Remember: Money is a replaceable resource. When you’re out of it, you can earn it back. You can’t say the same for time. Don’t spend too much time thinking about money.
Don’t Try To Think Your Way Out Of Everything
This doesn’t make sense at first sight, but when you think too hard, you often come up with bad ideas. That’s because you can’t actively think your way out of everything. We’ve all had good ideas while taking a shower. That’s because we’re not actively thinking.
It’s good to let your attention wander and stop thinking. This is also a part of controlling your mind. You have the ability to decide when you want to let go of your thoughts. Similar to relaxing your muscles when you lay on the couch after a tough day, you can let loose of your thoughts.
You can do that in many different ways. Some like to take a yoga class. Others prefer to meditate every day. The medium doesn’t matter. I’ve learned that there are many ways to relax. However, only one thing is critical: You don’t need anything to relax but yourself. You don’t need yoga, exercise, meditation, music, scents, or whatever it is you think you need. Let go of everything. You can escape your outside world and go inside your mind to find peace. If you can’t do that right now, train yourself. Become aware of your thoughts, observe them, and let them go. That’s the whole process. You can do that anytime, anyplace. You don’t need a different scenery or class to do those things. Let go and relax. And do it as often as you think is necessary.
You’ll find that the moments you’re not thinking are just as important as the times you are actively thinking.
Be Unconventional
I’ve grown to hate conventional thinking. Not because I want to be different but because conventional thinking gives you conventional results. I don’t like that. And if you liked conventional results, you wouldn’t be reading this book.
Let’s examine decision making for a second. The most conventional method for decision making is to create a pros and cons list. Benjamin Franklin is the first who documented this method. He wrote about it to his friend, Joseph Priestley, in a letter to him in 1772. And today, we create these lists all the time.
What are the pros and cons of…
“Quitting my job?”
“Breaking up with my boyfriend?”
“Taking this job offer?”
“Buying a new car?”
“Starting a business?”
And then, we take a sheet of paper, draw a line in the middle of it, and start listing the pros on the left, and the cons on the right (or vice versa).
Even though I like the simplicity of this method, I stopped using it after one of my friends recommended me to create one of these lists when my first relationship hit a rough patch. I actually made a pros and cons list for breaking up with my then-girlfriend! When I think about it now, I’m ashamed. And it didn’t even make any sense because there are always factors that, by themselves, outweigh all of the other factors. Nearly all pros and cons lists for relationships are the same.
Pros of staying in a relationship: Having someone to share everything with, you can have sex, go on holidays, etc.
Cons of staying in a relationship: Less free time for myself, getting in fights, going to in-laws, etc.
It’s always the same. And it’s not useful. The same is true for quitting a job you hate. The pro is that you’re free from a bad job. The con is that there’s a lot of uncertainty.
It’s time to break free from this conventional thinking. Instead of binary thinking, start thinking more abundantly. It’s not this or that in life. You can have this and that. I always thought I had to either quit my business or take a job. Also, many of my friends think you should quit your job to start a business. Who ever said these things?
When my business wasn’t growing a few years ago, I just took a job at a large IT research firm. I did both things. I ran my business in the evenings and weekends (and sometimes during the day), and the rest of my time, I did my work for the firm. Also, you can start a business while you still have a job. That’s what I mean when I talk about thinking outside of the box.
We always limit ourselves by narrow and conventional thinking. We always want to stay within a box. That’s because we never take a step back to look at the larger picture. Take a look at the drawing below.
If you’re standing inside the maze, you’ll probably start walking towards the middle, right? That’s what you should do when you’re in a maze. However, this maze is different. The prize is not in the middle, it’s outside the maze. But you can only see the goal if you take a helicopter view. It’s impossible to see the goal from within the maze. And yet, that’s how most of us live. We do things conventionally because that’s “how it’s done.”
When you stop doing things the way they’re done, you’ll start doing things how you get it done.
Don’t Ask Why
I’m a fool with sending emails. Especially when it comes to selecting the recipient. I always type the first letter of a name and hit enter. I trust the computer and never check whether the address I’ve selected is actually the person I want to mail. I’m lazy. Often, it doesn’t matter and I get funny responses back from people.
But one time this simple mistake cost me $150K in business. I was working with two companies on a multi-year consulting deal. Both of my contacts had the same name, let’s call them Wim. One Wim was an existing client, let’s call him Wim A, and the other was a prospect, Wim B. Both guys wanted the same type of consulting for their companies. But I gave Wim A a better rate because he was a loyal customer. However, instead of sending the contract to Wim A, I sent the contract to Wim B.
This time, it wasn’t an innocent mistake. Wim B previously had seen my proposal, which had a higher total price. But when he saw that Wim A got a lower rate, he was upset. “Why does he get a lower rate? Is that how you do business?” He decided not to do business with us.
I learned three things.
Always double check.
Small things can become big things.
And don’t play favors.
There’s no use in asking why I made a mistake. Or why I was always lazy with email. I just was. And I was wrong. There’s no way to justify my mistake. Never brush important details off and say, “It doesn’t matter.” Maybe it doesn’t matter that you hit snooze every single day, or that you ignore the details of your book, report, or movie.
The point is that not striving for perfection becomes a habit. Don’t worry about being a perfectionist—there’s no such thing. More often than not, people are the opposite. Perfectionism is merely an excuse. In reality, we’re scared of what people think of our work.
Either way, there’s no point in asking “why” when you deal with obstacles, challenges, or mistakes. Instead, think about what you can do to overcome or prevent the things that are holding you back.
Think About The Details Even More
I overlooked a small detail, and it cost me a lot. But the lesson I learned was more valuable than the business I could gain. Details are probably the most important thing in business, work, sports, art, and life in general. “The devil is in the detail.” It’s one of my favorite platitudes. But I never followed the advice in the past. The main reason was my impatience. I always tried to hurry everything: Sending emails, making calls, writing reports, assignments, essays, you name it. I thought that it mattered that I got the work done. But I was wrong. Because things often seem easy from the outside. Until you start doing them.
This book took me 15 months to write. I spent countless hours researching the topic. I also spent hours on writing, editing, cutting, writing more, and editing it again. And then, again. I also changed the title three times, and the subtitle even more than that.
My first title was The Art Of Practicality. I initially liked it a lot because it sounded familiar. But as I started writing a book about thinking, I also applied the methods to my own book. So I thought, “What does the art of even mean?” I didn’t have a good an
swer. I took that as a sign that I needed to change the title. You know what’s funny?
My second title was The Power Of Pragmatic Thinking. Like a genius, I came up with another generic title (which was even longer than the previous one)! Do you know how many books start with The Power Of? A quick book titles search on Goodreads with “the power of” gave me 83895 results. That’s a lot of books with those words in the title or subtitle. One of the things I’ve learned about writing books is that you must stand out somehow. No one cares about a better book on thinking. Instead, it’s likely that you picked up this book because you expected something different. But with the previous titles that I had drafted, I knew no one would think it’d be different.
Two weeks before I published THINK STRAIGHT, I started promoting it on my site and social media. And quickly, my readers became excited. Soon, emails like these came pouring in:
“Can’t wait for the book! Well done.”
“I am so excited to read your new book!!”
“What a determined person you are! I look forward to Think Straight.”
I love my readers. That’s why I put in a lot of time to get the title right. At that time, no one had read the book. But based on the title, readers were already excited. And that was my goal. To everyone who emailed me before the launch: I hope I delivered ;)
Thinking about details is nothing more than doing your job. If you’re a writer, your job is to write the best book you possibly can. If you’re a designer, your job is to create the best design you can. You’re not here to write one book and call it quits. Or to design one product and retire. If you want to grow—financially, spiritually, mentally—you must revisit the details all the time.
Never underestimate or overlook details if you want to do a job right. And if you don’t, it’s better not to do it at all.
Take Thinking Out of The Equation
I don’t want to become someone who only thinks and never acts. In fact, the only reason I think is that I want to do more with my life. I like to get more out of it because it gives me satisfaction. That’s why I don’t like to think on an average day. Sounds paradoxical, right? “You say you should think better, but now you’re saying you’re thinking less yourself.”
That’s exactly what I’m saying. Improve the quality of your thoughts, so you improve the quality of your actions. And always have an imbalance.
Action > Thinking
The best way to make sure you act more is to rely on habits. Take exercise. I’ve struggled with staying in shape for all my life. And I was overweight for years. I always played mind games with myself about exercise and diet.
“Should I go for a run or go to the gym?”
“I’ll have this bag of chips and hit the gym tomorrow.”
“What days should I exercise? Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays? Or maybe Tuesdays and Thursdays?”
That’s too much useless thinking. Instead, I’ve made a few basic rules:
Exercise at least 30 minutes a day (every day)
Don’t burn yourself out (don’t go all out)
Eat healthy (no junk-food)
Don’t consume more calories than you burn
Keep track of what you eat and how much you exercise
When you combine a few rules, you have a system. And a system helps you to take the thinking part out of the equation. The only thinking you need to do is when your system doesn’t give you the results you want. If my system would make me feel bad or gain weight, I would rethink it. And even if it works, a system is never perfect. That’s why I regularly think about what I can change or how I can improve my systems.
Don’t Live With Regrets
Growing up, my grandmother was always around. She was a very kind person. Maybe too kind because she made many sacrifices in her life. For her parents, brothers and sisters, husband, and later on, her children. That’s also a part of life. You can’t live together and build a strong family without giving. But the biggest sacrifice she made was to live in The Netherlands for the last part of her life instead of her home country of Iran. As long as I remember, she always talked about the past. Always. And especially during the last few years of her life, she almost cried every day because of regret.
Fortunately, my mother, father, brother and I visited her often and cheered her up. But through the laughs, I could see the regret. It was always present. I’ve learned many lessons from my grandmother. Mostly about kindness and the importance of having strong family values. But the most important lesson I’ve learned was that you don’t regret what you did in life, you regret what you didn’t do. And when my grandmother passed away in January 2015, I decided to live by that lesson no matter what.
For example, I always thought I wanted to travel the world and live in different cities. I know, it’s not an original goal. I speak to a lot of people who love that idea of freedom and exploration. Why is that? I think a lot of it comes from pop culture. A lot of people idolize people like Jack Kerouac and Ernest Hemingway, who were famous for their travels. And young folks now are inspired by social media personalities who also travel the world and share it on their Instagram feed. The medium might have changed, but the desire to travel to others and share your experiences with others has not. However, that lifestyle is not for everyone.
But I didn’t know that before I actually started traveling. How could I? Some things in life you must experience to know what they’re like in reality. No one can truly feel how it is to be an entrepreneur unless they start doing it. You can read all the business books you want, and watch as many videos about entrepreneurship as you want, but they will not make you an entrepreneur. Ever. You will only end up living someone else’s life.
I’d rather eat rice and beans so I can do the things that I love instead of having a job that makes me miserable, but pays well. At the end of the day, this is your life and the only way you can live with yourself is to follow your strongest desires. Just make sure you think straight so you eventually act on those thoughts.
Never Look Back
I hardly look back on life. I never daydream of the past. I don’t look at old photos all day long. I don’t even think about taking pictures because I’m too involved in the present. Sometimes, I feel like most people are stuck in the past. They live their life in the past tense. Instead of enjoying a moment, they grab their phone and take a picture of it. Instead of living life through a lens, I prefer to be present at all times. Now, I must be honest that I fail to be 100% present.
However, I intend to live now. And I know I’m successful because I never have the urge to relive the past. I’m too busy enjoying now. That doesn’t mean I never stop to take a family picture. I just don’t go around snapping millions of pictures that I will never look at again. Think about it, when do you have the time to take a look at all your memories? How many pictures and videos do you have? How many old documents, old diplomas, memorabilia, and other physical things do you have stored that remind you of the past?
If you’re having a hard time letting go of the past, let me make it easier for you. You’ll never going to…
Use your first iPhone that you’ve kept in your desk drawer for years
Edit that video from the weekend trip you took with friends
Look at your old school papers, essays, and grades
Wear those old clothes you have in storage
Do anything with the object that reminds you of your first date
When we hold on to a lot of things in the past, they form an obstacle to living in the present.
The only useful purpose I can think of for looking back is to learn. You can draw many lessons from looking at your past. That’s why I like to journal. I regularly go back to my journal entries to understand my thought process at the time. Especially when something doesn’t work out the way I want, I go back and try to understand why.
For example, in 2017, after two years of regular blogging, and building up a newsletter with more than 22.000 members, I decided to start a paid
membership site. Before I started the membership site, I contemplated it excessively. “If I get 1000 readers to support me with $5 a month, I can make a living off writing, training, and helping others. The paid members will get exclusive content from me. That’s a good value proposition.” That was my thinking process. I came up with the number 1000 because of Kevin Kelly’s seminal article, 1000 True Fans. I also studied how other bloggers started their membership sites. Everything looked good on paper. And I had sold hundreds of online courses before that, so I knew people valued my work.
But things didn’t turn out as I expected. After a month, 78 people signed up. After six weeks, I pulled the plug on the membership site. Many of my friends, colleagues, and even paid members told me I stopped too quickly. Maybe so. However, I’m not the type to quit when things are hard. I’ve thought about quitting education many times during my 6,5 years when I was getting two degrees. I also thought about quitting my family business many times because it’s very hard to make a living. But that’s never going to change. No, instead, I quit my membership site because I thought straight: “At this rate, it takes me more than 12 months to get 1000 paid members. Plus, within the first month, half a dozen people canceled. So if I take cancellations into account, it will take me even longer. Also, during the past six weeks, I’ve felt an obligation to provide exclusive content to my paid members. I want them to get something out of the membership. That pressure costs me a lot of time that I could spend on growing our family business or my coaching practice. All in all—a membership site is not the right strategy for me.”
Instead of making a simple calculation of 1000/78, I thought further than that. How can you get people to stay? How much work does it take you? And what are alternative ways of achieving my goals? There are many other ways I can help others. There are also many other ways for me to make a living. That’s why I decided to pull the plug on my membership site after only six weeks. If things don’t work out, it’s not the end of the world. Make a decision. Stand by it. Move on. And only look back to learn.
Think Straight Page 4