Who is the greatest thinker of all time? Gurus and legendary thinkers of the past like Leonardo da Vinci, Aristotle, Sosipatra of Ephesus, Queen Elizabeth I, Galileo or Socrates may come to your mind immediately. Some may feel that contemporary thinkers like Albert Einstein, Maria Montessori, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs or perhaps Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page are not only smart, but their ideas and contributions have impacted millions of people in our present lifetime. They have also generated huge wealth for themselves. Does this mean the contemporary group of thinkers are better than those in the past?

If I need to stake my claim on this, I dare say the contemporary group of thinkers has a competitive edge because we are equipped with the newest brain model than our fore fathers centuries ago. Scientific research has shown that the brain has actually evolved throughout the history of mankind. As early humans faced new environmental challenges, they evolved larger and more complex brains with their bigger bodies. Large, complex brains can then process and store more information. This was advantageous to humans in their social interactions and encounters with unfamiliar habitats. The modern human brain is the largest and most complex of any living primate, for being adaptable and engaging in higher levels of thinking in the new world. Reference: Falk, D., et al. (2012).

Brain and Thinking Capital

However, despite our newest brain model, I profess that we have not upgraded our operating “Thinking Software”. To become the productive innovators and problem solvers this world requires, we will have to upgrade our thinking. We will have to sharpen our skills in communication, and become better at discerning fact from opinion. How to do this? We must probe further into our thinking, to be aware of what we are thinking and to understand our thought processes well. To develop a metacognitive mindset, we can begin by asking questions. According to Leonardo da Vinci, we should always remain curious in everything (curiosità) so that our brain has a strong desire to learn and improve continuously. By asking the right questions, we can make good value judgement and better decisions, thereby improving our life outcomes at work, in schools and in families for the better.

Our world has changed dramatically over the years, so should our thinking in the way we think and how we think need to change correspondingly. To better engage and adapt ourselves in the new world, I will encourage you to spend a brief moment thinking about how to manage your knowledge manager—how to input new content, how to use tools to filter appropriate information and how to learn new techniques to think critically. Once you have developed your Brain Capital, you will be ready to “reboot” your brain with the latest version of your operating software: Thinking 2.0. As you start to build and enrich your Brain Capital, you will begin to feel differently and think differently in the way you perceive things and conceive ideas. So, who is the greater thinker? If you upgrade your Thinking Software, you could possibly become the next greater thinker.