The first wave of listeners is already chiming in. Add your voice, tap ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ on Spotify or Apple, drop a quick line, and hit follow. Let’s show the world how smart dumb thinking can be.

Years ago, I was trying to land a writing job on a show I loved.

It was called Behind the Music — a docu-style series that traced the rise, fall, and redemption of famous bands. I was obsessed. I studied it. I wrote spec script after spec script, trying to prove I got the tone, the structure, the reverence.

And absolutely nothing happened.

No callbacks. No buzz. Just the slow, suffocating rejection of being ignored.

So, in a moment of frustration, I did what any sane person would do:

I pulled a George Costanza.

You remember that Seinfeld episode, right? Where George decides his life isn’t working because every decision he’s ever made has been a disaster — so he tries doing the exact opposite of his instincts?

Instead of hiding his unemployment, he announces it.

Instead of lying to impress women, he blurts out that he lives with his parents.

Instead of ordering tuna on toast, he goes with chicken salad on rye. Untoasted.

And somehow, it all works. His life flips. He gets the girl. He gets the job. He gets... dignity? For five minutes?

So I tried it.

I stopped trying to prove how well I could mimic Behind the Music, and wrote something called Behind the Music That Sucks instead — a parody that made fun of the very bands and tropes the show celebrated. It was ridiculous. Over the top. The opposite of what I thought would get me hired.

They hated it.

Didn’t get the job.

But the script got noticed. People laughed. I produced it on my own anyway. And it became the spark that launched my first company — one that would eventually be worth millions.

That’s when I learned doing the opposite isn’t just funny. Sometimes, it’s the smartest move you’ve got.

And what began as a sitcom punchline somehow became a surprisingly effective creative strategy. One I now refer to as The Costanza Opposites Method.

It’s not a productivity system. It’s a psychological u-turn.

And sometimes, that’s the only way out of a cul-de-sac full of “smart” ideas that don’t work.

Let’s take a tour, shall we?

In 2002, Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane was out of money and out of patience.

Every other baseball team was playing the same game — recruiting players based on charisma, body type, and a scout’s mystical ability to sense “star quality.” Guys who looked like they belonged on a Wheaties box. Guys with swagger. Guys with thighs that whispered, “hall of fame.”

Beane did the opposite.

He ignored his scouts. Ignored his instincts. Ignored every tradition baked into baseball since the Great Depression.

Instead of chasing the players everyone wanted, he built a roster entirely out of players no one wanted — players deemed too slow, too odd, too broken, or too boring to matter.

The only thing they had going for them?

Obscure stats. Walk rate. On-base percentage. Numbers no one was paying attention to — except Beane.

It shouldn’t have worked.

But it did.

That ragtag group of misfits went on a record-breaking 20-game win streak and changed the way the game is played.

They even made a movie about him.

And who played him? Brad Pitt.

Now that’s how you do the opposite.

Let’s rewind further — back to the 1850s. A man named George Crum is working as a chef at a fancy resort in Saratoga Springs. One night, a particularly annoying customer keeps sending his French fries back. “Too thick.” “Too soft.” “Not French enough.”

Crum, teetering on the edge of a culinary breakdown, has had enough.

He decides, essentially, to say screw it. He slices the potatoes paper-thin — thinner than dignity. Fries them until they resemble shattered glass. Douses them in salt like he’s trying to prevent a blizzard.

He serves them not with grace, but with passive-aggression on a plate.

The customer loves them. Demands more. And just like that, the potato chip is born.

The opposite of customer service created one of the most enduring snacks on the planet.

NOTE: This is an old story, and plenty of people have tried to debunk it as myth or marketing lore. But like all things great, everyone wants to take credit. That alone makes it feel true enough to keep.

TOTAL ASIDE: For some reason, the potato-chip universe is riddled with interestingly absurd people — for example.

Now before you think I’m just glorifying bad decisions, let me bring in the academics.

In 2023, a group of researchers published a study in the Journal of Intelligence testing a deceptively simple idea:

Would asking people to “think in opposites” actually make them more creative?

Turns out, yes. Emphatically yes.

When participants were prompted to identify the opposite of a problem’s features and then solve it from that flipped perspective, they consistently came up with more original, more flexible, and more useful solutions than people who brainstormed the normal way.

Why? Because thinking in opposites forces your brain off autopilot.

It disrupts the predictable logic paths your mind usually takes — and opens the door to insights you’d never draft on purpose.

So no, doing the opposite isn’t just a sitcom gimmick.

It’s a real, research-backed way to outmaneuver your own overthinking.

👉 Here’s the full study if you want to nerd out.

Definition: In the opposite direction. Counterclockwise. Against the usual or expected way.

Why it belongs here: Because “Widdershins” is how every idea in this newsletter got born. It sounds like a Victorian curse but means “let’s do this the wrong way, on purpose, and see what happens.”

Used in a sentence: Everyone was networking and climbing the ladder, but I went completely widdershins and accidentally launched a career by mispronouncing ‘synergy’ and refusing to correct myself.

Pick one small, habitual decision you make every day — and do the opposite.

Eat breakfast for dinner.

Answer emails with haiku.

Say no to something you usually say yes to, or yes to something you’d normally ghost.

Walk backward through your living room. Just once. For science.

You don’t need to upend your life.

You just need to surprise your instincts.

Because instincts are wonderful, and also wrong about 83% of the time.

So this week, when in doubt? Go Widdershins.

Backwards is the new forward.