We should all be thinking like Sherlock Holmes, a little bit more.

His blend of the scientific method, extreme focus, and gut reaction lays a path to a clearer way of thinking and approaching problems.

I mean, how else has he endured as a character since first published in 1886?

For me, Sherlock Holmes as the first Malcolm Gladwell, who simply chose the life of a detective rather than a writer.

And Robert Downey Jr. has got to be the best actor to play the part.

Downey, with Jude Law, and Guy Ritchie bring a welcome humor to the part.

What Sherlock Holmes offers isn’t just a way of solving crime. It is an entire way of thinking, a mindset that can be applied to countless enterprises far removed from the foggy streets of the London underworld. It is an approach born out of the scientific method that transcends science and crime both and can serve as a model for thinking, a way of being, even, just as powerful in our time as it was in Conan Doyle’s. And that, I would argue, is the secret to Holmes’s enduring, overwhelming, and ubiquitous appeal.

-Maria Konnikova, Mastermind