The 1,000 Minds Rule: Your Journey To a Smarter And Richer Life

How to hone your intellectual curiosities

Who influences how you think, decide or take action the most?

Whose ideas do you value most?
With or without your consent, you are being nudged to a specific path in life?

The people close to you, the books you read and those you follow online are gradually changing your perceptions and world views.

Taking full responsibility for your learning is how you become a better version of yourself. To deliberately control your learning and unlearning process, find the top 1000 brilliant minds and consistently learn from them.

In a knowledge economy, it pays to learn from smart minds, especially when they share their ideas and research for free or condense them as books.

I call it the 1000 minds rule because it’s the optimal number of people you can improve how you think. One thousand sources of knowledge is more than enough to learn new things every day. If you can handle ideas from more than that number, go ahead and change it to whatever works for you.

The idea is to keep learning from multiple sources. It’s one of the best ways to take charge of your lifelong learning consciously.

It’s an excellent start to learn everything you can about specific topics or a specific topic you are curious about. The internet has made it insanely easy for brilliant minds to share what they know with the rest of us. Take advantage of it. You can learn from experts from anywhere.

1,000 smart minds can make you an expert generalist or expert specialist

Experience is a master teacher, even when it’s not our own. ― Gina Greenlee

80 percent of your thinking and decision-making process is influenced by 20 percent of your connections and those closest to you.

If you have not taken advantage of the abundance of general and specific knowledge online yet, the 1000 minds rule is a great way to start.

You don’t have to find all the great people to follow at the same time. You can add to it. I’m currently using newsletters and Twitter accounts (real people)to build my list of great minds to follow.

My intellectual curiosities cross between learning, self-improvement, creativity, psychology, philosophy, productivity, neuroscience, personal finance and technology. The topics help me narrow down the intelligent people and newsletters to follow.

These are a few of the newsletters I read every almost week to learn new ideas, concepts, models and smart ways to think — Brain Pickings, Farnam Street, More to That, Collaborative Fund Blog, James Clear’s The 3–2–1 Newsletter, Naval, Seth Godin, David Perrell’s newsletters, Commonplace, Psyche, Behavioral Scientist (What We’re Reading), Maker Mind, and Robinhood Snacks.

If you have embraced lifelong learning, upgrading what you know or learning from the best minds is a great way to improve your life or career.

You will go through several phases in life. Make time for smart minds — they will change how you think and make decisions. You can use the 1000 rule to build a list of different topics or ideas you care about.

Building a personal list of smart minds alone will not change your life. You can only improve how you think if you make time for their research, observations, essays, videos, podcasts and books. Make quality time to learn from them. Read their books. Listen to their podcasts.

My growing list of smart minds expands my intellectual horizons. They also help me discover other experts or authority figures to follow for better mental models.

If you are ready to explore your curiosities, take action today and expand your world views. If you are serious about improving how you think or make decisions, expand your sources of knowledge.

And don’t forget to think for yourself when you learn from others. Ask questions for deeper understanding. Learn to make your own notes about what you think about what they say or share. Build your capacity for thought.

“Nothing learned from a book is worth anything until it is used and verified in life; only then does it begin to affect behavior and desire,” Will Durant wrote in his book, Fallen Leaves: Last Words on Life, Love, War and God.

Test what you learn from others through practice. Verify their ideas in your life through massive usage. Test what you learn in your life. And do more of what’s working and less of what doesn’t guarantee results.

Keep an open mind and be willing to change when you encounter better facts that challenge your current assumptions.

Don’t allow your current way of thinking to stand in the way of your intellectual progress. “It is what we know already that often prevents us from learning.” Claude Bernard once said.

Learning from intelligent minds is one of the best ways to quickly accumulate knowledge. Use the 1000 rule to hone your intellectual curiosities. The most brilliant, relevant, engaging people can have a lasting impact on your life.

Give yourself permission to grow and learn new things every day. Make it a habit and you will become unstoppable. Make it fun and you will enjoy learning for life.