Don't think about how to succeed; instead, think about how to avoid failure. This classic saying is held by Charlie Munger as a guiding principle.
Reverse thinking is a way of thinking that goes against the usual path, exploring from the opposite side or the reverse of a problem to arrive at an answer.
To reach a destination, you set out from the starting point. Along the way, there are often many little forks that can distract you, lead you astray, and send you down the wrong path. Reverse thinking means standing at the destination and looking back toward the starting point, retracing the route. The benefit is that you can move forward with purpose: the forks and wrong turns along the way naturally disappear, and the path to the destination becomes clear.
To use reverse thinking, first identify the opposite of the original problem. Then make that opposite your destination and work backward from there to find the right path, free of distractions. That is the key reason reverse thinking is so effective.
To figure out how to be a good parent, think about what would make you a bad one. List those things and avoid doing them, and you’ll naturally become a good parent. There’s another point about the essence of reverse thinking that’s well worth discussing: working backward can eliminate the branches that lead away from your goal when thinking forward, but does working backward have no branches of its own? Can there be wrong turns when reasoning backward? Yes, of course. Everything is interconnected, like a vast web. But when you look back from the destination, you’ll find that many backward branches lead to many different starting points. Those starting points aren’t yours, and you can’t branch off from a place where you never started. Conversely, this also shows that there’s more than one path or method for reaching the destination. Your starting point is really your current circumstances and conditions. Given your circumstances, some approaches will suit you; others have their own circumstances and paths that suit them. You go your way, and they go theirs; you can learn from their experience, but take it as a reference. We may reach the same destination by different routes, but following someone else’s route could lead you to a dead end.