What is a Thinker?
What is a thinker?
by Michael Hewitt-Gleeson
www.schoolofthinking.org
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What is a thinker? A thinker is a sovereign individual who consciously values the natural rights of thinkers. The School of Thinking supports the natural rights of thinkers. Here are ten thinkers’ rights promoted by SOT …
A Universal Declaration of Thinkers Rights
1. As thinkers, we have the right to use thinking in a quiet and confident manner.
2. As thinkers, we have the right to have pride in our thinking skill.
3. As thinkers, we have the right to use that skill and to consider a ‘thinking reaction’ rather than a reaction based on emotion or experience. The thinking might make use of experience and emotion but these would be part of the thinking instead of controlling it.
4. A thinker has the right to escape from current views of situations and to search for much better views of situations.
5. A thinker has the universal right to be wrong.
6. A thinker does not have to defend a point of view at all costs.There is the right to see other points of view and the right to design a much better decision.
7. A thinker has the right to acquire wisdom or to seek it out wherever it may be found. Wisdom is quite distinct from the sort of cleverness that is taught in school. Cleverness may be useful for dealing with set puzzles or defending local truths but wisdom is required for designing a much better and safer future.
8. A thinker has the right to get on with his or her own work and to get along with other thinkers and if things go wrong a thinker has the right to think things through and to fix them without creating a fuss.
9. A thinker has the right to spell out the factors involved in a situation and also the reasons behind a decision.
10. Above all, a thinker has the right to be cognitively engaged. To be asked to think about something, to focus thinking in a deliberate manner upon any subject. Thinking can be used as a tool by the thinker at will. The use of this tool can be enjoyable whatever the outcome. This applied thinking is practical –- the sort of thinking that is required to get things done.
James Mapes is the founder of Quantum Leap Thinking™, creator of The Transformational Coach™, expert on the psychology of “applied imagination,” best-selling author, highly acclaimed business speaker, consultant, seminar leader and personal excellence coach.