Working on my Perennial Seller

“Yet far too many people set out to produce something that, if they were really honest with themselves, is only marginally better or different from what already exists. Instead of being bold, brash, or brave, they are derivative, complementary, imitative, banal, or trivial. The problem with this is not only that it’s boring, but that it subjects them to endless amounts of competition.” – Perennial Seller by Ryan Holiday

I have read Perennial Seller already, but I am rereading it because I hope for my next book to become one. Essentially, a perennial seller is a book, product, or service that continues to sell in time as more people discover it and realize the true value that it holds. You may also think of these as classics.

The creative approach that aims to build a perennial seller is unique because many industries are based on creating the next fad. Many of them want to build something hot right now and are not concerned about a decade or more into the future.

For example, the popular music on the radio today is unlikely to be played at all in ten years. A trendy new restaurant may not exist in five years. A book that is the “must-read” today may be a distant memory, no longer relevant in a few years.

Many industries are used to the idea that you crank out the work at a breakneck pace, and if it quickly ends up in the waste bin, that is fine as long as some profit was made. Authors or creators are eaten alive and spit out, and it doesn’t seem to matter because there is always a new line of authors and creators, ready to make something new and trendy that will also quickly end up in the trash.

Instead of going down that mad road, perennial sellers will keep on selling, being discovered, rediscovered, shared, and enjoyed for 10 years or perhaps much, much more.

Sometimes I think that the goal of an author, or perhaps anyone, is to become immortal. The goal of immortality is built into us, as when people have children, they pass on their genes onto someone else, who can then pass them onto someone else, and in a sense, reach immortality.

When an author writes a book, I think he has reached true success if his books are still relevant decades or perhaps even centuries after his death. This would be something that truly stands the test of time.

As the quote at the top of this post suggests, I aspire to create something daring and bold at this point in my career, something that does not just rehash or reinterpret the work of someone else. The goal of originality can be self-defeating, for any idea can often be traced to a prior one and a prior one. Everything comes from something and is therefore not truly original. Nonetheless, when my next books are read, I don’t want someone to be able to say: “These books are just saying what another author already said.” Even if they do not like the book, I want them to be able to say:

This was different… this was an attempt at greatness… even if it didn’t work out in the end.

Whether I actually can achieve a perennial seller is secondary to me. The primary objective is to truly create something worth reading, something that will help people to understand and perceive in a new way.

As a regular reader, if I see a book that is similar in style or content to many others I have read, I tend to put it down and look for something else. At a minimum, I need a new perspective on an old issue to consider reading a book. And the books that are most attractive to me are the ones that push me in new directions and open up paths for me that I was not even aware existed.

Whether I succeed or not in writing a perennial seller, I will enjoy the attempt. I will change things in my approach this time. I will strive to get more feedback on my work, spend more time making improvements, seek out higher-level professionals for my cover design and formatting. I may ask my audience, authors, or experts for their opinions if I should reconsider a chapter, a cover, or even a promotional plan.

By now, you may be wondering, what will my next book be about?

It will be about finding our personal truth. I completed the first draft last week, but this week I have set aside the manuscript to approach it with fresh eyes next week and continue to work on it. I will be discussing it in future posts here and on my mailing list.

I plan for the book to be published in June, but I will take the time required for this project. Creating a perennial seller cannot be rushed. I must be patient so that I can create my best work.

After having said all the above about wanting to write a perennial seller, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. I’m not particularly concerned with the number of people who buy a book or even whether it qualifies as a perennial seller and is still selling well in 10 years. I suspect I will do fine in life either way. I will continue to write many books, and if one book fails, it will not affect me in the grand scheme.

My main objective, rather, is to be able to say:

I wrote the best work that I could, and I broke new ground for myself, pushing myself in new directions, discovering something new along the way. Writing this book was worth it because I learned deeply about myself and the universe. This book is one that I can honestly say: “I think the world would be better if everyone owned a copy.”

These may seem like grandiose comments, but if I can’t say the statement above sincerely, then I doubt I will actually write that perennial seller.

Essentially, the highest standards need to come from within myself. I am not worried about the critics around the world who may or may not like my books. I am more concerned with what I think of it. I am the one who knows all of my background. I am the one who knows what I should be capable of producing. I am the one who knows if I went all the way, pushed myself as far as I could go, and told the full truth, the full story as it needed to be told. Was it a success, as much as I could have ever hoped for? Only I can know. So only I can be the true judge of the work I produced.

This isn’t to say I will discount anyone else’s opinions. I will surely listen to them. But I feel that I am the final judge of my work. I need to know how to judge my work because if a thousand people tell me a thousand different things about my work, who am I supposed to believe in the end?

Ultimately, I must have my own inner compass to know what is real and what is not.

But of course, it would be nice to achieve a perennial seller – that would be a dream come true. No one can deny that.

As a last note, my advice for the new creators is to put in your time. Learn your craft, practice it, hone it. Take the time to do it right. I have 12 years of experience writing, starting with graduate school. Funny enough, I don’t count elementary, middle school, high school, or even college in my 12 years of experience - because I wasn’t working at a professional level yet.

So I have 12 years of professional writing experience. In graduate school, I focused on writing academic articles and book chapters. That is where I learned how to organize my ideas, be concise, and truly write. After that, I have written some fiction and poetry, but most of my work has been self-development books. After 12 years, I am just now feeling like I may be ready to write a perennial seller.

I would encourage you to take some time to build up your expertise before you can hope to create a work of true perennial value. Have fun in your first years, and allow yourself to explore new ground. Learn about yourself to figure out what your true perennial value will be. What can you offer to this world that will still matter in 10, 20, 30 years?

Will I be able to create my perennial seller? Will you? Only time will tell.

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The book I discuss in this post is now available. It is called Your Personal Truth: A Journey to Discover Your Truth, Become Your True Self, & Live Your Truth.

How to Write a Groundbreaking Novel

Recently, one of my readers asked me how he could create a groundbreaking novel. (No, I have not produced my own groundbreaking novel, but maybe I will someday.)

Anyway, here is my response:

Basically, I think there are no shortcuts. It takes hard work, and ideally, you can find a mentor or someone to help guide you. Yet ultimately, you must be willing to find your own voice or path. You cannot allow your true self to go into hiding. You should not become a miniature version of anyone else, as this will forever put you in their shadows.

An exercise I like when writing is to find books that you admire as truly great works, then rewrite them in your own way. This is just a creative exercise and to help improve your writing abilities. Of course, you should never attempt to publish anything that you rewrite.

When we read, it is too passive. If you rewrite, you will truly absorb what the author did and learn the techniques more deeply. By rewrite, I mean going sentence by sentence through a full novel and then rewriting them all in your own way, but trying to keep the same idea that the author intended.

In doing this, you may begin to discover your own style and interpretations. You may even realize that you have certain flaws that you need to work on.

Of course, this is just an exercise, and it can only take you so far.

To produce something revolutionary will likely mean that you have attained a deep and great understanding of humanity. How could you write something that connects to so many people if you do not truly understand those people? This is done in many ways - through connecting with people in your life more deeply, reading (particularly in your genres of interest), watching films, etc.

Ask yourself who you truly want to connect with. To say all of humanity may be too grand of a scope. It could help to think smaller, at least to begin. Do you want to connect with soldiers? With working moms? With people who want to save the planet? With those who struggle to find meaning in life? With those who suffered great tragedies? With the broken-hearted? Who is it?

Learn about people as deeply as you can if you want to produce artwork that inspires, heals, or provokes them in some way. Leonardo da Vinci is a great example. He was not satisfied with simply creating a drawing or painting that appeared lifelike. He wanted to truly bring it to life as much as was possible. To do this, he studied anatomy. And to do that, he was willing to do what no one else probably was. He dissected cadavers and drew humans from the inside out so that he could learn about everything that was beneath the surface. To draw and paint more realistically, he felt the need to learn more than his contemporaries - and it paid off with the Mona Lisa and his other famous paintings.

If you would like to learn about human nature through a novel, one of my favorite books is Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time (An alternate title is Remembrance of Things Past). It is perhaps the world’s longest novel at 6 volumes – and no, I have not finished it. Otherwise, of course, you can study psychology, sociology, and philosophy. You can also work on observing people more closely and experiencing more of life for yourself.

Before you jump headfirst into creating your great work, you may have to admit to yourself if you are not ready yet. It may be best to work on some practice runs, to see what you are capable of. For example, rather than writing your full novel, you may start with some short story ideas. I believe many of the greatest writers produced their best works later in their career, after having gained a lot of experience writing and also experience in life. There is nothing wrong with building experience so that you can produce your great work later.

Do not be in such a rush to do everything now. You may need to train, build your skills, and learn more deeply before you can produce your greatest work.

Perhaps as the years go by, you may get frustrated if you have not made much progress on producing your great work. Or maybe you have produced something, but no one seemed to take notice. At some point, you will have to let go of expectations. You can only create your work the best way that you can - you cannot control the reception you will get. Many great works are not recognized until after the death of an author. You have to decide if it is worth it, given that. If you need praise and acclaim to keep going, you may struggle to find your way.

As the years pass, at some point, you may find value in forgetting all that you know and doing things in your own way instead, perhaps tapping into your own soul or deeper spirit. You will have learned all the rules and patterns and ways that everyone else did things, and then you can abandon them all and truly get creative.

To create a dent in the universe, I think the smoothest path is to do something only you could have done. Rather than compete in a space everyone else is working on, create your own space where only you fit. E.g., create your own genre or genre mix, dig deeper into a topic or situation that no one else is considering, or find a new angle or perspective that no one else ever examined.

Although I haven't read it, Mark Danielewski's House of Leaves comes to mind. Like it or not, this book seems to have created its own genre space, meaning it has no real competition.

To be groundbreaking, you have to ask what you think is groundbreaking. Do you want to get people to take action on something? To see something in a new way? To experience something more deeply? What is it?

If you want to share new insights that you think no one else has discovered, then you may need to learn more deeply or experience more deeply than anyone else has. You must prepare to sacrifice a lot to get to that point. It may be easier to share insights that others have already shared but to do it in a new way that no one else had ever thought of. Perhaps you will reveal a new perspective or way of thinking this way.

As a final bit of advice, if you find a genre you love and want to work in, read some of the great works in that genre, and then ask yourself what you can add or contribute.

WHEN you produce your groundbreaking work, let me know. I would be happy to check it out!

Latent Creative Energy

I never considered myself to be artistic or creative. It took me a very long time to realize that I had creative energy within me. Most people think they don’t have this, but I think we all had it. We were all born with impressive and creative powers that gradually were lost.

As a young child, I was afraid of my own creative abilities. I didn’t realize that my mind would make things up that were not there. Many children are afraid of the dark, but I was afraid of actual beings and monsters that followed me in the darkness. They were actual, in the sense that my mind created the vivid imagery based on the amorphous, uncertain shapes that hovered in the dark.

Like a Rorschach test (old inkblot image psychological tests where you can see anything in your subconscious through them), the darkness was all a grand Rorschach in my mind, and anywhere I looked, beings and monsters followed. At four years old, I saw Superman fly right by my side, but I was not happy with this. I was scared because he flew too close to me. I didn’t want him to fly into me and knock me over.

As a young child, I could not control my creative energy. These beings, structures, and monsters followed me everywhere in the darkness. I wanted them to go away, but they would not. Through the years, they faded bit by bit. Finally, around 12 years old, they were almost completely gone. I was happy. I was free from their terrors.

Now I wonder, perhaps a big chunk of my creativity was gone with it too. Where did it go? No one knows. As an adult, in the darkness, I see darkness. I can’t see beings and monsters anymore, even if I try.

Where did the creativity go? For a long time, I was lost in the idea that there was a right and wrong way to do things. Buying into this limited me greatly. I began to search for the right answers everywhere, not understanding that the single right way was a mirage. Usually, a problem can be solved in 10 or 20 different ways in the real world. There is no one right way.

Even in art class, the teachers taught us a system, a single right way to produce the type of art they wanted us to make.

One time in the 5th grade, the assignment was to draw a girl's face in our class extremely fast. We were supposed to learn to produce a general idea of an image quickly, even if it was not perfect. The goal was to outline, not reproduce.

I failed to understand this assignment, and instead, I drew incredibly slowly, trying to capture every detail from this girl’s face. I kept looking at my paper and back at her to try to make sure the shapes were all right, that she was properly represented in my drawing.

“We are waiting on you,” the teacher looked at me desperately, as everyone else had finished.

Normally I cared about what the teachers told me, but for some reason, that day, I didn’t care.

What was the point of working on art if I couldn’t do it my way?

I continued, trying to capture everything in painstaking detail.

The teacher looked at me with disapproval, telling me that I was missing the point of the assignment.

A moment later, she moved along to some other task for the class, but I kept working on the drawing, trying to get it right.

I had been taught all my life up to then that there was a right answer for everything. Surely, the right way to make this drawing was to make sure that girl’s actual face could be captured on my page. I saw now that I had to consider the lighting, her expression, what she was feeling even.

I was always a good student, but somehow this task was more important now than all the other classes and facts the teachers had tried to shove into my head.

If I could get this drawing to match up with her face like a picture, perhaps I could show that all my learning had been worth something.

Finally, the class bell rang, and I had barely managed to finish my drawing.

A few students passed by me with remarks such as:

“Wow, that is pretty good,” and “I didn’t know someone in this class could draw.”

The truth was I didn’t know how to draw – I never drew anything, but I just wanted to get it right.

After that, I forgot about art. It left a distaste in me that the teacher had pressured me to do it her way. I decided that, just as with most other classes, this wasn’t worth caring about. I was a sort of zombie student, doing what needed to be done, but not really personally invested in it.

In 9th grade, my English teacher asked us to write some poems. I didn’t have a creative bone left in me, and the girl sitting behind me told me it was easy. She actually wrote me a couple of poems as a favor, and I would take the credit. I was relieved. I really liked that teacher, and I wish I had given poetry a shot then.

In 12th grade, I randomly decided that I wanted to play the piano. Something was drawing me to it. I really liked Billy Joel and couldn’t get enough of his music. And one of his most famous songs is Piano Man. Maybe that had something to do with it.

My instructor was some prodigy who went to college at 14 years old and had traveled the world giving concerts. He ended up settling on a vocation in real estate and teaching students like me in his spare time. I spent a few months learning piano with him. Then, he told me something I had not expected. He told me that I was playing in a way that often took people four years of lessons to get to. After that, I went to college to focus on serious matters and mostly left the piano behind.

I would return to the piano in the summers, learning to play songs from video games, like Phantom Forest, from Final Fantasy 6 (from a popular video game series). Such melodies gave me comfort, and I felt that I could connect more deeply to some feeling that I was perhaps feeling at that time.

I also began writing poetry fervently. I was always looking for inspiration for my next poem. Perhaps some were bad, but I think some were okay, some were actually good. I was in college then, but perhaps similarly as with the drawing of the girl in the 5th grade, I began to feel that these poems were the real work. All of those classes I took were just for a degree, but the writing was what actually mattered. Something had pained me in those years. Honestly, I don’t even remember what, and I suppose poetry was a way to express that feeling.

Then I went to graduate school and had no time for silly things like being creative. Ironically, my research focus was creativity and innovation. This was serious work. I went to class, conducted studies, wrote research papers, went to research meetings and more meetings, presented my research, and so on. There was no time to be creative. Eventually, I left there, and I was motivated to create something.

I began writing poems and short stories. The short stories were often dystopian or absurd.

Again, when I was working on a poem or story, I often had this feeling that this was what truly mattered. Somehow these words on a page and these made-up characters mattered more than other stuff like having a good job, having an intelligent conversation, or acting like an adult.

Then I left it behind and decided to pursue more serious work.

Lately, I have found poetry again, and this somehow seems to get my meaning across better than through my usual writings. I have the feeling again that these poems are what truly matters. If I work at it and get better, perhaps my true message will find its way better through poetry than through my typical ways of communication. We shall see.

When we have creative energy, sometimes we can’t contain it. Where it will take us, nobody knows – but we must let it loose somehow.

Today, I encourage you to look for that creative part of yourself that you thought you had lost. It was always there somewhere waiting for you. Did you always want to create something? Build something? Learn to draw, paint, sing, dance, or write? Why not give it a shot?

The Evolution of Thoughts

Sometimes I wonder if I have ever had a novel or original thought in my life.

Think for a moment – Have you ever had a truly novel thought?

There are many ways to define originality, but in this case, I mean a thought which has never been formed by anyone in all of human history and even pre-history (e.g., before written records existed).

There is no way to know for sure. I suppose if you work on developing modern technology, which would not have existed in the past, then it may be more likely that you will have a new thought that no one else has ever had.

However, in my experience, we all tend to hold similar thoughts to the people around us – our thoughts are defined by our location, family, culture, religion, and peer groups. Whatever they tend to think – you probably share many of those thoughts.

Sometimes it bothers me that I cannot be certain that I have ever had an original thought in all of my life. I consider myself an original thinker, but time and again, any thought that I believed to be original, I ended up realizing that someone else had had the same one before me. And often, their thoughts were better developed.

I sometimes read philosophy, psychology, or sociology books where I feel that I have already had some of the same thoughts they are discussing. But if I dig deep enough, sometimes into Eastern philosophy, I end up realizing that some people have thought through my own “original ideas” (or those which I used to think were original), and they have thought through them more deeply, elaborated them more fully, and created a vocabulary that could properly express the ideas.

And so this is a pattern, that if I search hard enough, I end up finding books or sources that discuss my ideas that I thought were original, in a deeper way than I ever would have.

And this makes me question: Have I ever had an original thought in all of my life?

Of course, as I am a writer, the fact that I have created sentences no one else has ever written makes them original. But this is superficial. In the end, the sentences express thoughts. To me, the real question is whether any of those thoughts are truly original. And then, to make the task even more challenging, if there are any original thoughts, are they meaningful?

In the movie Garden State, Natalie Portman’s character wants to know that she has done something that no one else has ever done. So, every day she produces some strange combination of bodily movements so that she can know she has done something no one else ever has.

If someone committed themselves, surely they could string together the most bizarre thoughts. But what is the point if this isn’t useful in some way?

The point of originality isn’t just to do something new, but hopefully to do something great.

Another way to define originality is to say that something is original if it is new for you. If a child discovers how to do long division on his own, without any formal teaching, then this is quite original for that child. It is truly an accomplishment. However, of course, this is not original when we consider all of humanity.

Often, when we discuss new ideas, thoughts, or ways of doing things, they are rarely new at all. Often, we are applying something that has been done in the past to our current situation. It appears to be new and original, but it is just an extension of what was already there in many ways.

What seems to be new and original is more like a natural evolution. Perhaps even, it was inevitable. I actually think of Darwin’s theory of evolution. In animals, some of the unnecessary features gradually become lost in time. Those features that are critical to survival end up becoming instincts in the new generations. These processes take generations upon generations to become visible, but it is part of evolution.

With thoughts, perhaps something similar happens. The thoughts evolve based on prior thoughts. The useful thoughts tend to be more common. They may aid with survival, accomplishing goals, building social bonds, or solving complex problems. I used to have thoughts that were not so useful or that were inefficient – in time, my thinking has improved. As in evolution, the parts of my thinking that are not helpful for any useful purpose are being dropped off. And the useful parts are staying or adapting and being modified. The thinking is evolving.

I sometimes laugh on the inside when someone is praised as being some great and original thinker. Usually, these people do deserve credit, but I believe now that most of us do not realize that to a single human being, 99.99% of all knowledge out there is original.

For 99.99% of what is known to humans as a collective, I probably am not aware of it, even as an educated and well-read individual. There are so many topics that I know little or practically nothing about. If someone takes a moment to discuss such topics with me, everything will seem novel, original, and brilliant.

My point is that sometimes the original and novel thinker may not be so novel after all. He may have access to all kinds of knowledge that is not frequently known.

The question I have for you is this: If someone reads books no one else is reading, watches movies no one else is watching, travels to places rarely traveled to, and associates with people who think differently, will this person eventually become an original thinker, or have the appearance of being an original thinker? Even if he absorbs and repeats what he experiences, these will be original thoughts to most people because they will be new to most people.

But when we consider all of humanity, these will not be original thoughts, of course.

How can we have original ideas, to begin with? How can I come up with something fully new? Everything I come up with will be in the context of what is known, what I have seen and observed, my goals, my culture, the way I was taught to think, and so on.

Or is original thinking just a natural evolution? Perhaps some original ideas may even be like mutations, where they happen unintentionally, but they can still be useful somehow.

Do you think most original thinkers are truly original, or do they just spend more time with sources that are unfamiliar to most people?

As another explanation, perhaps some people are credited with original thoughts, yet really they were quite logical and analytical, and their thoughts went so deep that most of us could not keep up with them. This means their thought processes were not original, but somehow the outcome of their thinking was original, as they discovered something new.

It seems to me that true originality is quite difficult to find - what do you think?

Think Differently to Become a Difference Maker

"Diffferent Thinking:

1. Thinking which is unlike in style, type, form, process, quality, amount or nature; dissimilar.

2. Differing in thinking from all others, unusual.

3. Thinking which reverses basic assumptions and accepted logic or reasoning.

4. Weird thinking."

- Rolf Smith (“The 7 Levels of Change”)

When I have conversations, people often tell me that I think differently (or sometimes strangely). Or they may tell me that I used a different thought process than they expected.

This isn’t always a good thing. Sometimes they end up showing me that I used a longwinded and convoluted path to arrive at a conclusion that could have been gotten to much more easily. This has happened to me when I spoke with highly analytical or logical people.

However, this ability to think differently is one that I have always valued about myself. I have some confidence in feeling that I can probably come up with unexpected options for solving problems. If I ever get stuck in a situation, I can probably find a way out of it by thinking differently. I have never had a sense that a problem was unsolvable - although I have wondered if people were ready to implement the necessary solutions.

Sometimes my different thoughts are just ones that I haven’t had the time to properly think through or test, or perhaps they are not easily testable.

For example, a recent thought I had was that in our dreams, we are everyone in the dream because it is all happening in our minds. This is not a new thought for me – as one of my teachers in high school told me this.

Then I started thinking about it more deeply….

In our dreams, we are not only everyone in the dream. We are also everything in the dream. If there is a piece of furniture, that is me because my mind created it.

In our dreams, we feel as if we have one vantage point or one perceived self, yet in reality, we are everyone and everything in the dream. Again, if we literally created all of it in our own minds, then it is all a part of us.

Is it possible that we are everyone and everything somehow in real life, and we just have this illusion of being stuck in one vantage point – as it is in dreams?

Is it possible that we are in someone else’s dream, and so when we dream at night, it is a dream within Someone’s larger dream?

And then…. I was thinking, is it possible that the people in our dreams have their own dreams?

If we are the dreamers of someone else’s dream world, then could we also be creating dreamers of their own dream world?

Who is to say?

Different thinking doesn’t really need a definition – it is just a different way of seeing and thinking than what other people use. I’m not sure it is always creative – but it certainly can lead to creative thinking. With creative thinking, the thoughts should be novel and useful. Different thinking just involves novelty or a different quality about it and doesn’t necessarily need to be useful.

I’m sure we all have our own different ways of thinking, but today, I wonder what has contributed to different thinking in my own life. Let’s consider this more deeply.

Not Paying Enough Attention in School

Starting in 5th grade, but possibly beginning before this, I can recall being horrible at paying attention in school. Any time we got to topics such as math or history, my mind would refuse to focus. It became meaningless chatter in the background. My mind would wander endlessly. I would wonder about my classmates’ lives, if we were ever going to use any of what we learned, and I would actually worry if I would end up failing a class because I couldn’t pay attention. (Luckily, I never did.)

I believe now that a part of schooling is really designed to teach us to be normal thinkers. When the teacher says apple, you are supposed to think fruit. You aren’t supposed to wonder about how far you could throw one if you really tried. In school, you learn that when you are shown something, you immediately think about something else. And so, most of us end up with these associations in our minds.

Perhaps I am missing some of those associations because I didn’t pay enough attention, and somehow that forced me to think through things in my own way, making me a different thinker.

Having Family or Friends with a Different Culture

My family is Mexican and Panamanian, and I grew up in the US, so I grew up with some of the Latin culture, yet I went to school with kids from a wide spectrum of backgrounds. In high school, my closest friends were from a variety of different backgrounds – African American, White American, Laotian, Vietnamese, and Hungarian. Frankly, we didn’t sit around and have deep conversations about our cultural heritage, as I was still a teenager. Still, having some exposure to different backgrounds and ways of thinking from an early age helped me eventually become a different thinker.

Having Conversations with People Who Think Differently

In my experience, it’s not easy to find different thinkers. The ones I have met tend to know how to think conventionally in order to function in society. It’s as if they have their own inner mind, which is different thinking, yet in society in their normal life, they know how to think conventionally in order to work with people.

Growing up, the first different thinker I knew was my cousin Salvador – he owns a frame shop, and he is an artist. In my high school and college years, we would often have hours-long conversations that I could only describe as different. The mode of thought that he used was not like anyone else I had ever spoken with. Often, as we talked on and on for hours into the night, I would reach a point of exhaustion where I couldn’t think anymore. Then he would pull the conversation in a new direction, asking a question I had never considered, in a way that seemed to push the limits of everything I knew to be true.

To think differently, meeting different thinkers is key. Without having known Salvador (who just happened to be a cousin I grew up with), my ability to think differently would have been stifled.

Being Comfortable with Different Ways of Thinking

I was very introverted growing up, and so I spent a lot of time in my own thoughts. This was good and bad. It’s bad because we shouldn’t be too isolated from others – it’s important to share ideas with others to learn and grow.

However, being introverted ended up being a good thing for me because when I had different thoughts, I wasn’t always concerned about what anyone else would think of them. I just spent time thinking it through on my own, and I didn’t need anyone else’s approval.

I actually wasn’t sure what others would think of my thoughts, and I didn’t feel the need to share them. My thoughts were just a part of my own world when I was younger. If I had felt the need to share them and have people agree with me, then I could not have properly developed into a different thinker.

Being Willing to Consider What Seems to Be Impossible

A lot of being a different thinker is about being open to limitless possibilities. In time, I have gradually become more and more open to what many of us would probably call very strange ideas.

To me, ideas are something we should explore more deeply. Often, we want to be lazy, so we are quick to discount or discredit a different type of thought. However, those are the ones I am most curious and open to.

Different thinking is so rare that if I am exposed to it, I am highly open to it. I will not believe it without any evidence or logic, but I will deeply think through it on my own – to figure out if it is possible this could even be true. I will look for better theories that describe a phenomenon. Sometimes an idea may sound unbelievable, but if there are no better theories out there, you may have to take it seriously.

Understanding That NOT Everything Needs to Be Productive, Efficient, nor Profitable

I make efforts to always have time in my life where I don’t need to be doing anything in particular. This isn’t due to laziness. This is because to think differently, you must have time where you do not need to think in one specific way.

Everything that people do as a normal part of their life may actually get in the way of different thinking. Think about it – if we do ordinary things in ordinary ways for ordinary reasons, how likely are we to think differently?

Most people are obsessed with productivity, efficiency, or profitability – or all of these. Well, these things actually get in the way of thinking differently. If your mind meets specific objectives from morning until night, you have no time to think differently. You are forcing yourself to think conventionally through conventional problems for conventional reasons.

To think differently, take more breaks, meditate, run, be with nature, socialize, waste time for the fun of it, remember to breathe, and avoid having your life become just a daily grind.

Focus on Being Your True Self, Rather Than on Being Different

Some people do take pride in being different from others, and I think this is great. We should have our own individuality. However, if someone is too rebellious, often this can actually become predictable. As whatever you say or do, they will simply disagree and do something else. Rather than thinking differently, they are using you or the norm as a benchmark, and then they will purposely avoid doing the norm.

I believe it’s much more useful to pursue your own way of being. You do not always need to specifically avoid doing what other people do to be different. Enough people do this to where it is not very different at all, anyway. For example, how different do you think the rebellious teenager is who refuses to follow the rules – it’s quite common, isn’t it?

Rather, when you focus on being and becoming your true self as you are, there will always be something different about you than everyone else. You can allow this difference in you to shine to think more differently.

Be the Difference Maker

First, I don’t know if I can teach anyone to think differently. Most people think in normal ways, most of the time. Personally, I don’t feel particularly skilled at different thinking, but enough people have noticed this from me that I must agree – it does seem that I think differently.

Thinking or being different is not good in itself, of course. What matters is what we do with this. First, consider if it’s worth thinking more differently in your life. Do you often find yourself stuck or not knowing what to do? Different thinking may provide a path forward for you. Are you committed to resolving big, complex problems without any clear solutions? Different thinking could help.

As a human species, I sometimes feel like we are stuck, not having a good path forward to help us out of the big world problems we have created. I think that we need to value and promote our different thinkers now more than ever, as ultimately, they will be the ones who make the difference. When these difference-makers arise, the least we can do is pay attention and be open to what they have to say.

Think or Do Something Different Today

Today, work on thinking or doing something different.

If you have trouble thinking differently, you may wish to try doing something different than you normally would.

It’s actually quite easy:

• Drive a different route to work

• Start a conversation with someone new

• Read a book you normally would not read

• Get creative: write a story, draw something, make something

• Listen to a speaker who holds completely different viewpoints from your own

Doing different things can help promote different thinking, which can help you to become the difference maker.

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If you are curious about learning to think differently, I would particularly recommend reading The 7 Levels of Change: Different Thinking for Different Results by Rolf Smith.

Also, you may be interested in one of my books, Idea Hacks: Come up with 10X More Creative Ideas in 1/2 the Time

Unlock Infinite Possibilities (A Creative Exercise)

We often fail to see just how many options we truly have. We may assume that we have two possible pathways, or maybe three when the possibilities are actually infinite.

As a thought exercise, imagine this:

You are trapped in a car and there is a large brick next to you.

For most people, it may be difficult to think beyond this brick. It is so prominent that it is practically shouting, “break a window with it.”

However, let’s think a bit more deeply.

Even though I said you were trapped in the vehicle, perhaps this was just an assumption. Maybe the doors seem to be locked or jammed shut, but they are so old that if you press on them, they may pop open with little effort.

Since I didn’t explain how you got in the vehicle, maybe this is your own vehicle, and you have the keys in your pocket or nearby. You may be able to start the car and drive it somewhere that you could ask for help.

Surely you are wondering what led up to this scenario. It’s unknown. Perhaps you were in an accident and suffered amnesia.

If none of the above options to escape work, of course, you could check if anyone is nearby currently to help you.

Unfortunately, no one is there.

Practically on a daily basis, I hear people say in response to problems that we can go with Plan A or Plan B. They identify two options, or sometimes, they only identify one possible option. And often, implementing such plans would require a great deal of time, money, or energy.

But sometimes, we don’t have any of that. Some people lack financial resources and work hard to get by – they don’t have much time, money, or energy. They need to resolve their problems quickly despite these setbacks, or they do not get resolved. They must be resourceful – if they cannot figure things out for themselves, no one else will step in to solve it for them.

Life isn’t always easy. Sometimes we are presented with new and big problems when we least expect it when we don’t feel able to handle them, even when we are already overwhelmed with other problems.

Nonetheless, we must deal with the most pressing problem in front of us. In this scenario, you are still stuck in this car, and you want to get out.

What if you already tried all the above options that I proposed? You checked if you could force the doors open, you looked for the keys, you checked around to see if anyone could help you, and you even tried to use the brick to break open the windows. They seem to be reinforced and not so easily breakable. Nothing worked.

What else can you try?

You look around for a cell phone, and you check the glove box for anything useful. Nothing. The car is not old enough where you can roll down the windows manually. It has an electronic switch that does not work unless the car is on.

At this point, most people might give up. It seems like you’ve tried everything.

Can you think of anything else?

Remember, there doesn’t seem to be anyone around. You’re welcome to try banging on the glass to get attention, but I can tell you that will accomplish nothing as the creator of this scenario.

If you would like, take a bit of time to come up with one more thing you could try. I will come up with 7 more ideas to escape. Do not use Google to get ideas (or any search engine) – I am not. If you are struggling, keep in mind that these do not need to be good ideas. They need to be ideas that may have a chance at working.

When you are ready for my solutions, scroll down.

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1.     Check if there is a sun or moon roof. In some cars, there is a sliding door you can open at the top. If you are lucky, the glass part could have been left open or partially open for you to escape.

2.     Look for a pen, screwdriver, or any equipment that may help you to force the ignition to start, functioning as a sort of key. I know I said there was nothing useful in the glove box, but perhaps there were other compartments to search, or there may even have been something under the seats. By starting the car, you may drive it somewhere that you can get help.

3.     Alternatively, if you find anything like a pen, screwdriver, or something like this, you may try to force a window to slide down.

4.     Rather than throwing the brick at the windows or knocking it against them, lay the brick against the windows and then use your feet to kick the brick into the window. Your legs can exert more power, so this may be more successful. I’m aware that getting into a position to accomplish this may be challenging if the brick is heavy. (Doing this has some risk of causing injury, unfortunately)

5.     Move the rear seats out of the way so that you can climb into the trunk. There, look for a way to open it or force it open. Perhaps if you are lucky, it will be unlocked, or it was already left open. (While you are there, look for any equipment that may help you escape).

6.     If you have any cash, line up the windows to attract people to the car – obviously, this is in complete desperation, but it may help you get rescued.

7.     If you have tape, markers, string, etc., write SOS in big letters along the car's windows – this is also done to attract attention.

If you thought of some solutions that I did not mention, please post them in the comments.

The whole point of this exercise is to show us that in life, even under normal circumstances, we probably give up quite quickly on looking for solutions. Most of the time, I see people present one or two options, and if those don’t work, they are ready to give up. They may even claim that the problem can’t be solved.

We set limits on ourselves when we do this.

Another situation where we tend to set limits on ourselves is in competition when we are at a disadvantage or we seem to be losing. Most people give up when they should be taking this as an opportunity to look harder for pathways to win. You may be the underdog, but is it truly impossible for you to win?

When you come across a problem or situation, or you feel that you are the underdog, search deeper for ways to solve this or to win. Often, there isn’t just one solution to a problem. There may be 10 or more pathways forward. You don’t need to find THE solution. You need to find ONE way that works.

Keep in mind that the path forward could actually be to abandon your problem for another solvable one or redefine the problem in some cases. In this scenario, several of my solutions were not about escaping directly. Instead, they were about looking for ways to get people to help me escape.

The next time you encounter a challenging problem or are the underdog in a competitive event, look for 7 new ways to solve the problem. If you don’t think you’ll have a difficult problem come up today, then practice making up your own difficult scenarios and resolving the problems that you create in your mind – as we did in this post.

What helps me is I usually imagine that the possible solutions are infinite or near-infinite – this makes it much easier to come up with just 7 solutions. Also, this is a daily practice. It may not be easy at first, but this means you need to work at it. This creative skill can pay off in all areas of our lives.

The possibilities are endless.

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If you feel like you could use some help in getting more creative and finding more possibilities in your daily life, I recommend reading:

Idea Hacks: Come up with 10X More Creative Ideas in 1/2 the Time