This is a phrase coined by Howard Marks in his book, "The Most Important Thing". This book is truly a rarity for investors, with both new and old concepts well thought out and written clearly. The best part: the concepts are even valid for institutional fund managers. Very rarely we find something useful both for professional and retail value investors.So one of the most intriguing concept is this Second Level Thinking. What is this all about? Well to answer that, we first need to know what is first level thinking. According to Howard Marks, most investors possess only first level thinking. First level thinking is obvious, superficial and consensus. Examples of first level thinking would be: "Apple is launching iPad 3 in 2 weeks, let's buy." "Oil just went up another 5%, airlines will be hit, sell SIA." "WD is being hit by the Thai flood, buy ...