An Amazing Mind

In recent years, there’s been a trend called radical honesty. It was founded by a guy who got tired of lying. He decided to stop. COMPLETELY. And instead he started telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. He wasn’t afraid to bare the most intimate details of his life.

He got quite a following of people who were also tired of all the lies around them.

While I like the initiative, I think radical honesty is too much. You need to have some private stuff you don’t share with just anybody you meet. And some private stuff you don’t share with ANYBODY. Period.

So instead of radical honesty, I propose the following:

Simple Honesty

• Always be honest to YOURSELF
• Always tell the truth
• If you don’t want to talk about something, just say so

Be honest with yourself

“A lawyer came to my office one day, complaining he was feeling bad, but didn’t know why. As we talked, I found out he had this habit of always slightly exaggerating his achievements. For example he would make $80,000, but report his income as $81,500. Or when he went golfing, he would report his score of 73 (which is already a great achievement) as 71.

No wonder he was feeling terrible. No matter how well he performed, he could never do as well as the self he pretended to be.”

- Paul McKenna, a psychiatrist

Are you honest with yourself?

If you lie to yourself, it usually means you’re avoiding some unpleasant truth so that you don’t have to deal with it. Maybe you tell yourself your job is ok when you really hate it. Maybe you tell yourself you have a great marriage when you’re really clearly married to the wrong person. Maybe you tell yourself you’re not addicted to computers when you really are (I used to be guilty of that one).

Hey! Wake up! Face the truth!

Once you start being honest with yourself, and face the bad stuff, you can CHANGE it. Then you can actually work on having a great life instead of just pretending so.

So how do you go about it?

Here’s a cool trick: Just notice when you’re avoiding thinking about something. Like, every time it comes up, you just kill the thoughts as soon as they come. Like you’re afraid to even go there.

There’s a very thin line between not thinking about something because you’re avoiding it, and not thinking about something because you consciously decided thinking about it won’t do you any good. But once you consciously look for it, you’ll be able to tell the difference. Really.

Tell the truth

How many times did you lie today?

Count everything. Little white lies. Or exaggerations (“I’ve been waiting there for HALF AN HOUR” when it was really 20 minutes.)

Can you truly say you didn’t lie a single time today? (Or yesterday, if you’re reading this in the morning.)

Before I started my quest for simple honesty, I used to lie dozens of times a day. Small, innocent, unimportant lies.

But why?

The common causes for lying

Why do we lie?

We exaggerate to make ourselves look better. We exaggerate to make our boring lives sound more interesting (instead of MAKING our lives interesting).

We also lie to avoid facing the truth.

But those aren’t the biggest reasons. The following scenario illustrates the biggest reason we lie…

Imaginary case study - why we usually lie

Let’s say you’re a middle aged man, you decide to hop in to the pub with your buddies after work, and come home two hours late. Your wife asks why. Here are the scenarios:

Case 1: Simple Honesty
Wife: Why are you two hours late?
You: I went to the pub with my buddies.
Wife: What? You went to the pub with your lousy no-good friends? Blah blah blah…

Case 2: Simple honesty 2
Wife: Why are you two hours late?
You: I don’t want to talk about it.
Wife: Why don’t you want to tell me? Were you doing something bad? Blah blah blah…

Case 3: Lying
Wife: Why are you two hours late?
You: I was working late.
Wife: Ok.

So what’s the conclusion? In the above example… you lie because you’re married to the wrong person! A good mature wife would be ok with the fact that you spend two hours with your friends at the pub, and she would be ok if you didn’t want to tell her what you did with your time.

Most lying comes down to avoiding confrontation with immature people. Mature people can handle the truth without bugging you about it.

Learn to say no

Once you start telling the truth, including “I don’t want to talk about it”, you will probably find people around you resisting the change. They’re used to being able to push your buttons and get the truth out of you. Once you start keeping some stuff private, they’ll get withdrawal symptoms.

Don’t worry. The mature friends will get over it in a few days, after they learn you mean it. When I first started simply saying “I’m not going to tell you” instead of making up lies, I also got some resistance from friends and family. I went to London for a couple of days in July, and I didn’t tell any of them what I did there. They bugged me for a few days, and once they found out I’m not going to tell them, they stopped and moved on. Yay for simple honesty!

But if someone keeps bugging you, and acts downright negative (like trying to make you feel guilty), that’s a sign they’re an immature person. You might wanna cut such people out of your life. They’re disastrous to your growth in the long term.

Why honesty rocks

Honesty feels great! Seriously.

When you stop lying, it’s like you stop banging your head against the table. You go “Wow, I feel great! Why the hell did I start doing it in the first place?”

Peace of mind. It is teh roxxorz.

So give simple honesty a try. Stop lying. Completely.

To make sure you don’t slip into your old habits, I propose the following method: The rubber band trial. Take a rubber band (or a bracelet, or a piece of string), and put it on one of your wrists. Then, whenever you catch yourself lying, simply take the rubber band and put it on the other wrist.

If it stays on the same wrist for seven consecutive days, congratulations! You have completed the rubber band trial. You are now… simply honest

Every day, as I look at all our awesome inventions, I say to myself “Neat.” But every now and then, “neat” just isn’t enough. It’s more like “Holy flying cow that’s frickin’ awesome! And the principles behind it are soooooo simple!”

Which is what this article is about. 10 inventions that are based on amazingly simple principles, and yet are incredibly effective. In fact, this article was inspired by #1 on the list (don’t skip ahead to see what that is. Build some anticipation :)). When I first found out how it works, I was just blown away by how simple the science behind it was. Enjoy!

10. Bottle caps

Once you open a bottle, you can screw the cap back on really easily, and take it off again, and repeat as many times as you want. It takes almost no effort. And yet it can hold all the liquid if you turn the bottle upside down, and shake it, and put it on the ground and step on it with all your weight. And not a single drop spills out!

I can remember a time when all bottles were glass. And there was this really annoying contraption you could use to re-seal them after they were opened. But it wasn’t easy to use, and it required quite a bit of strength. PET bottle caps ftw!

9. Soap

Ever tried washing grease off your hands with just water? It doesn’t work too well. (doesn’t work at all, really). It’s because oil/grease/fat doesn’t mix with water.

At the risk of oversimplifying things, there are basically two ways that molecules in a liquid hold together. Polar and non-polar. Polar liquids can mix with other polar liquids, and non-polar with other non-polar. But polar liquids (like water) don’t mix with non-polar (like oil). That’s why, if you put oil and water in a bottle and shake thoroughly, they will eventually separate and form two distinct layers. They just don’t mix.

Which is where soap comes in! Every soap molecule has a polar “head” and a non-polar “tail”. So half dissolves in water and half in grease/oil/fat. Then you can wash your hands with water, and the attached oil washes off as well. Awesome!

8. Stairs

Have you ever driven a car in the mountains? The road doesn’t lead straight up, because that would be too steep for most cars. Instead, the road leads along the mountain, only rising slightly, then back in the other direction, again only rising slightly. That way you travel longer distance, but… well… you TRAVEL. As opposed to not traveling at all if the road was too steep. It trades distance for difficulty.

And stairs rock because they do exactly the same. Except they have another twist that makes them even MORE awesome. All the surfaces are HORIZONTAL. You don’t slip!

Oh, and if you don’t get why stairs are so awesome, try carrying a heavy load (like an old TV) up the stairs. Good. Next try carrying it up a ladder. You’ll get my point

7. Lids (cooking)

Caveman discover fire. Meat above fire turn dark. Dark meat taste good!

Later on, some guy (or woman) invented a pot for cooking above fires. And all was well, until recent centuries. With rising gas prices, it became important not just to cook something, but to cook it using as little energy as possible. I don’t know how the lid was invented, but I imagine it must have gone like this:

*sound of door closing*
Man: Damn! She’s back early! I hope she doesn’t find out I’ve nicked some sausages at the market again. (*covers a cooking pot on a fire with a baking tin*)
Woman: Darling! I’m home!
*she takes off her coat and shoes, walks into kitchen. Man is pretending to be reading a newspaper, standing in front of the cooking pot.*
Woman: Mmmm, what’s that smell?
Man: Smell? What smell? There’s no smell here!
Woman: It smells like sausages.
Man: Oh, that smell! Yeah, you see, I just had the window open, and…
Woman: (*pushes him aside*) Ah, I see! You wanted to surprise me!
Man: …and, and, one of our neighbors was cooking, so…
Woman: (*takes the baking tin off the pot*) Mmm, nice. The sausages are done by the way.
Man: … so some smells drifted in through th… wait, what? They’re done? But I just put them there!

And so they discovered a lid for cooking pots. At least that’s my version of reality. Feel free to disagree.

Cooking with a lid takes 4 TIMES LESS ENERGY! (I heard it from a friend who heard it from a friend who read it somewhere, so it must be true). When you cook without a lid, most of the hot air escapes, and you need to heat up more air, just to keep the water boiling. If you cover the pot with a lid, the hot air stays inside, and you need much less energy to maintain the boiling temperature. In other words, just lay a piece of metal on top of a pot, and you have a huge efficiency increase! Talk about simple!

6. Wet t-shirts

Yeah, I consider wet t-shirts a great scientific invention. Wait, don’t call the men in white coats just yet! First read my reasoning.

When I was a kid, we used to play sports at my school. During half-time, I would be really hot and sweaty. One day, I went to the washroom, and put a little water on my t-shirt and in my hair. And, surprisingly, it worked really well to cool me down. Next time, I completely wet my whole t-shirt, and within a minute I went from dying from heat to FRICKIN’ FREEZING.

I asked my physics teacher wtf was going on (I phrased the question slightly differently), and she explained. When you have something wet, it’s going to dry as long as the surrounding air has fairly low humidity. Now, each water molecule that evaporates needs to gain enough energy to be turned from liquid to gas. That’s quite a lot of energy. And the energy comes from its surroundings, which is you and the t-shirt. So the molecules with the most energy leave, leaving behind molecules with less energy, i.e. colder. As the water evaporates, the wet t-shirt keeps getting colder. And, unless you’re the abominable burning man, you will soon be ice cold under the shirt. Nice!

(by the way, you can use this same principle on a really hot summer night, if the heat is preventing you from falling asleep. Just wet a blanket slightly, and wrap it around yourself. Don’t wet it too much though, because you would freeze.)

(another by the way - blowing on your soup to cool it down works along the same principle. But here, when soup evaporates, a lot of the hot moist air hovers right above the plate. When you blow at it, you replace the hot moist air with cool dry air. The soup then evaporates faster, and hence cools down faster.)

5. Frisbee

Well, I just had to include this one. It’s way too fun

The design couldn’t be simpler. A round, flat thingamajig. (that’s the technical term ;)) And yet it’s so much fun. I imagine the inventor just had a habit of throwing stuff around with full force (he probably didn’t have many friends. Conscious ones, anyway.), and one day he noticed that circular-shaped thingamajigs fly really well if you spin them.

4. Eye mask

I’m a lucky guy. My room has good solid blinds - I can make it completely dark any time of the day.

But for those who aren’t so lucky - don’t worry! Eye mask to the rescue! You can create complete darkness for yourself anytime you want. You won’t believe how much that improves your sleep.

A friend of mine called the eye mask “The best $4 I ever spent.” I would agree. A simple piece of dark stuff over your eyes - and the effect is incredible!

3. Clothing

Here’s a simple quiz. What would warm you up more, three thin sweaters, or one sweater, but three times as thick?

Answer before reading on.

Hopefully you answered it’s about the same. Because then I can tell you you’re WRONG and feel better about myself :). Three thin sweaters will warm you up a LOT more than one thrice-as-thick sweater. And you know why? Because the clothing doesn’t warm you up. The air between layers of clothing is what warms you up.

The layers of air act as insulation. Just like in a window with two window panes. The whole point there is to have an extra layer of air between the cold outside air and the hot inside air.

Also, along the same principle, some smart designers built houses from hollow bricks. One might think that hollow bricks would provide less insulation, because… well… there’s LESS BRICK between you and the outside. But the extra air layer provides MORE insulation. Great example of putting a new twist on an old idea!

2. Wheel

Of course a list like this wouldn’t be complete without the wheel.

The wheel is great because you lift the surface off the ground at the back of the wheel, and lay it on the ground at the front of the wheel, instead of just sliding it along. For comparison, try walking. Then try standing with your feet together, and move by sliding both feet simultaneously forward. Feel the difference?

The first version of the wheel were simply round bits of wood under a heavy load. You would just push the load along, remove the bits of wood behind it and place them back in front.

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O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

Despite being so simple, the wheel is one of the most efficient machines, and it’s been reinvented hundreds of times. Just recently, I read a website (pics included) about that - apparently some scientists came up with a great way to transport water in poor countries… reinventing the wheel yet again!

So simple, yet so damn effective. I love wheels

1. Toilet

When I was a kid, I used to wonder how the toilet works. Specifically the part where your waste goes. I thought there were some complicated sensors to make sure the water level is always maintained as it is, and I used to worry they would somehow break and our house would be flooded with filth.

It turns out I had nothing to worry about. Because there aren’t any high-tech parts that could fail. In fact, it’s all built on beautifully simple principles.

The water level is simply maintained because of the principle of “connected vessels”.

When you flush, the filthy water flows away into the sewers. It’s replaced by clean water, and the water plug prevents bad smells from entering your house. (That’s a HUGE effect. Go smell a field that’s been recently fertilized with cow dung. Now imagine your house would smell like that. Thank the water plug for preventing it :))

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So there’s my list of simple scientific inventions. Every time I see them, I get this warm feeling. Like “Yeah, I’m proud to be part of the western world.”

If your favorite didn’t make the list… that happens. There were only 10 spots, and I picked MY 10 favorites. Feel free to suggest your favorites in the comments.

Hopefully I managed to get across my love for simple and elegant inventions, and maybe I made you realize how much your life rocks. Cheers!

It was a warm summer day. A dozen strangers have met in a small conference room. They all came because they wanted one thing: To learn public speaking.

The instructor came in. He introduced himself. Then he called in two past participants from his course, who spoke easily and confidently, without written notes. The new learners really wanted to learn to speak like that.

Then the instructor introduced his method.

Positive feedback. (Don’t stop reading yet. There’s more to it than you think.)

Whatever the learners would do, he would point out what they did right, and sincerely compliment them. No negativity, but also no faking and bulls***. Just the positive truth.

For example, when one woman’s turn came up to speak, she was so afraid she just stood there and shook, and couldn’t say a word. After a few moments she sat back down. The instructor just looked at her, and said: “That was very brave of you to get up there.” And everyone realized it was true.

And the progress the participants made was amazing. Within a few weeks, they were able to speak clearly and confidently.

No, I’m not trying to sell you a public speaking course.

Instead of taking your money, I will give you something for free. The key to learning, in fact. So be ready. Because the skill of learning isn’t just any odd skill… it’s the skill that lets you acquire all other skills faster.

Feedback is the Key

“Feedback uber alles!”
- Me, speaking in a horribly fake German accent

“You don’t get feedback. In soviet Russia, feedback gets YOU!!”
- A random unrelated quote

Yeah, yeah I know. Water is wet, the sky is blue, feedback is the key to learning. What else is old?

Well, I’m going to help you see feedback like you never saw it before!

I’ll show you exactly which bits help you learn, which bits are useless, and which bits are actively stopping you from learning well. Surprisingly, a lot of people do exactly the right things to not learn.

The Anatomy of GOOD Feeback

Okay, so what’s the secret?

Here you go: Good feedback is…

• positive
• specific
• plentiful

Yes, in that order. (I’m not done yet, don’t stop reading :))

(Sure, positive non-specific feedback (”good boy”) won’t do you much good. But it’s still a lot better than specific negative feedback!)

Positive feedback

“You screwed up. That was really bad. You’ll never learn this.”

Feeling motivated yet?

More shouting won’t help your motivation. And it won’t help your learning either.

When you learn a new skill, you’re building habits and ways of thinking. Whether it’s learning to swing a tennis rocket, or to signal direction when turning your car around a corner, emotions play a huge part in learning.

Ever put your hand on a hot stove? I have. Ouch! (Don’t try this at home… or anywhere, really.) It’s damn painful, and I’m not that likely to forget the experience anytime soon. The emotion of pain acts like a glue that sticks the message to your mind.

Ok, now let’s say you were learning something, like getting your driver’s license. And let’s say that you did something really bad, like forgetting to give way and almost driving full-speed into an intersection and causing an accident. The instructor would (quite rightly, in his opinion) harshly point out your mistake and tell you to never do it again.

Then, in the evening, you lie down in bed and think about the day behind you. And when you think of your driving lessons, the part with the strongest emotional charge comes first. In other words, you think of the time you almost drove full-speed into an intersection and caused an accident. And every time you think of it, that behavior gets reinforced in your mind.

An American basketball club (I forgot which one. If anyone knows this story, can you let me know?) was going through a dry spell. They kept making mistakes and losing against their biggest opponents.

Then a new coach came in, and he completely reorganized their practice routine. Instead of looking at recordings of what they did wrong and trying to improve it, he made them watch only their most successful games, and from those, only the most successful runs. He replaced most of their long-distance shooting practice with short-distance practice, where they hit the basket almost every time. He had them visualise shooting flawlessly for an hour each day.

Their results completely turned around, and they went on to become one of the most successful teams in history.

Simplicio: So we should just always go “good boy” when teaching someone, huh? Whatever the person does, just say they’re doing great and keep it positive? I prefer telling the truth rather than a bunch of positive mish-mash nonsense.
Salviati: Ah yes, I see what you mean. I’m not saying you should claim all is well. But it’s about bringing out the positive, and letting the negativity fade into the background. Then every time the person thinks of doing the thing they’re learning, they’ll remember the positive experiences.
Simplicio: Yes, but what if the learner makes a mistake? Should I just ignore it and let them keep doing it wrong?
Salviati: Nooo… the best solution to that is what Toastmasters public speaking classes do. It works roughly like this:

You give a speech. Then someone gets up to evaluate your speech in two minutes. The evaluation contains two main ingredients:

1. Positive feedback
(”You did a great job using those diagrams to emphasize your point.”)

2. Points for improvement
(”Next time try varying your voice tone a bit more.”)

And here’s the vitally important bit - The positive feedback takes up about two thirds of the evaluation.

Sure, the first time you’re learning something you’ll be doing hundreds of things wrong. Don’t obsess about them. Run through all the positive experiences in your mind, then pick two or three points you want to focus on next. Like “next time I’ll try hitting the ball with the center of my tennis rocket.”

You won’t believe the difference in your learning speed.

Wanna learn even better?

So that’s about it. The great big secret. Now you know it.

Of course, after the great big secret, there are a bunch of only slightly smaller secrets, just waiting in line for you to learn them!

Like why 10-hours-a-day practice is only a myth, and how some top pianists got to be the best at only 1 hour of practice daily. And an exact step-by-step guide to duplicating their success, simply by timing your learning properly!

Or how to further accelerate your learning… by failing MORE.

Or the one simple technique that transformed Ben Seeley from your average “good” Othello player to a world champion, after he though he had hit his limit.

To learn all that, all you need to is take out your credit card… no, just kidding :p.

All you need to do is read my next article! To make sure you don’t miss it, you can grab my RSS feed (What is RSS?). Or you can bookmark this page and check back later. I’ll update this article when the next one comes out.

Happy learning!

Recently, I explained how you can ask the right questions to achieve more in life. Today, I’ll show you how the same principles apply more broadly.

When you ask yourself a question, (“How can I most easily…?”) you hand your subconscious mind a request, and it returns whatever matches that request. And it will filter through whatever assumptions you include in your question.

But your subconscious mind filters a lot more for you than just questions!

Have you ever looked for something (like your sunglasses) for a long time (like 10 minutes) and eventually found it in a really obvious place? (like on your forehead?)

Yes? Say hi to selective perception!

Your mind is literally bombarded with information. Just notice the hundreds of little things you can see in front of you right now. And all the background noise you normally ignore. Right now you can likely hear muffled sound of traffic, the whirrrr of your computer fan, sounds of people talking, occasionally people walking and phones ringing, creaking of your own chair and so on and so on. And don’t even get me started on all the things you can feel right now with the surface of your body.

Good thing your subconscious mind filters information for you! Otherwise you’d be completely paralyzed by the flood of stimuli. Scientists apparently found that most humans can only hold up to 4 things simultaneously in their conscious mind. (Yikes!) Thus, most information is delegated to your unconscious. Only the stuff that’s important to you gets passed to your conscious mind. (Or urgent stuff. Like when you staple a paper to your finger.)

Hmm, wait a sec. “Important to you”? How does the subconscious mind decide what that is?

Letting your subconscious mind know what’s important

When you normally walk in a street, you probably don’t even notice a red car. But if you were about to buy a car, and wondering if you want it red - then you would definitely notice all red cars and how the color looks on them.

Or, normally you don’t see any elephants walking down the street. But if you consistently focus on thinking about elephants, you will notice every elephant that walks down the street towards you.

Read the last paragraph again. It’s completely true.

Okay, now that I’ve given you a trivial example, and a completely irrelevant example, let’s move on to the real stuff!

You tell your mind what to filter for by focusing on the things.

Wow, that’s deep. (Not!)

Wait! Just like phrasing your questions right, focusing on the right stuff is trickier than it looks.

Misplaced focus

Don’t think of a pink elephant! No, really, don’t. No pink elephants please. Focus really hard on not thinking of a pink elephant.

(No pink elephant!)

If you’re like most people, you probably just imagined a pink elephant. It’s a classic children’s game - not thinking about something. But, in order not to think of something, you first need to think of it… (hey! look at me! I sound like a philosophy textbook!)

And there’s the problem. Lots of people focus on “not being poor” or “not being fat”. That automatically keeps their focus and self-image on “being poor” or “being fat”. They look around them and filter for “being poor” and “being fat”. Every time they focus on not being fat, they’re reinforcing their fatness in their mind.

What you focus on, you get more of.

This is what the famous “Law of Attraction” is about.

Some wackos say it works because it “bends the fabric of the universe” or “attracts probability particles to your life” or whatever. I don’t think that’s right.

I think it works simply because you start to notice the possibilities around you. Just like the sunglasses magically appear on your forehead when you could have sworn they weren’t there before.

Affirmations

Ever heard of affirmations?

You know… “I feel pretty and happy and gaaay!”

Affirmations are always phrased in positive, present tense. Like “I am becoming rich.” Not “I want to be rich.” or “I will be rich.”

That’s the exact same principle. *Focusing on the right things.*

If you said “I want to be rich” and your affirmation came true… it would be true that you want to be rich. Uhhh… yeah, not quite what you had in mind

I once tried this affirmation thingy. I wrote down “I, Vlad Dolezal, will win WOC [World Othello Championships] 2007″, sixteen times a day, for about two months. Now, I’m nowhere near a world-class player in Othello… and yet I ended up 8th at the World Championships. (That’s a damn good result). I’m not saying it to brag (ok I am saying it to brag, but anyway…), but to show you that there’s something to affirmations.

Not some magic. They simply made me play my best, and never give up.

Because the moment you say “I’ve lost this, I’ve got no chance.”, your mind stops looking for a solution. But if you keep looking for a way out, even when you’re in a disastrous situation, you will notice opportunities when they appear. And trust me, whether it’s in a board game, in your job, or in any other part of your life, there are a lot more opportunities out there than you think. You just need to know how to look. How to focus on the right things.

How to focus on what you want

So how do you go about it? Here’s my method you can use right now!

This stuff is deceptively simple. But don’t skip it! It’s incredibly powerful.

1. Take a pen and paper, and spend 15 minutes writing down all the things you want. It could be a sports car, a happy marriage, a million-dollar business, or a pair of warm socks. Just get it all down on paper. Don’t worry, no one else will read it.

2. Select 5 of all the things you wrote down that you really want.

3. For each of them, figure out three one-step simple actions that bring you closer to having them. The first action can be done immediately. It could be sending an e-mail, making a phone call, or looking up some information.

The second action, you will do in the next 24 hours.

The third action, you will do within the next 7 days.

4. Focus on each of your 5 goals for a couple of minutes daily. Just run mentally through your life and see if there are any opportunities for achieving them that you overlooked. You will be amazed at how many chances you notice!

Happy focusing!

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A note to my regular readers:

My next blog post will be a rerun. Don’t panic, you’ll get fresh bombastic content on Saturday :).

But I’ll try changing a few things in the rerun post, like the headline, and see if I can get it to become popular on social news sites. I recently read some stuff about marketing, and I wanna try it out immediately

Recently, I wrote Fish, Don’t Hunt, where I argued you should set things up so that results come to you, then you can lean back and focus on other stuff. Today, I’m going to argue pretty much the opposite point. I’ll show you why you need to get out there and make things happen. I can’t resist arguing both sides of the argument, I just love confusing you that way :). But also, it will help you form your own opinion, instead of just accepting what someone says.

Or maybe I’m just a schizophrenic. And the self in charge today is plotting to kill the other self and take over the world. (Dum dum Dum DUM!)

Passion matters

Napoleon Hill once told this story:

I applied for my first job at a company. I sent them my resume and asked to be employed… and I got a letter back that they’re sorry, but they can’t provide a job for me right now.

So then I sent them a telegram EVERY DAY for a week, asking to be employed. The answer was still no. So then I sent a telegram EVERY HOUR FOR TWO DAYS, asking to be employed.

I got a telegram back, telling me to come to work on Monday morning.

Do you think the boss was right, giving him the job?

I think so. I would also hire Napoleon in this case. Not because he had bugged me so much I caved in. But because he demonstrated a burning desire to work there. People with passion like that are few and far between… and they’re going to go very far in life.

Another famous man, Thomas A. Edison, was once interviewed by a newspaper after 800 unsuccessful tries to make a working light bulb.

“How does it feel to have failed 800 times?” the reporter asked.

And Edison’s answer?

“I haven’t failed 800 times. I haven’t failed once. What I HAVE done, is I have succeeded in proving that those 800 ways wont work. Once I eliminate all the ways that wont work, I will find the one way that will.”

Several years later, after thousands more “successful proofs” he managed to find a way that works, and thus illuminated the world.

This story is usually told as an example of positive attitude and reframing. But it’s also a great demonstration of having a burning desire, a passion. Edison was willing to go through thousands of failures, and still keep going, until he found a working solution.

If he was like a fisherman, he would lose interest, and go on to invent a few small, mostly irrelevant invention. Catch a few small fish. But he was a true hunter. Planning, always looking towards his goal, sticking with it through numerous failures. And eventually, he caught an elephant - an invention that truly revolutionized the world.

Why passion matters

Would you be willing to stick through thousands of failures?

In everything you do, in everything you learn, there are times when you seem to be making no progress. Those times are a natural part of it.

You achieve a certain level, then your skill/success/whatever drops slightly, and then you have a long plateau. True success comes from not giving up in those circumstances, but keeping going until the next big improvement hits. It’s as if you were pushing a cart full of valuable goods along  a dirt road, and came to a muddy stretch. You could abandon the cart, and keep walking. Or you could keeping pushing through the mud, eventually getting to a better road again.

Of course, it’s also possible that you’re not making progress because you’re doing something wrong. If you find yourself stuck, try some new things. As Einstein said, “the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing and expect different results.”

But if you try new things, and still nothing happens, you might have just hit the natural plateau. Keep going. Things will change, as surely as a bubbly muddy pond will change to a bubbly dry pond after a nuclear war. (I’m working on my metaphor skills. I got inspired by funny metaphors used in high school essays.)

How to be passionate

So when you have a burning desire to achieve something, what do you do?

You need to get out there, and make things happen, like a hunter. Sitting around like a fisherman, waiting for things to come to you, won’t help.

Aaron Stanton, of gangooglehearme.com did exactly that.

He developed a product idea he thought was great, and tried giving the idea to google. But however he contacted them, nobody even looked at his idea. This went on for months, and Aaron grew increasingly frustrated.

In the end, he thought enough was enough.

He set up a website called CanGoogleHearMe.com, and this was his plan:

Here’s what I’m going to do. Next week I’m getting on a plane to California. I’m going to go to Google’s headquarters Googleplex, and just sit in the lobby until someone is finally willing to hear me out.

He wasn’t trying to sell his idea. He wasn’t trying to convince them that his idea is great. All he wanted was to be heard by Google.

Short story even shorter, his story hit the front pages of several social media sites, and he got hundreds of people e-mailing him their support. Including some Google employees.

He was heard. Because he was willing to fly across the US and sit in Google’s lobby just to have his idea heard. He believed his idea was good enough to be given some serious consideration. And he took action to make things happen.

And that’s what a true hunter does. Take action.

Figure out how you can make progress. It might not be something bold as flying across the country and sitting in someone’s lobby. Maybe you can e-mail some people, or make some phone calls, or set up a website, or a dozen other things.

Don’t just sit around. Be a hunter!

Ever heard of the prisonner’s dilemma? (If you have, you can skip to the subheading “Merchant’s dilemma”)

This is the situation: You and an accomplice have been captured by the police for a robbery. The two of you are separated, and you have to decide if you should co-operate with the police.

If neither of you two confesses, you will both spend 2 years in prison, based on indirect evidence.

If you confess and your accomplice doesn’t, he will spend 10 years in prison, but your sentence will be reduced to 1 year for co-operating. And vice versa if he confesses and you don’t.

If you both confess, you will each spend 5 years in prison.

Looking at your options, you could reason like this; “If my accomplice doesn’t confess, I have two options. I can either confess, or not confess, and I’ll spend 1 year or 2 years in prison respectively. If my accomplice confesses, I can either confess or not confess, spending either 5 or 10 years in prison respectively. In either case, I’m always better off confessing.”

[Yay! I actually used a semi-colon :D]

Following this reasoning, you will confess. But if your accomplice follows the same reasoning, you will both spend 5 years in prison… whereas you could have both only spent 2 years there if neither of you confessed!

Merchant’s dilemma

Logicians have long argued about the best solution to the prisoner’s dilemma. And then one of them pointed out a serious deficit. The prisoner’s dilemma doesn’t really mirror most real-world situations accurately!

In real world, you don’t just make one big decision like that. You make lots of small ones, and your partners usually have some information on how you acted previously. The merchant’s dilemma was born.

The basic principle is very much the same. You are a merchant, you met this cool fat turkish dude with a huge beard, and you decided to do business together.

If you co-operate, you will each make 3 gold pieces. If you screw him over, you will make 5 gold pieces, and he will make none. Vice versa. And if you each try to screw over the other guy, you’ll only gain 1 gold each, because you’ll spend energy plotting your evil plans instead of doing business.

There’s a cool website that lets you try this as a simulation. If you want to try it, stop reading now, and come back afterwards.

The researchers ran this as a simulation. They created lots of merchants, each with different personalities, and let them trade with each other. The merchants would be divided in pairs, trade with each other for a couple of rounds, then they would switch pairs.

The personalities were:

• evil merchants that always tried to screw over their partners
• gullible merchants that always co-operated
• drunk merchants, who acted randomly
• “tit-for-tat” merchants. If their trading partner screwed them over, they would do the same to him next round. If he co-operated, they would do the same next round. If they had no information about their partner, they would assume he’s honest, and co-operate.

They ran the simulation… and tit-for-tat merchants won clear across the board!

Win/Win behavior

I wish I had found out about Win/Win behavior earlier in my life. It’s three buckets of awesome, and then some!

Win/Win behavior is where everybody involved gains. As opposed to Win/Lose behavior, where you gain at somebody else’s expense. (Or Lose/Win behavior, where somebody gains at your expense)

People who consistently behave Win/Win are a lot more happy and successful in life. Yeah, I know the stereotype is a big evil company ripping people off. But most big companies got big by providing real value to their customers.

Take Microsoft, for example. It wasn’t always an evil monopoly. At the beginning, they took a vertical market, where your vendor provided everything from hardware to software, and transformed it into a lateral market, where one vendor provides hardware, another provides the operating system, and yet others provide software. That made the market much more efficient. Cars are also assembled that way - one company makes tires, another makes engines, another makes seats, etc.

Or take google. They didn’t get successful by ripping people off. They got successful by providing the best search results (and the best e-mail, as far as I’m concerned).

The first step towards acting Win/Win is eliminating all your Win/Lose behavior. It’s hard at first, because of the force of habit. But you can get the hang of it.

Avoid Win/Lose behavior

There are some obvious Win/Lose behaviors, like robbing a bank. Or taking a baseball bat, smashing somebody else’s car’s window, unbraking his car, then pushing it off a cliff, so you can take his parking spot.

But most people don’t do such obvious Win/Lose behaviors. Usually it’s more subtle. Most people don’t even realize it when they’re acting Win/Lose.

Examples of Win/Lose behavior

Here are some common Win/Lose behaviors. Did I mention they’re subtle?

1. Complaining

Sure, it might feel good to complain about the weather, or the traffic, or a mean boss. You create a bond with the person you’re complaining with. But it’s Win/Lose, and I’ll explain why in a moment.

2. Criticizing

Whether you criticise someone to their face, or behind their back, it’s Win/Lose. With one exception. Constructive criticism.

Want to act Win/Win? don’t just criticise, offer a solution. Oh, and don’t overdo it.

3. Insulting

And many more.

Notice something? It often comes down to the emotional energy attached.

When you complain, you’re literally spreading waves of negativity around you. Trust me, most people don’t care to have more negativity in their life. Spread some positive energy instead, like enthusiasm or a smile.

Also about constructive criticism. It’s a Win/Win thing, and most mature people will appreciate it. But some people might take offense. They will feel their ego is threatened, and thus perceive it as a Win/Lose behavior. So if someone takes offence at constructive criticism, don’t offer them any more. They see it as Win/Lose.

Behavior that isn’t Win/Lose (though it might seem so)

Then there’s stuff that seems Win/Lose, but isn’t.

For example teasing each other with friends, or pranking. If you prank your friend, then the next day he pranks you, and you both have a great laugh about it, that’s Win/Win. Because you each got a lot of positive emotions.

Of course you need to be careful. We all probably know someone who thinks he’s just being fun and teasing, but crosses the line to being mean and hurtful. Don’t be that person.

Then there’s stuff that might seem Lose/Win, where you seemingly lose and someone else wins. Like when you sacrifice your time and energy to work for a charity. It’s actually Win/Win, because you get some emotional payoff that makes it worthwhile. Obviously, only you can decide what’s Win/Win for you in that way.

Watch out though. There’s also times where you accept Lose/Win deals because you can’t say no. Like in this conversation with a pretty coworker:

Her: Hey, can you go grab me a coke from the vending machine?
You: Ummm, ok.
Her: And can you then hop into your car, take the half-hour drive to my home, and get me my purse? I forgot to take it this morning.
You: Ummm… ok.
Her: And when you come back, can you bend over, I’ll put this saddle on your back, and drive you to the corner shop. I don’t feel like walking.
You: Errrrr….

Learn to say no to Lose/Win deals :). People will respect you more.

Another thing that seems like Win/Lose but isn’t is when society expects you to behave in some way. As I explained in my article Don’t take yourself too seriously, it’s ok to do crazy stuff, as long as you don’t invade other people’s space. Don’t go around jumping on random people’s backs seeing how long you can hold on (yes, some people do that. They call it urban rodeo.). But if others only think you’re a freak, that’s their problem. It’s not Win/Lose from you.

Lose/Lose vs. Win/Lose

In one study, British researchers took about 30 kids and assigned them in pairs. Then they gave each pair 10 pieces of candy. They told one of the kids to share out the candy between the pair of them however the kid wanted. Most kids shared the candy 10-0 or 9-1, in one case 8-2.

Then the researchers told the other kid it has a choice. Either both kids get to keep their candy, or neither does. Every single kid chose not to keep the candy.

The next day, the researchers did the experiment with the same kids again. But this time, most kids split the candy 5-5, and some 6-4. Everybody accepted.

It’s a part of human nature. If we’re presented with a Lose/Win choice where the other person gains a lot on us, we prefer to turn it into a Lose/Lose choice. I believe it’s an evolutionary characteristic. Whenever a human tries to screw over others, they punish him like this. That way people think twice before putting their own benefit above the benefit of the public.

Yet another reason to act Win/Win.

Are you more prone to Win/Win or Win/Lose?

Let’s do a quick thought experiment. Imagine you had a piece of paper, and you could write a short message on it. You would then leave the piece of paper in some public place, where somebody would eventually pick it up and read it. You would never meet the person.

What message would you leave?

(answer before reading on)

If you let a bunch of 10-year old kids do this, they would probably leave a message like “Fuck you, you stink!” and chuckle at the thought of somebody picking up that message.

If you let me do the exercise, I would probably leave something along the lines of “Have a beautiful day.”

Which one are you closer to? Just take it as an indication. If you’re closer to the latter, it means you are already fairly mature and on the right path. If you’re closer to the former, it means you’ve got lots of exciting personal growth right ahead of you! You’ll see great changes in the coming weeks.

How to act Win/Win

So how do you go about it?

Firstly, become aware of the difference between Win/Lose and Win/Win. Observe other people’s behavior, and your own, to get a feel for it.

Secondly, eliminate all Win/Lose behavior. This will hurt at first, I’ve been there. But once you get the hang of it (it might take weeks to eliminate all the small stuff), you’ll be like “Wow, I haven’t done a single Win/Lose thing in a whole week! I feel great!”

Thirdly, start injecting more Win/Win behavior in your life. A simple smile does wonders. You can also come up with your own ways for acting more Win/Win.

Enjoy your new Win/Win life. You will thank yourself.

“The only difference between an intermediate player and an expert in chess is in how well they apply the basics.”
- Alekhine

When the world’s best martial artists practice, they don’t practice flashy moves. They practice basic kicks and punches and holds. Over and over. They practice simple balance and good posture, and they practice moving faster and more precisely.

In the movie “Karate Kid”, the master teaches the kid only four basic moves (”Sand the floor. Paint the fence…”). The kid spends days practicing these simple moves, and then goes on to win a major karate tournament. (Yeah, I know it’s a movie. But it makes a good point.)

It’s not the flashy good-looking moves that win tournaments. It’s better mastery of the basics. (though I have to admit, a double-leg flying kick looks just awesome :))

Back to the Basics

The slogan “back to the basics” has been cheapened over the years. In schools, some educators use it to push reforms that bring us back to times when kids had to memorize long passages of text without any idea of what they mean.

It’s not that “back to basics” is bad. But most people in education can’t even agree what the basics are, let alone how to teach them. What are the basics for reading? Phonics? (learning to pronounce different groups of letters). Or is it reading simple stories, and learning to pronounce words while reading them? In mathematics, should students memorize the multiplication table? Or is it more important (more “basic”) that they understand the mathematician’s mindset - curiosity, stretching principles to breaking point, basic proofs?

Before you can focus on the basics, you need to know what they are. If you want to get better at something you’re already good at, sit down and figure out what the basics are. If you’re learning a new skill, ask some experts. They will be glad you asked, because even experts sometimes get lost in the complicated stuff and forget the basics.

I’ll show you a few examples. These are skills where I’m reasonably good, and I think I know what the basics are.

Chess:

• checkmates (if you’ve seen thousands of basic “chekmate in 2″ and “checkmate in 3″ problems, you will start to see them in the game. And you will start to see them several moves ahead - before your opponent is even aware of the threat. You can then use the threat to win some pieces.)
• endgame (If you practice all the basic endgames, you can start to see them ahead. As in “Well, if I take this piece, it will lead to this forced exchange, and then I’ll end up with a rook and pawn against a rook. In this case it will be a draw, so I might be better off keeping things complicated.”)
• mobility (letting your pieces have plenty of move options. At the beginning, this usually means fighting for the center of the board.)

Notice I don’t consider learning openings to be the basics. Mobility is the true basic principle behind most openings. Practicing mobility inside out will get you a much deeper understanding of openings - and it will let you play confidently in openings you don’t know.

Blogging:

• use simple, direct sentences (”The boy kicked the ball.” instead of “The ball was kicked by the boy.”)
• write as you speak
• write about your passions

If you’re good at some skill, you can let the rest of us know what the basics are. Just leave a comment. I would especially like to know what the basics are in rock-climbing, dancing and programming.

Practicing the basics

Ben Seeley, a past world champion in Othello (the board game), was once telling me a story of a man he taught online. The man was a professional bridge and backgammon player, and was learning to play Othello for fun. He was getting angry because he kept losing, and couldn’t understand why.

Seeley talked to him and explained the basics. The man then practiced those, and started winning some games. Seeley had to leave for work.

When Seeley came back some 24 hours later, the man was still there, playing. Seeley says it was incredible how much his game has improved. The man had truly practiced the basics like no one else. He achieved a rating (a measure of skill online) in a single day that most people achieve in a few months.

Then he quit because he decided Othello was too easy for him.

Now, this man was a master learner. He really understood the value of the basics, and how to practice them. Most people (including me, and probably you) wouldn’t practice that diligently.

I’ll choose an example you will hopefully understand. Let’s say you were learning to play chess. A grandmaster would explain to you the basics of mobility (having plenty of options for your pieces), and that a simple way to achieve that is to take over the center of the board.

You would most likely practice the principle at the beginning of the game, fight for the center, and after the middle, you would switch to your usual ways of attacking the enemy king. That’s what a good learner would do, practice the basics.

But it’s not what a master learner would do. He would take the one principle, and practice it to its death. He would fight for the center with all his might, leaving everything else behind. He might leave his king almost unguarded. In some games, he would try sacrificing some pawns and even pieces to gain a hold of the middle of the board. He would reject simple easy ways to take pieces at the edges, and strengthen his hold of the middle instead.

In short, a master learner takes the principles to the absolute extreme.

Because you really need to push and overstep the boundaries to see how far the principle applies. If you just sort of apply the principle, and then switch to something else when it looks more convenient, you won’t find the boundaries. The goal isn’t to win the first couple of dozen games. The goal is to truly understand the basic principles inside out.

How to practice the basics

When you first learned to drive a car, you had to think about every detail. You had to focus on signalling correctly, looking in the mirror and so on. But after a while, you just started doing all those things automatically.

It’s the same with learning anything. At first you need to consciously focus on every detail, but soon bits get delegated to your subconscious and you do them automatically.

When you practice the basics, you improve the way you do them. More precisely. Faster.

Practicing the basics comes down to trying little tweaks. Let’s say you’re practicing your balance by walking on a narrow ledge. Try looking forward instead of at your feet. Try bending your knees a bit more. Try hunching over forward more, or leaning back. Try closing your eyes and keeping balance.

Notice what happens, then do your best at the end of the practice session.

Make sure you read my Learning Mastery 2 - Post Practice Improvement. There I describe exactly how to practice to make sure you grow your skills the fastest. It’s especially important when practicing the basics, because that’s a lot about committing new habits to your subconscious.

Right now, you can try to figure out what the basics are for a skill you’re learning. Then, next time you practice, focus on that skill.

If you know what the basics are for rock-climbing, dancing or programming, please let me know in the comments. And if you’d like to know what the basics are for some other skill you’re learning, ask also in the comments. Another reader or I might know.

Happy learning!

Read other posts in the Learning Mastery Series:

Learning Mastery 1 - Feedback is The Key

Learning Mastery 2 - Post Practice Improvement

Learning Mastery 3 - Fail Early, Fail Often

Learning Mastery 4 - Teach it And Hypothesise

A hunter was crawling through mud and old leaves in a forest. He was very close to catching a deer he had been tracking for hours. Then he finally saw it. It was drinking water from a river, completely unaware from him. He slowly got up, prepared his spear… and bam! The wind changed! The deer scented him. It broke into a run. The hunter threw his spear, but it missed, and he lost a whole day’s work.

A fisherman was sitting at the side of a lake, during a hot summer day. He had prepared three fishing rods earlier, and now he was just reading a book waiting for fish to catch. Then, suddenly, one rod twitched! He quickly grabbed it, and started fighting the fish. It was a big one. It took him over an hour, but finally he pulled it close, and started pulling it out of the water. Then, just as he almost had it out of the water, it managed a big twitch, slipped off the hook, and escaped. The fisherman sighed, put another bait on the rod, and sat down again. After another half an hour, a different fish caught one of his rods! This time, he successfully pulled it out and had delicious dinner.

The hunter focuses all his energy on one prey, and if he misses, he just wasted all his time. A fisherman, on the other hand, sets it up so that fish come to him! Then he can just relax and let the fish catch themselves, only popping in when a fish is ready to be pulled out of the water.

Fish, don’t hunt - at work

The obvious way to fish at work would be to grab a fishing rod, go to the marketing department, then spin the rod high above your head and try to catch that marketing executive you’ve been trying to get hold of. But that won’t be very effective, unless your goal is to get fired and have one day of fame in local newspapers. (Don’t even think of hunting the marketing exec. Yes, I know you want to, but don’t.)

A hunter spends all of his energy pursuing one prey. And he only hunts them one at a time. A fisherman, on the other hand, sets up his rods, and then he justs sit there comfortably and lets the fish come to him.

That’s why so many lifestyle gurus (like Tim Feris) recommend starting your own business. You create a product and advertising, automate everything, and then let the customers come to you. Choosing the right advertising lets the customers select themselves, instead of forcing you to hunt them down.

Now, if you love your job, by all means, stick with it! But if you feel ok-ish about your job, you might try change. Tim Ferris’ book Four Hour Work-Week is an excellent read on that.

Telemarketers are a great example of hunters. They spend lots of time and effort, and annoy a lot of people, only to close one sale. The perfect opposite, pure fishing, are pay-per-click ads, like google Adwords. They’re ignored by anyone not actively looking for your product. And you spend only a few cents for each customer.

Fish, don’t hunt - in dating

I actually first heard the words “Fish, don’t hunt!” from a guy called Craig, when he was talking about meeting women. He was basically saying that a lot of men spend all their resources pursuing one woman, buying her dinners and flowers, and only drive her away by coming on too strong. He said he prefers fishing - having lots of women in his life, meeting them for coffee or going out to town, and generally just having fun until he meets one he really likes.

Other people say they’ve had great experiences with online dating (I haven’t tried it myself yet). You write a profile, and then people screen you by that before deciding to contact you. And you can screen out other people by their profile before contacting them. (Don’t like smokers? Don’t contact them.) Fishing!

My personal experiences with “Fish, don’t hunt!”

When I was in high school, I had to write essays for my English teacher. Every now and then, I would just insert some humor in the writing, to make it more interesting to read (and make the writing more fun for myself). Invariably, the teacher marked me down, because it “wasn’t appropriate” etc. I let some friends read the essays, and they loved the fun bits.

Then I realized I was wasting energy there. Why should I do good writing for someone who doesn’t appreciate it? (hunting). I instead decided to take my writing to the internet, because you can always find fellow souls there. (Like websites dedicated to people who love chomping ice. That just makes me say wtf, but apparently some people are obsessed with it.)

And it was a great decision! I get to feel appreciated and give advice (I love doing that). And people get real value from reading my stuff. Pure fishing - only people who want to read my writing will.

Why fishing works

When you hunt, you try to control other people. Yes, you might be doing it in their best interest. But they don’t realize that. When you act like a hunter, they’re only going to feel forced into doing something they don’t want to.

You don’t control other people.

If you fish instead, you let them come to you. You wait until they realize that they want your product/advice/whatever and then you let them have it. Yes, you need to nudge them a bit so they realize they need it. Like putting a bit of bait on your fishing rods - offer some value to them so they realize you have more to offer.

Fishing requires preparation

A fisher doesn’t just drive to a lake, and then sit at the shore waiting for fish to jump into his arms. He asks around to find where the best fishing spots are, he brings his rods and bait, he sets it all up at the shore (or he sails into deeper waters, if necessary), and then he can sit around and let fish come to him.

Similarly, you won’t achieve anything just by sitting around, waiting for opportunities to come to you. You create your own opportunities.

Figure out where in your life you would like to fish instead of hunting. Then do some research. Find information from people who’ve successfully done it. Do the preparation. And then you can just sit back, relax, and drink soft drinks while making the loud “Aaaaah!” noise they make in commercials.

Today, I’ll write about something I’ve been very much interested in lately. Choice.

Choice sells

We’re human. We love to feel like we’re in control. Having some choice, however irrelevant, gives us that feeling.

For example, take teleshopping - when they sell music, they always give you two choices - CDs or casettes. (recently, that choice has been replaced by CDs vs DVDs). Notice something? There’s still two choices. Whatever you think of that, teleshopping people are experts at marketing - they know why they do that.

Do you know the “I’m feeling lucky” button on google? Do you ever use it?

Apparently, less than 1 in 1000 searches use it. You might think that having a useless extra button would be bad, cluttering the interface. Surely google is aware of that?

Yeah. Google has done usability testing - and apparently users felt uneasy with the button removed. My theory is, it’s because of the illusion of choice. Having two search buttons makes you feel like you’re choosing, even though you’re really not.

One thing is really interesting though. Having too much choice is often even worse than having no choice at all. It somehow overloads your circuits - and leads to a deer-in-headlights reaction.

Too much choice

Researchers have done a study about choice. They took two groups of users. One of them had to choose from 5 things (I can’t remember what, I think it might have been yoghurts in supermarkets). The other group had to choose from something like 80. Later on they also had to rate their subjective satisfaction with their choice on a scale from 1 to 10.

The researchers found that having more choice leads to better choices… but less subjective satisfaction. Because you believe you could have chosen better.

If I had to pick between making a better choice, and being happier with the choice I make, I would choose happiness.

But I don’t think you need to have this dichotomy. The experiment the researchers did was a bit artificial, because the subjects only picked once, whereas in real life we make the same choices again and again. (Of course, if you apply this to buying a house, then it might be realistic.) In real life, you’ll be choosing yoghurt at the supermarket hundreds of times. Ideally you’ll spend some time the first two or three times, and after that just pick automatically (maybe revising your choice every couple of months). Then you can just be happy with your choice and stop worrying.

It’s kinda like The 70% Solution. You won’t know if you chose the best, but you will know you chose reasonably well, and can now focus on other, more important things.

Here’s another example where too much choice can suck:

A watch-making company hired a marketing expert to help them with magazine ads. The marketing expert created an ad featuring a single watch. The director didn’t like it and insisted that the expert creates an ad featuring nine of their watches.

The marketing expert suggested they try both of the ads and compare the results. They ran each of the ads for a week. The single-watch ad outsold the nine-watch one by six to one.

Too bad I wasn’t there. I would like to see how well a two-watch ad would work (somehow I think the single-watch ad would still fare better. After all, marketing experts know their stuff.)

I’ve also heard horror stories from customers of sandwich shops. Apparently, some shops have taken consumer choice to a ridiculous level - asking the customers over a dozen questions before just giving them the damn sandwich!

I could really feel the customer was overwhelmed. Basically he was saying - “hey, give me two or three basic questions, and be done with it”. I actually have a friend who does that. When he goes to such sandwich shop, he simply says “Make it the way you like it yourself.” And if the salesman asks any questions, my friend just answers “Do whatever you think is good.”

Denying choice

There’s something strangely comforting about having only a single choice. On that level, having a single terrible choice, or a single great choice are the same. In either case, you’re getting the best you possibly could without doing anything. (is this the ultimate in “less choice means worse results but higher satisfaction”?)

So some people use excuses like “God meant this to happen.” or “I was born this way.” or “I just don’t have it in me.” in order to avoid having to make a choice. They basically lie to themselves and get themselves stuck in a bad situation (dead-end job, or bad marriage, or an unhappy life) only because it provides them with the comfort of not having to make a choice.

The great philosopher Sartre (At least my teacher claimed he was great. To me he sounded like he would be great… at writing bedtime stories.) talked a lot about choice and freedom. He buried his point in writing more complicated than minotaur’s maze, but his point was basically this: “You are always free to choose, and if you’re denying it, you’re a dick.”

Now you might be sometimes tempted to deny you have a choice. I’ve done it myself a bunch of times. It’s comforting. It’s easy.

But there’s good news. You can achieve the same level of comfort without denying you have a choice. There’s a big difference between saying “I can’t quit my job” and “I could quit my job, but I choose not to”. But you can feel equally comfortable with both. (you can actually feel more comfortable with the second one.)

As long as you acknowledge you have a choice, pick your action (or decide not to act), and then move on and forget about it, you’re doing good.

Ok, let’s lighten up this heavy topic a bit

False restriction of choice

Scott Adams, the artist who draws Dilbert, said he was once approached by a reporter, when he was preparing for a speech about his comic. The reporter asked: “Would you like to do an interview before or after your speech?”

Heh

If you’ve read my article ***Ask the right questions***, you’ll immediately see the problem. This questions occupies your mind with whether to do the interview before or after the speech… completely ignoring the bigger question of whether you actually want to do the interview. Those evil tricky reporters

But Scott had heard this trick before, so he just answered “No, thanks.” So much for the reporter’s evil plot. Pwned.

Our choice

Let’s say you want to buy a sandwich. Your local sandwich shop gives you a simple choice - white bread or dark bread. You don’t really care one way or the other. You just pick white bread.

Then a friend comes along and says that says white bread sucks and you’re wrong to choose it, and he gives you some compelling reasons. If you had had no choice before (i.e. the shop offered only white bread), you might well agree with your friend. But since you chose white bread, you will probably now defend your choice.

When we choose something, it somehow becomes our choice. Suddenly we feel compelled to defend it in front of others. I think it has something to do with our ego. And the more we defend it, the more we like it, because we backward rationalize. “I must love that product, since I defend it in front of others so much.”

This is why you’ll never make anyone choose differently by attacking their current choice. Once emotions get involved, no amount of reasoning will do you any good. I see this mistake a lot with Linux fans. They attack Windows all day long, making Windows users defend their choice of operating system.

if you’re not given any choice, on the other hand, you might well resent the product, because you feel you’re being forced. (We humans LOVE freedom. Or the illusion of it.) I believe this is a big reason for Linux enthusiasts loving Linux and hating Windows. They feel they’re forced to use Windows (e.g. at work). Then they choose to use Linux at home. They will go a long way to defend their views.

How you can use all this

Okay, I’ve dug into a lot of stuff in this article. Here’s a quick summary of how you can use all of it.

• Acknowledge you have a choice
• Make your choice, then forget about it. The biggest reason for unhappiness about choices is that people keep thinking “I should have chosen…”
• Don’t attack other people’s choice. You’ll only make them defend it harder
• If you try to convince others about something (for their own good, obviously), give them a simple two-option choice. And let me know how it goes

Long days and pleasant nights.

###

Thanks for all the responses to “What do YOU want from my blog?”

I found out I’m basically doing fine. I’m just going to continue putting more of me in future posts. It might be personal stories (like in The Greatest Life Lesson I Learned From Playing Poker), or weird opinions I have (like in Why Linux Doesn’t Spread), or just stuff I’m interested in (like this post).

On an unrelated note, I came across this article while browsing the internet: Why We Banned Legos. It’s a really cool discussion how one school saw what happens with some kids get to have lots of property (lego pieces), and get power over others.

It was also fun to read people’s responses at some social networking website (can’t remember which). Basically a lot of people got offended by the article because they felt like their beliefs in capitalism were attacked, and they were reading some communist propaganda. Hey, I live in a rich capitalist country, and I liked the article! It made me think a lot. Read it, you’ll like it.

And one more thing. Since I wrote the article on Lucid Dreaming, I’ve head several lucid dreams again. I’ve thought about lucid dreams a lot while I was writing the article, and apparently it brought them back :). I had a great one just yesterday. If you’ve seen the TV show Heroes, there’s this guy who has telekinesis, and can move stuff with his mind. That’s what I did in the dream. I just lifted stuff (like cars) off the ground with a hand gesture and threw them around. Fun

“If I’m not having fun, or learning anything, then I’d better be sleeping.”
- Dr. Paul Dobransky

The rain was pouring down as if a whole sea had evaporated then moved through the sky and decided to rain back down right in my city. I just came home from shopping, and the few minutes it took me to walk from the subway to my home got me pretty well drenched.

I had two choices. I could grab a quick hot shower, change into dry clothes, and enjoy listening to the rain. I kinda felt like doing that. Or, I could go back outside into the rain. I really felt like doing that.

For a few moments I struggled with thoughts like “Why the hell would I want to go outside?” and “What would people think if they saw me?”. Then I stopped myself. I realized all that’s just nonsense. And I told myself - “What the hell. I’m a man. I don’t need to have a REASON for what I do.“

So I went outside. The moment the rain hit me again, I felt fantastic. I walked to the park across the street, stood the grass, turned my head up and just enjoyed the rain splattering on my face. I opened my mouth and enjoyed catching the raindrops on my tongue. I felt fantastic.

Then I felt like taking off my shoes, so I did. I started running my feet through the grass, then running around barefoot, with rain pouring down all around me. I saw some people in raincoats walking a dog, and I just smiled to myself. I didn’t care what anybody thought about me. This was my reality. I felt like taking of my t-shirt and laying on the grass, but for some reason I didn’t. This “taking myself too seriously” is one hell of an ingrained habit. I also did some pushups in the grass and whatnot, did some more running around barefoot, and then finally went back home when I felt like it. Did I mention I felt fantastic?

You don’t need a conscious reason for doing what you want to do. You’re a grown man (or woman). You don’t need anyone’s permission. “Because I feel like it” is a good enough reason for you.

Now, I don’t do some things that I feel like doing, because I would overstep other people’s boundaries. I don’t play the piano at 2 in the morning, even though I’d like to sometimes. But there’s a difference between not doing something because you would harm other people, and not doing something because of what others might think about you. The former is good mature behavior. The latter is just letting other people’s opinion of you control you for no reason.

Now that I think of it, this might be slightly different for women. Women have a hard-wired biological need to belong. To be considered normal, or “part of the group”. Men don’t have that. Men instead have a biological need for freedom. So, if you’re a woman, this article isn’t really for you. If you’re a man - read on. (Update: As several women pointed out, I’ve been wrong in gender-stereotyping men as wild adventurers and women as calm and normal. Women are just as big freaks as we are :D. Cheers for enlightening me!)

Have fun

Ever watched children playing? They do all sorts of silly role-playing, they climb around in trees, they play some crazy games… and they absolutely don’t care what others think about that. After all, it’s okay for a child to be acting silly.

Well, it’s okay for you too. You create your own reality. You might want to read my guest article Whose reality are YOU living in? over at The positivity blog. In there I describe why I choose to be an optimist, and why it’s so awesome.

When you stop taking yourself too seriously, you can really have fun! Just get in touch with that creative I-don’t-care-what-others-think attitude. Just like a child, you simply do your own thing and enjoy it.

Whether I get out in the rain, get up to sing “I’m a Barbie Girl” at karaoke (I’m a man), or approach a group of strangers with a completely ridiculous “pick-up line”, I just stop caring what anybody thinks about me. It’s incredibly liberating, and great fun. And that’s what life is all about.

I touched on this a bit in my article Making work fun. There, again, I described how I sometimes make work fun for myself by spontaneously doing silly stuff. If you haven’t read it yet, do so. You’ll like it.

Stop taking yourself too seriously

When I was a kid, I used to build sand forts at the beach. One of my favorite things to do was to build a protected area close to the sea (”I can’t let any water get in here”), and then build in front of that to make sure waves don’t reach it. I would start at low tide, and as the high tide came in, it would inevitably break through, no matter how huge walls I put up in front of the protected area. It was almost like a video game!

Then I went through a period of my life when I didn’t build anything at the beach. I thought things like “I’m too big for that” and “Nah, building sand forts is not for me”.  Of course, those were just excuses. The truth was, at some deep level I thought I didn’t have the permission to be doing that. That people would consider me a small kid (that’s a big issue for a teenager).

Later I realized it doesn’t matter what others think. Today, even though I’m a grown man, I have no trouble getting down on my knees and building stuff in the sand. And when I see nearby kids looking like “wtf is that old guy doing, building a sand fort?”, I just smile to myself. Because I do things that I feel like doing, instead of taking myself seriously.

So how do you get this care-free child-like attitude?

The few rules of thumb are:

• stop caring what others (especially strangers) think
• do silly stuff just because you feel like it
• have fun

I’d also give you a few tricks or techniques… but thankfully that’s already been done. Check out Bill Beaty’s list. My highest recommendations (my favorite is “talking with an echo”). And, of course, you can do anything else you want. Just because you feel like it.

Cheers!