innovate to get to this point? Where might it go next? Not in a predictive engineering manner. Where will it go? And then I’m going to solve the problem to get there. Okay. There’s nothing wrong with that kind of approach. But then it’s not genuine thought leadership.