CHAPTER 2

THINK FOR YOURSELF

We live at a time when the ideas of science fiction are becoming a reality and mind-control technology is going mainstream faster than we can get the time to debate its ethics. We have to keep up with the potential threat of Artificial Intelligence not only becoming way smarter than us, but potentially acquiring human-like consciousness too - making us humans de facto obsolete.

The answer could be to merge human and machine together.

Have you ever seen movies in which the protagonists can control objects with their voice or thoughts? Well, we use voice recognition in the home right now, and technology that translates brainwaves into computer commands already exists today. The technology, which records the brain’s electrical activity along the scalp, is still in its early days, and scientists are now racing to dream up devices that can read – as well as potentially manipulate – the human brain. Such brain–machine interfaces would allow people to operate computers with their minds alone, as well as boost brain cognition, treat neurological diseases and much more.

While such technology will be nothing short of miraculous for people who are suffering from loss of motor control or brain injury, its implementation naturally raises a ton of ethical questions about privacy and individual freedoms. Who will own and control the interfaces – the individual, the government or a billion-dollar private company? Would our thought information be stored in the cloud? What if someone can hack into the system and manipulate an individual or a group of people to commit crimes? These are just a few of the many questions currently being debated, with the biggest being, of course: could a cyborg ever fully be human?

But before we decide that merging with a neural-control interface is the way to go, I would like to stop and reflect on what it means to be truly independent in thought, in the most natural, technologically and genetically unenhanced way.

“The outward freedom that we shall attain will only be in exact proportion to the inward freedom which we may have grown at a given moment. And if this is a correct view of freedom, our chief energy must be concentrated on achieving reform from within.”

Mahatma Gandhi

Free thought implies opinions and decisions formed free from authority, tradition or dogmatic doctrines and purely on a basis of logic, reason and experience. I am not trying to make you a guru of perfect logical reasoning, but I believe that an independent process of thinking and analysis is necessary if you want to live as a well-rounded, successful human being, in tune with your true nature and in control of your future. By learning to free ourselves and become independent thinkers, we will attain outward freedom. But this empowering process doesn’t come without focused self-work.

Understand Your Influences and Take Control

I lived much of my own life unknowingly controlled by my thoughts and emotions, until I started, initially just by trial and error, to understand that what I think or feel is not necessarily always right and that my mind can’t always be totally relied on when detecting threats or judging situations.

Our brains have evolved with a bias toward survival and reproduction. After all, that’s how we all made it this far. But they are more imperfect that we are led to believe, as our constantly evolving environment forces us to adapt more quickly than nature allows. In his book Brain Bugs, Dean Buonomano’s main theme is that our brains often exhibit errors – bugs in our system – that are relics from our evolutionary past, and our brain, while being extraordinary, doesn’t always process information in an optimal way.

I’m sure you can think of moments when your mental processing was far from perfect. When fear or some other strong emotion takes over, we tend to make irrational decisions and as a result behave in ways that we never normally would.

Another example of an irrational response is unconscious bias, a non-conscious attribution of particular qualities to a member of a certain social group, that can lead to racism, sexism and other forms of prejudice and stereotyping. An illustration of an unconscious bias in the workplace might be gender bias or ageism – the tendency to favour one sex over another or not to hire candidates in their fifties and above. Or the conformity bias: following the majority of your colleagues’ opinions on any given subject. Even in the presence of total awareness of these issues, they are often hard to spot in yourself. After all, nobody likes to think of themselves as prejudiced and most of us believe that, in the end, we’re the good guys – this way of thinking has a psychological function in protecting our self-esteem.

If everything we perceive is filtered through our biases, preconceptions and predetermined frames of reference, how then can we become fully in control of our own thought processes?

The first step to mental freedom is to acknowledge that the way we think is always going to be influenced by something and that we are never totally free. Start to observe how the people around us, the times we live in, the country and society in general always have a strong influence on our opinions. I don’t believe that my opinions are purely mine. This is not to say that I mindlessly repeat what I’ve read or heard like a parrot, and that I don’t reflect on the things my brain takes in. I have my own criteria of judgement when I watch the news or listen to an expert’s opinion.

Yet my criteria, as well as yours, can never be fully impartial; they are influenced by everything I have been exposed to throughout my life. Nurture in this case is extremely powerful, and – in moments of deep reflection – I doubt if there’s such a thing as true free will.

Without getting too deep into philosophical debates over the meaning of free thought, I am still sure we can all get rid of that top layer of opinions that are not truly ours and train our minds to be more independent. Yuval Noah Harari, in his incredible book Homo Deus, makes the point that science has determined that human beings are not individuals and do not have an indivisible true self. They are instead a collection of algorithms, processes that, when put together, form the illusion of a unique “self”. Machine learning and artificial intelligence are increasingly better at knowing us – through the data that we so freely give up to them on our social media and digital accounts in exchange for social interaction and cute cat videos. The process of getting to know us through our data, our likes, our wearable technology and our devices is accelerating so fast that the likes of Google, Facebook and Amazon probably know more about us than our friends and family, and even ourselves. These technology giants are becoming so much better at predicting our needs and preferences that we give up our decision-making power to them. We then risk being fully controlled by their big algorithms, a scary and near-Orwellian hypothesis.

Yet we still have a high degree of control over our own choices. At the end of the day, you are the one person that knows yourself better than anyone else on this planet. And the better you know yourself, the better your decision-making process will be – and therefore your degree of empowerment. If you don’t know why you feel a certain way, where your ideas and reactions come from and what your biases might be, it’s unlikely you will be able to change your life for the better. You will simply operate on autopilot.

Know Yourself

The concept of getting to know and understand your own nature is cardinal in Greek philosophy. The famous maxim “know thyself” indicates that it is our duty as human beings to look within ourself and live according to our own nature. Socrates stated that we can unlock this knowledge through the method of a dialogue between the soul and itself, or between a student and a teacher. According to Socrates, without this profound work of self-searching, life is worthless. Later, “know thyself” was also a warning to pay no attention to the opinion of the multitude. These philosophical usages agree with my own vision of mental freedom and the tools to achieve ultimate happiness: only by shaking off others’ opinions and truly understanding our own personality, needs and wishes can we live a fulfilled and complete life. I admit that in this regard, I am a child of my own era’s idealization of individualism – a concept that values human independence, self-reliance and self-realization. Yet whether it is rooted in a philosophy of life belonging to the ancient Greeks or to the modern world, knowing ourselves is a fundamental tool of self-empowerment and mental freedom.

Self-knowledge is a gift that we can give to ourselves. Just like little kids who cry because they are tired or hungry, but don’t have a clue why they are feeling this way, we often stray into unpleasant situations because we don’t fully know what we like or who we are. It usually takes years of experience and trial and error to get to the maturity of self-knowledge. At any age, we can all do better in this regard. Self-knowledge comes through self-observation and finding the courage within yourself to acknowledge your own beliefs and values in life. You must learn to understand your own personality with honesty: your reactions to other people’s behaviour, your priorities, your moods and your habits. The ability to understand and manage your own emotions is part of emotional intelligence, which can be developed by practising neutral observation.

The way I observe and understand myself better is by laying out my thoughts in writing. In the past, I’ve often said yes to experiences and people that end up draining me, just because I lacked judgement about my own personality and likings. I’ve ended up feeling miserable in situations just because my logical mind had made me commit to them, even when my intuition was screaming out not to do it. Through writing, rather than simply following my gut feelings, I have learned to understand my own mood swings and what suits me best. I have managed to notice the patterns in my own likes and dislikes.

For example, while many people would love to spend a weekend in a villa full of friends, it’s not at all my idea of fun. I tend to be introverted, so I need my alone moments to recharge. I’m also a very light sleeper, so what I want at night is peace and quiet. Journaling about a particular weekend five years ago made sure I never forgot exactly how I felt and every time such an opportunity arises again, I know myself well enough to decline politely.

#POWERTRICK: WRITE YOUR WAY TO A NEUTRAL PERSPECTIVE

Daily journaling, and writing in general, is a very effective way of finding out why you think and act the way you do. You can remain present while distancing yourself from a subjective perspective and observing your own journey and personality more neutrally. If you make a habit of journaling, you’ll connect better with your own inner needs and desires.

Don’t be a perfectionist about your writing. If you’ve never tried journaling, you could start by describing your day in full, or capturing your feelings of the moment. It doesn’t have to be profound or meaningful; it’s often the smaller, trivial details that matter most in daily life. What is important is that you write freely, letting out all your emotions and getting your states of mind down on paper honestly. No one will be there to judge you.

Studies have found that people who engage in expressive and emotional writing regularly for around 15 minutes a day feel on average less stressed and have to pay fewer visits to the doctor.

A bonus point for handwriting: experts have established that taking down information by hand even improves memory. Dr Helen Macpherson of the Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition (IPAN) at Deakin University said that: “When we write by hand, we have to coordinate verbal and fine movement systems.” Compared to typing, writing by hand involves much more complex movements – your hand is going up and down, circling, drawing lines forward and backward – which lead the brain to a completely different way of encoding the information, in turn creating a richer memory. Also, as handwriting is slower, you are forced to think about how to note down the information in a more concise way, processing it in a way that your brain finds more easily retainable than if you’d quickly typed it on a phone or a computer.

Most girls working in the beauty, art and photography sector, who have achieved a certain level of fame, would aspire to the big screen. So, when I was offered the possibility of a small role in a big movie production, I initially revelled in the idea of how many doors it would open and how great it would be for my career as an influencer. Yet the more I thought about it, the more I knew that the best answer was not to waste anyone’s time. I know how careful I am about how I invest my time, and that at heart I am an entrepreneur. This role would have meant setting aside my own projects for a substantial part of my year in order to focus on a project that wasn’t my own. From my work schedule to my on-screen image, everything would have been dictated by the director and the producers behind the movie – not by me. As I always take a professional approach to my work and am respectful by nature, I would definitely have done exactly what was asked of me if I’d committed to the role. But given that I’m fiercely independent, I know I would have suffered immensely from the lack of creative input and having to defer to the authority of others.

It simply wasn’t going to work. Despite everyone in my circle pushing me to take up this dream opportunity, I knew that it wasn’t for me and I politely declined. I then went on to develop some amazing digital projects and deals, laying the foundations for a new business, and collaborating on an exciting charity project. I have not regretted that decision one bit.

This is a good example of how getting to know myself better has helped me make rational decisions and avoid wasting time. I wasn’t always like this. I took on many projects that weren’t at all suited to my personality, like house music DJing – yes, you can laugh at me now! – before I learned how to say no. This takes courage and clear judgement and a lot of independent thought. Had I listened to everyone around me, I would probably still be putting on a brave face in a DJ booth playing music I didn’t even like.

#POWERTRICK: GET YOURSELF DOWN ON PAPER

To be able to think independently you have to first understand yourself – and no, it doesn’t come automatically, it takes a little bit of work. A great exercise is to write down your main characteristics and ideas on a piece of paper and keep adding to it until you have a clearer picture of your likes, dislikes and your influences.

Start with where you come from, who your parents and family are, your culture, your language and how you were brought up.

As it’s hard to distance yourself completely from your own life, try asking trusted friends and acquaintances for their honest opinions. Get them to describe your personality, mentality and background as objectively as possible and tell you what seems to push your buttons the most. Try not to get offended if you don’t like what they say – after all, this is all helping you get a different perspective in order to understand yourself better. Bear in mind that the picture you are building up will never be completely accurate or static, as your personality is not set in stone and keeps changing over time.

Understand Your Background

What you were exposed to at an early age has a massive influence on your preferences as an adult, but the fun part of life is that sometimes the most unexpected events and people we meet along the way will drastically change the way we see the world. This is true for everyone.

The well-known nurture-versus-nature debate discusses whether human behaviour is determined predominantly by the environment or by genes. Numerous studies, some of which were performed on identical twins who were separated at birth and grew up in very different settings, have shown that our behaviour is affected by a mix of both natural disposition and the environment in which we are raised. Environment can even have an impact on gene expression (rather than altering the genetic code itself) – in science the study of this phenomenon is called epigenetics.

If nature and nurture are so deeply intertwined, it is worth thinking about the environments we have been exposed to in the past, in order to understand our current situation better. My mother, due to her eastern European heritage, was brought up to think that the best way to be a woman is to be a great housewife, take care of the kids and cook for her husband, who would work and pay the bills, so it was likely that both by example as well as by personal conviction she would pass the same message along to me. Yet the environment I grew up in – central Europe in the 2000s, which was fairly emancipated in comparison to the more traditional parts of the world – also shaped my views on the world and on my family’s ways.

I have grown up with a completely different outlook to my parents. Observing our diversities, personal biases and difficulties in communicating with each other has opened my eyes to the role that the environment I grew up in has played in my life.

My parents, who grew up in Communist Russia, struggled to understand my international worldview and modern take on family, career and the roles of men and women. This has been a complicated yet enriching situation that has both created incomprehension as well as taught us to love and respect each other’s extremely different views on life. My family has enriched me with their life perspectives.

Nurture from the environment I grew up in – as well as the friends, media, music and other culture that I have been exposed to – has played a bigger role into shaping my ideas than my parents’ views or the pre-wiring of my genes. Yet, it’s not about determining how much of our mental bias and behaviour is heredity and how much due to environment – it is about developing the ability to first identify and then distance ourselves from any unwanted biases.

Can you observe without prejudice your own and your family’s religious affiliation, belief system, political ideas, class, nationality and so on, to better understand how your worldview was shaped through external influences? Every one of these elements is a prism through which to view the world. Even the language you speak will give you a different outlook on the world in front of you. The way you describe an object in a certain language will determine how you perceive and relate to it. For example, Chinese-speaking children learn to count earlier than English-speaking children because Chinese numbers are more ordered and transparent than English numbers (in Chinese, “eleven” is “ten one”). Likewise, people speaking some indigenous Australian languages orient themselves in space better than English-speaking people (they often know north from south, even in darkness), probably because when they are referring to a distant object, they do not say “that car” or “that tree over there”, but rather “the car to the north” or “the tree to the south”. Another example is colours: some languages involve a wider colour spectrum than others. That means that speakers of different languages tend to either group or separate the colour nuances, and perceive colours slightly differently. The Economist published an article stating that: “many multilinguals report different personalities, or even different worldviews, when they speak their different languages.” I know this is true from personal experience: I change the pitch and tone of my voice, and even my mannerisms, depending on the language I am speaking.

It’s truly empowering to discover the source of ideas and convictions that you might have thought were a fixed part of your personality. Then you can decide freely if these ideas are truly in tune with your personality and character – if they truly belong to you. Being able to choose your thoughts and form opinions that are really in tune with who you really are is, for me, the ultimate freedom and mental power. Imagine if no one ever thought outside of the box, and all the world had was conventional wisdom. If we always emulate everyone else, the best we can expect is to achieve exactly the same as everyone else. Independent thought is essential for our own progress and for the progress of humanity as a whole.

Keep Reflecting Even When It’s Painful

Sometimes people avoid self-analysis and in-depth reflection out of fear of finding out something that hurts them. They want to forget. The problem is that traumatic and intensely emotionally charged events are not easily erased from our minds and bodies. They remain embedded in our mental patterns, reactions and attitudes, and emerge from our subconscious to haunt us when we overreact to everyday situations. Someone’s late for a meeting and you feel disrespected and enraged. A date stands you up and you cry your eyes out with a deep feeling of abandonment that doesn’t match the situation. This is all because past experiences give the tone and the intensity to our reactions to current events. Maybe your parents hurt you as a child and you didn’t feel loved; you truly believed you were faulty and worthless. Repetitive thought patterns like this will eventually become beliefs, and form your view of the world and of yourself. Often this baggage weighs us down terribly, inhibiting our happiness and productivity, yet it goes unnoticed because no one likes reopening an old wound.

It is only through introspection and in-depth self-analysis – even if these feel extremely uncomfortable – that we can find out why we act the way we do. We can then decide to let go consciously of past wounds by forgiving the people who inflicted them on us.

Introspection and deconstruction of the past are not just empowering ways to define who you are, where you’re coming from, and whether you like what you see or want to change your own story by rewriting it at your own pleasure. They are also a means of pinpointing your own traumas and finally freeing yourself from old and lingering pain.

Even if you find out that you were hurt and broken somewhere along the way, this is a positive thing. Self-analysis and reflection will help you make peace with your past and heal over time. We have all been broken somehow and by somebody at some point. It is fully our own responsibility to put the pieces back together as the best possible version of ourselves.

#POWERTRICK: CHALLENGE YOUR PRECONCEPTIONS

Open your mind by trying something that challenges your usual point of view. As the brilliant Harari states in Homo Deus: “My current political views, my likes and dislikes, and my hobbies and ambitions do not reflect my authentic self. Rather, they reflect my upbringing and social surroundings. They depend on my class, and are shaped by my neighbourhood and my school.”

I couldn’t agree more, which is why travelling can be so eye-opening. Travelling is the best way to shake off your preconceptions and biases; it’s an empowering tool if done right. I don’t mean secluding yourself in a comfortable all-inclusive resort. Real travel means keeping your eyes open, mingling with local people and trying to learn about their traditions and ways of thinking. Comparing people’s differences with kindness, patience and respect is a profoundly enriching experience.

Of course you don’t have to travel to broaden your mind. The internet will bring you an infinite amount of information, ideas and points of views wherever you are now. Pick up a book you would never normally read, or watch a documentary to understand a foreign culture with very different values from your own. Maybe what you learn will make you feel uncomfortable or even angry, but in the end it will always enrich you, open your horizons and ultimately shine a light on your own thought processes, helping you understand yourself better.

Get out of your comfort zone on a regular basis. Ask yourself: “What if the opposite is also true?” Instead of always hanging out with the same friends or going out in the same part of town, once in a while try something different. Enrol in a martial arts class on the other side of town, try a new cuisine, hang out with people of a different age, gender, sexual orientation, political stance, race or socioeconomic level to you. Meet up with them and be respectful and patient. See if the interaction sparks up a debate.

Maybe you won’t like everything they say, but if you can calmly observe their point of view, you’ll learn more than from somebody who agrees with every word you say.

I don’t mean for this exercise to change your opinions, but rather to open your mind to observing its own thought processes from a new perspective.

Don’t Over-consume Media

It might sound strange coming from someone who’s known as a digital influencer, and who pays her bills thanks to the media consumption of her followers, but too much media is not good for your brain.

If you are always glued to your device’s screen, you will naturally be influenced what you see there. At the end of the day, we are social animals, and if the majority of people seem to agree on a subject, then it’s easy to assume that this must be correct.

But remember, once upon a time conventional wisdom was that the sun revolved around the earth.

We are bombarded by new information at every turn, mainly on our screens but also on the street, in shops and wherever else we go. These days, the most precious currency is our attention, and this is what advertisers, politicians and anyone else with an agenda is constantly trying to capture.

They steal your attention because they are pursuing their own interests – and that is what you should be doing too, by getting rid of as much of this extra noise as possible. Do you really need to know about that celebrity divorce, and who cheated on whom? Or scroll mindlessly through Instagram for hours? You might think it relaxes you, but what it really does is distract you and deprive you of real mind-food. It triggers your curiosity and uses up your time, without truly teaching you anything valuable.

Over-consuming media is not only addictive, it also undermines your ability to think independently. You might think you are completely unaffected by advertising and other people’s opinions, but over time and repetition they will rub off on you. A survey by the American Psychological Association showed that news consumption left people reporting feelings of anxiety, fatigue and sleep loss. If you are constantly monitoring your social media feeds, as well as online news outlets, you will be exposed to an overload of data, often accompanied by vivid and shocking images. Taken to an extreme, this can lead to real psychological distress.

The best way to deal with all this pointless information we receive every day is simply to cut it off. Look on this as a detox that will make your discerning abilities sharper. Consciously substitute the time you spend reading and watching the news as well as scrolling through your social media feeds with a brief meditation, deep breathing or a walk around the block. Or try a creative activity like drawing or writing.

When you feel the itch to start scrolling or read the news headlines yet again, stop yourself for a moment, count to ten, take a deep breath and simply look ahead of you. We are so merged with our devices that just looking around without a purpose has become a rarity.

#POWERTRICK: STAY PRESENT TO THE WORLD AROUND YOU

It’s a powerful exercise to simply sit down and observe the world around you. What do you see? It might be the walls of a room, the table, the details of the furniture. It might be the people walking in front of you. Observe the colour and strength of the light, the smell and temperature of the air. What sounds can you hear? In an over-stimulated world, this type of quiet activity might feel very boring at first, but it is far from it.

By staying present to the world around you and observing it actively, you will start feeling more alive. Your stress levels will decrease and your inner calm strengthen. The great thing about this powertrick is that you can do it as many times a day as you need to when you feel overwhelmed or in need of the “technology kick” we all get when we touch our devices. You don’t need to go anywhere, all you have to do is stop whatever it is you are doing and observe your surroundings in that moment. You will learn to be present in the moment and less dependent on the load of informational junk we all constantly receive.

Don’t Take Anything at Face Value

When you want an answer to a question, think for yourself first, before searching for it online. If you get your answer from the internet, don’t take it at face value. Information on a site that looks reputable can be a repost from a dubious source – a mistake that can multiply very fast online. Always double-check your sources and don’t be lazy about doing the research. Scepticism about the consensus-based information that is often found online is very healthy.

#POWERTRICK: APPLY CRITICAL THINKING

Use this critical thinking powertrick to assess what other people tell you, whether that’s something in the news or information given face to face. Ask yourself:

1. Who said it? Are they a person of authority? Does their opinion matter to you because of objective reasons?

2. What did they say? Is the information complete? Can the statements be proven with facts? Or are they only opinions?

3. Why they could have said it? Can the person have a motive for saying this to you or to the general public? What could that motive be? Were they emotional or calm while saying it?

Think For Yourself: Action Points

• Understand your influences and take control: your brain is not a perfect logical tool but ultimately it’s you in the driving seat of your own life

• Know yourself: self-knowledge comes through self-observation and finding the courage to acknowledge your own beliefs and values in life

• Write your way to a neutral perspective: make a habit of journaling to discover your true needs and desires

• Get yourself down on paper: explore every aspect of your personality, including input from those who know you best – try to assess this objectively even if you don’t at first like what they say

• Understand your background: observe without prejudice your family’s beliefs and values, and consider the source of your own beliefs and convictions – and whether they are truly your own

• Keep reflecting even when it’s painful: it’s only through in-depth self-analysis that we can find out why we act as we do and move on from past wounds

• Challenge your preconceptions: get out of your comfort zone and try something new that opens your mind

• Don’t over-consume media: cut yourself off from the information overload

• Stay present to the world around you: counter the craving for a technological kick by simply observing your surroundings

• Don’t take anything at face value: do your research instead of just accepting the consensus

• Apply critical thinking: work out if there’s an agenda underlying the information you receive