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.

---

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.

Pursue Your Joy, Spread Your Joy

“It would have made things a lot easier if we understood there was no way of living that can immunize you against sadness. And that sadness is intrinsically part of the fabric of happiness. You can’t have one without the other.” – The Midnight Library, by Matt Haig

The new year is here. Have you fallen into the same old patterns as last year? Did you make resolutions, knowing that you probably won’t make them happen, because that’s how it usually goes? Or did you make a long list of things you want to do, and it’s simply too much, so you know that even if you want it to happen and work at it, you may not have the time and energy to make it happen?

Or, perhaps you made a shortlist of critical things in your life that you are motivated to change. And you made a list of specific steps or actions to take. Then great! I’m guessing you will fulfill your plans in that case.

Or, maybe last year was hard enough to get through, and you feel good about yourself if you’re just able to get by at this point. I’m sure that this is a reality for many of us.

As we make our plans for the new year, keep this in mind:

Let’s not forget what brings us true joy. Let’s do more of that, and put more of that out into the world.

I just saw The High Note yesterday, and Dakota Johnson’s character says that she wants to make music that can help people feel less alone. Music helped her get through hard times in her life, and she wants to make music that will do the same for others.

Sometimes I think we view the pursuit of our joy as something selfish, but that isn’t necessarily the case. Often, it seems that in bringing ourselves joy, we can create something and share it with others, and they can share in some of that joy with us.

Is there something that brings you joy that you have neglected? Could this also spread joy to others?

I believe it is never too late to learn, try something new, and become who you truly wanted to become. Personally, it gives me strength to see that the things that bring me joy could truly mean something to other people too. There is no way to know until you do it or create it and share it.

Often, we get stuck in a rut and repeat the patterns of yesterday, and the day before that, and even last year, and the year before that. The first step to break these patterns is to see that they are there. Some hidden forces are guiding you to do just what you did before, again and again. Going to the same places, talking to the same people, doing the same things. Maybe this is fine if this is what you wanted. But is it truly what you wanted?

If not, only you can choose to break free from the mold you’ve created for yourself.

I find that to move toward joy, you have to make a commitment to yourself, and perhaps to someone else too. Then, you have to make the time for what you really want to do. I sense that my mind is always subconsciously monitoring and thinking this:

What would I normally do at this time? Let’s do that.

At breakfast time, I eat breakfast. At work time, I work. When it’s time to eat dinner and relax and watch TV, I do that. At my usual reading time in the evenings, I read. Usually, in the evenings, I also do some quick chores such as cleaning up, dishes or running other errands. In the course of a normal day, most of my time slots are filled. So this leaves weekends to work out anything I want to accomplish beyond my work goals. I make it a point to leave my weekends mostly open. This can be good and bad. They’re open and free, so I can do anything, but in reality, this may be time that goes wasted.

I have patterns that tend to hold for my weekends. I may be inclined to sleep in later, watch more TV, and play video games, but instead of this, I should be asking myself: What will bring me true joy and help spread this to others as well?

And so, for me, as far as making time for joy goes, this is the solution. I need to more carefully examine my weekends to see if I could do something more. For example, I can make time to read, learn to cook a new dish, chat with friends and family, look for ways to help out the community, exercise, write and review my poems or short stories, and so on.

I have many, many goals, but it makes sense to take some of that free time on the weekends and convert it into something that brings a longer-lasting, higher-quality type of joy. For you, you may consider if you can make some time first thing in the morning, right before bed, during a lunch break, or perhaps on the weekends.

Ask yourself:

What time am I wasting, that I could use to do something that brings me joy?

I included the quote at the top of this post because it makes a good point that we should not forget. The sadness is inevitable. I pursue joy and wish to spread more of it, but there are times when anyone can feel sad or down. I’m not in the pursuit of pure bliss, as such feelings are, of course, fleeting. I aim to make the best of the moments that come my way. But I also aim to create a world (in my own small way) that can build better moments for us all.

I aim to be content with what is while still making improvements. This can seem paradoxical – as if you are content, why would you need to improve? However, I’m not just content but also tremendously grateful for everything in my life. I feel it is my responsibility to work hard, help people, and spread joy and wisdom however I can.

Joy is something that I do pursue, but I know that this is not something I can ever catch. You may as well try to catch the oxygen sitting in front of you. And the fact that joy inevitably will come and go also means that sadness will inevitably come and go. If joy leaves you suddenly, sadness will tend to come and fill its place.

Joy and sadness are a normal part of the ebbs and flow of this human life.

All we can do is try to sit in peace with this reality. And those who are filled with joy can do their best to spread some of that to those who truly need it.

Don’t Let This Year Pass By, Wasted. Pursue Your Joy. Spread Your Joy.

Don’t know what to do with your time? Consider doing something for your health, such as exercise, mental training, expressing your creativity, or volunteering to help those in need. If you love to do something, you can spread the joy by introducing someone else to the topic or activity.

Think Out Loud

“What were you thinking?”

Do you ever get asked that, but in a way that is judgmental and condescending, perhaps?

Well, maybe it would help to go over our thoughts out loud more often. If we shared our thoughts more openly instead of hiding them, then certain flaws in our thinking would become apparent. This is good because by seeing the flaws, we can work to correct them.

Sometimes I wonder – wouldn’t it be easy to go through life with some glaring flaw in one’s thinking? How would you realize this about yourself? If these thoughts stay trapped in the mind and we do not often share them, then we may have major problems in our thinking and not even realize it.

I believe the people who exhibit higher levels of thinking or have a very high expertise level in their field should occasionally help guide others by revealing their own thinking processes. Then other people could learn to improve their thinking abilities.

A quirk about me is that I have never been that interested in learning particular facts. I am not the person you want to see on Jeopardy – I would probably do embarrassingly bad. Rather, I have always been fascinated by the thought processes that helped people make their discoveries or solve difficult problems. I tend to think that if I have the right thought processes, then I can figure things out on my own with minimal facts. With the wrong thought processes, I could perhaps have infinite facts at my disposal and have no idea what to do with them. With the wrong way of thinking, I may even come to the wrong conclusions, which could be even worse.

Ultimately, rather than accumulating random facts, I aim to pursue a higher understanding - and I hope to help you get there too.

Something I have learned to do is to reconstruct other people’s thoughts. If you have ever seen a “true crime” show that was dramatized, these are reconstructed scenes. The dialog and interactions may be made up or intuited in some cases.

Similarly, when I see someone solve a problem, I always ask myself what they could have been thinking. I try to reverse-engineer how they got to the solution. Sometimes I feel like I have figured it out – and I have been able to decode their thought processes. But this is not always easy. Usually, I look at the actions they took. Then I ask what they would have thought that led them to take that action. If I can, I may try to confirm what they were thinking at a critical point.

I want to encourage us to see the value in thinking out loud more often. This could be especially valuable if there is a child nearby. People always say that children learn by example. But how can we have example thoughts? The thoughts are in our heads usually. In that case, we should be willing to think out loud or occasionally verbalize our thinking.

You may be thinking, of course, we all verbalize our thoughts. It’s called speaking. Yes, this is true. My point is that when solving problems, most of us don’t see the need to think out loud. If you have solved a problem before, you know what to do. You take the necessary actions and solve it. However, a problem that you have seen a hundred times may be new to someone else. They may benefit from hearing you think out loud.

Other than just with children, there may be other useful opportunities to practice thinking out loud. If you know someone who wants to learn in your field, and you are the expert, and they are the novice, consider thinking aloud through certain problems to help show them how to think through them.

I suppose some general thinking rules can be applied to anything. But I also suppose that to advance in a particular field, we will need to learn how to think through specific problems more successfully.

When I was in school, I was usually able to figure out a thought process to arrive at the solutions to problems, but often I would later learn that my way of thinking was very inefficient. I was focusing on the wrong things, perhaps. In some cases, if I arrived at the wrong solutions, I may continue to work on the problem, trying to figure out the right way of thinking through trial and error. I believe it would have been more efficient to learn the right way to think from the beginning. Or rather, to have had someone help me identify my wrong thoughts and then replace those with the correct ones.

In reality, our thoughts and actions are often intertwined. If you pay close attention, every action tends to reveal a thought process behind it. If I pick up a red rock from the ground and bring it up to my mouth and try to take a bite, you can probably guess what I was thinking.

You would guess that for some reason, I had thought this rock was a fruit. You may dig a bit deeper - how could I have thought this way? Perhaps I was distracted or dealing with a personal trauma that dampened my observational skills. Perhaps I was not wearing my glasses, and I have horrible vision. Perhaps I was starving and not thinking clearly. Some of this is guesswork, but you can be pretty sure that I had somehow imagined the rock to be an edible piece of food.

Again:

If you pay close attention, every action tends to reveal a thought-process behind it.

Much of our academic life is focused on learning facts, but perhaps we should also focus more on absorbing higher-level thinking. This could be from experts who have fine-tuned their thinking and have proven their ability to think through new problems. Someone good at solving only the problems that they are familiar with has not necessarily proved that they are thinking at a higher level.

Higher-level thinking would likely involve some of the following:

•        Experience – having sufficient knowledge and experience to approach new problems

•        Efficiency of thought – not wasting time on knowledge or thought processes that are irrelevant

•        Problem definition – knowing how to define the problem precisely

•        Questioning ability – knowing the right questions to help further define what is known and unknown

•        Reasoning ability – knowing which actions are likely to result in which outcomes

•        Creative ability – being able to use new ideas, resources, or systems to solve a problem

•        Simulation ability – using the above skills and abilities, a high-level thinker may be able to simulate problems and processes in the mind to help identify the most likely outcomes

•        Awareness of limitations – knowing when your abilities or resources are insufficient to solve a problem

Generally, a higher-level thinker will not need to use trial and error. Ideally, the thinking ability will be at a point where they can effectively solve problems in their mind and then execute the solutions.

If you wish to go the route of learning higher-level thinking skills, it can be worth the effort to learn some bad thinking as well. For example, what mistakes did Albert Einstein make in his thinking? Wouldn’t it be interesting to learn that? For a physicist, at least, this may be valuable to know.

Something I have learned is that often the novice will focus on things that are not so important. Part of what the novice needs is to gain experience, of course. But when a novice learns the right things to think about and focus on, this can make all the difference in helping to learn and to think more effectively.

Today, I am simply encouraging you to ask yourself if your thinking abilities could benefit from learning how others at a higher level think through problems. You may consider pursuing a mentor or teacher to show you not just what to do but also how to think through new problems. As you learn what to do and how to do it, remember to focus on the why or the thought processes you can use to help you advance further. To learn those thought processes, it helps if you can listen to someone think out loud.

Also, if you believe you could be a higher-level thinker, please realize that not everyone has this ability. If you take a moment here and there to reveal your thinking processes to those around you, it could be a great help to them.

---

Here are some books that reveal the thinking processes of experts, if you are interested:

• Thinking Allowed by Jeffrey Mishlove (and many other authors)

• Think Like a Grandmaster by Alexander Kotov (about Chess)

• Every Hand Revealed by Gus Hansen (about Poker)

• Think Like a Rocket Scientist by Ozan Varol

• Think Like a Programmer by V. Anton Spraul

What are you Training Mentally for?

Introduction

When it comes to physical activity, it can be easy to see that someone is training certain muscle groups to get stronger. They are running to get faster and build stamina, or they are training to improve at a particular sport.

But what about mental training?

Are you training your mind? To me, it is clear that the mind’s powers naturally regress and fall into laziness if not being trained for anything. This may happen earlier in our lives than we fear. Even when I was in high school, I distinctly remember that oftentimes I felt like a zombie, going through the motions.

Whatever the teacher told us was treated as fact and must be known for exams. In most classes, even if there may be room for dispute or disagreement in a domain, to disagree with the teacher was to guarantee yourself a lower grade. Anything the teacher did not cover must be assumed to be insignificant or irrelevant, even though in reality, of course, some topics the teacher did not cover must have been quite important.

My point is that sometimes you may feel that you are in training (e.g., taking a course or on-the-job training), but perhaps it is not enough. Are you truly training or just going through certain motions?

Here are some examples of what we can train our minds in:

Resilience

Having a resilient mind is critical to deal with the ups and downs of life. We all have problems that come up, sometimes when we least expect them, and we must be resilient to overcome them with calm and poise. We all know some people who are never fazed and never give up no matter how difficult things get. And we also know some people who give up on something as soon as there is a slight problem. This is the difference between people who are more resilient and less so.

To train your resilience, if you have certain routines that you always follow, you may purposely break them occasionally to make sure that you can manage or adapt either way. For example, if you always eat breakfast at 9 AM, you may occasionally eat it at 11 AM to help build resiliency. If you get used to that pattern too much, you may occasionally skip breakfast. (Of course, if you have any health conditions or concerns, speak to your doctor before trying any of this.) If you feel that you must do or have something in one way, that may be a good opportunity to practice your resilience by trying a new way.

Another key way to train your resilience is to train beyond what you think you need to. My friend Arthur, a mountain climber, recently told me that when you climb to the top of a mountain (metaphorically or real), you should keep on climbing after reaching the summit. You can do this through mental exercise (e.g., visualizations) or actual physical activity, depending on what you are training in (perhaps not actually to climb a mountain). Essentially, train yourself to go beyond the point to which you thought you would need to go.

Creativity

Most people that I know do not believe themselves to be creative. I always say we are all creative. Everyone dreams at night, and so our minds automatically create worlds, scenarios, characters, dialogue, and all in real-time. These are not scripted out in advance. Our minds seem to make them up at the moment. We can literally make stuff up in our sleep. So why couldn’t we do it while awake?

One of the easiest ways to train your creativity is to practice coming up with a list of 10 ideas every single day. (E.g., ideas for books to write, inventions, ways to save money, places to go on a date, things you could do with a paperclip, jokes to write, objects that could be used as a musical instrument, etc.). If 10 is too much, even 1 idea per day can make a difference!

Memory, Attention, and Mindfulness

Memory, attention, and mindfulness are quite interrelated, at least in how we train them. Often if you forget something, it’s because you didn’t pay proper attention to it in the first place. And if you’re not paying enough attention to what is happening around you, this indicates a lack of mindfulness in your life.

So the way to train any of these is to be more mindful. Use your senses and actually see and fully experience what is happening around you. Keep your mind on all that is there, not all that is not.

Avoid distractions, or rather, avoid the need always to be distracted. Our phones are, of course, an ever-present distraction. Most people I know could be doing anything – having a conversation, playing a game, or working, and when their phone chimes, they will check it right away. Perhaps find some hours in the day when your phone is not the most important thing and set it on mute.

In my case, I have noticed that a practice of meditation helps my memory, attention, and mindfulness. Often when I meditate, I end up remembering that night’s dreams in extra detail. I suspect this is because I am maintaining mindfulness within the dream, experiencing everything that is happening fully. And these effects are not limited just to my dreams. In real life, I will also remember more, observe more, attend more, mind more, and experience more fully.

Learning

Learning is an essential skill, so essential that we all do it even if we avoid doing it. As a practical matter, learning is often critical for being competitive in our careers. A person who doesn’t learn new things on the job may find in the best case that he never gets promoted and stagnates. In the worst case, he may lose his job and have difficulties finding a new job since he has not learned as much as other top candidates.

Beyond this, of course, learning is about exposing ourselves to new and interesting ideas. When you learn, you can prepare to understand and then create meaningful action in this world. What more reason to learn do we need?

This post isn’t just about performing an action but rather about training it. To train your learning, though, you must keep learning. If you truly want to improve your learning skill, you can also learn about learning. When you do this, you may learn some techniques that will help you to learn more effectively in less time.

When it comes to learning, sometimes we reach a point where we struggle to get any better at a given skill. This is why it is important to train ourselves to learn, to overcome such barriers. The best learners may work on learning in a variety of areas – physical skills, book learning, learning through experience, focusing on logical abilities as well as creative ones, abstract thinking, and also practical abilities. The best learners may also make it a point always to be learning something new. This way, you will always be training your learning abilities.

Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is about knowing how to find the relevant facts (especially when you have a problem) and then knowing how to come up with reasonable action steps based on those facts. Also, through critical thinking, you should be able to read facts and then be able to understand how some of those facts could influence the real world, or at least influence your own life. With critical thinking, you do not need to listen to everyone’s opinions. You can form your own independent opinions, just based on the facts.

To train your critical thinking involves many processes, and so this can be difficult for many people. But it is doable. Part of the training will involve searching for unbiased or less biased information sources. Also, it will involve learning to perceive when a source is biased. To learn what is more and less biased, at first, you should examine many different sources to see what they have to say about an issue. Withhold your judgment until you have read or experienced many points of view. When the information from different sources overlaps (or is the same), this is usually neutral or valid. If there is no overlap, the information may be less reliable in some cases, or in other cases, the source may have dug deeper to gain more information.

As another way to train your critical thinking, you may get used to reading facts and then coming up with your own viewpoints based on those facts. Rather than spending too much time with people’s opinions, you may focus on only learning the facts and avoiding opinions altogether. If you are not used to separating opinions and facts in your mind, you must get used to this. This will be an important process in developing your critical thinking. You will learn to give less weight to opinions in time and more weight to facts.

When you do give some weight to opinions, you should consider the expertise of the person who had the opinion. Often, you will find people giving opinions on topics where they have no expertise. You can safely discard such opinions or at least give them very little weight. At a minimum, to even consider someone’s opinion, perhaps they should hold a degree in the topic, or have read a wide variety of books on it, or have had a career or meaningful experience that relates to the topic. Ideally, they should have a combination of these.

As another way to train your critical thinking, you should get used to asking yourself a variety of questions to see how truthful any “fact” or statement may be. A key question I often ask myself is, “What is the evidence that supports this?” Then, you must ask yourself if the evidence is substantial, meaningful, and reliable. You can do this with your thoughts too. When I form a thought, sometimes I ask myself, “What is the evidence that supports this thought?” Just because you have a thought doesn’t make it true.

Concluding Thoughts

I believe it is important that we always work on training the mind. However, even if you do not consciously train, your mind is always being trained toward something. But if you are not careful, it can be trained in a way that ultimately works against you. You can train yourself to become less and less resilient, for example, if you do not have enough challenges in your life. Rather than moving in such directions, you should take control and train yourself toward something that will help you meet your life goals.

What are you going to begin training your mind in today? Or what have you been training in?

---

I have written many books that operate as training manuals for the mind. Here are some of them:

7 Thoughts to Live Your Life By (to train resilience and more)

The Secret Principles of Genius (to train critical thinking and more)

Practical Memory (to train memory)

The Insightful Reader (to train reading abilities)

Idea Hacks (to train creativity)

No One Ever Taught Me How to Learn (to train learning)

Master Your Focus (to train attention and focus)

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.

---

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

The Winner’s Mindset - 8 Tools for Success

Introduction

Quite often, I see that people are not equipped with the right mindset to win, succeed, or resolve the problems in their lives. Of course, there is no magic solution. What I am going to present here may take a lifetime to master, but it will provide a pathway toward accomplishing more than many of us even would have thought possible.

Consider the importance of using all these tools together. If you only use a few of them, you will be limiting your potential.

1. Growth Mindset

Dr. Carol Dweck has studied the growth mindset – a mindset where you believe that you can grow in your abilities. This is important because if you attempt to do something and fail if you have a growth mindset, you will believe that you can always work on it and improve. If you have a fixed mindset, you will believe that your skills and abilities are fixed, and there is not much you can do to get any better.

With the growth mindset, you believe that the more you work and push yourself, the better you can get. And this belief turns out to be true. Likewise, for those who believe that they are limited, or those with the fixed mindset, their beliefs also turn out to be true for themselves because they limit their own potential with this mindset.

2. Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

The growth mindset may actually be a form of the self-fulfilling prophecy. Note that people who think they can grow and improve can do so. Those who do not think they can grow and improve are unable to do so. This may be an oversimplification – but at least those who think they can are much more effective in accomplishing their goals.

With the self-fulfilling prophecy, whatever you expect to happen is quite likely to actually happen. There are limits to this, of course, but this concept is one of my favorite because it shows us just how powerful the human mind is.

As an example, if I take two forty-year-old men who look to be in average shape, and I ask them to do 40 push-ups for me, who is more likely to accomplish this? The one who doubts his own abilities, or the one who is sure he can do this? If they both had the same height, weight, health status, and muscular build, the one who was more sure of himself would have a better chance to accomplish the goal.

In my life, I have found that when I believe something is going to happen, I don’t spend any energy doubting or thinking about failure. That means I use more energy to accomplish what I want to do rather than on negative emotional energy. Therefore, I am much more likely to succeed at what I believed I would succeed at.

Often your belief will create reality. Be careful about what you expect, as it will probably happen. In this sense, it will pay off to be optimistic and expect things to go well.

3. Affirmations and Visualization

A“belief” with nothing to back it up can feel empty and meaningless for many of us. If I tell you to believe in yourself and believe that you will succeed, this sounds like empty motivational speak. It doesn’t feel real, and it seems unlikely to actually make a difference in your life. For that reason, you may wish to try creating affirmations and visualizations to make your beliefs more real in your mind.

Affirmations and visualization are tools you can use to create stronger positive beliefs in your mind, making it more likely that they will come true. This is an application of the self-fulfilling prophecy, where you train your mind to expect something to happen through affirmations. Affirmations are statements you make and say to yourself in effort to make them feel true and real. Once you have your affirmation, you can visualize that thing happening in vivid detail so that your mind feels it already has happened. Then there is nothing left to do but live out that which has already happened in your mind. Ultimately, your mind will feel comfort in simply living out that path which you have already created. This will feel like destiny, in a way. To do anything else outside of what your affirmation/visualizations indicate would feel like going against nature.

As an example of an affirmation, you may write down a statement such as:

I will live my life today without allowing negative emotions to guide my actions. Instead, I will be guided only by positive emotions, reason, and intuition.

With visualization, you would visualize yourself living out the above affirmation. You may envision someone verbally attacking you. But rather than allowing negative emotional energy to overcome you, you would respond calmly by suggesting that you continue this conversation when the other person has calmed down, or you could state that you have more important things you need to do at the moment. They should write their grievances in an email to you so that you can respond at a later time. If the person continues to be verbally aggressive, you may calmly walk away and say, “Have a nice day!” Notice that with this affirmation, the goal is not to extinguish negative emotion but rather to stop such emotions from guiding our everyday actions.

4. Ongoing Learning

Part of the way you win and do better than others is to learn more than them. In many fields, you must develop your expertise to perform well. Even if your field is not intellectual or informational, you could be surprised at the importance of continuing to learn. For example, someone who plays sports at a high level would want to study their opponents’ weaknesses to search for ways to gain a competitive advantage.

Our world changes and adapts rapidly, and so to keep up with this, you must continue to learn regularly. The prior principles focused on your beliefs and mindset. But if you have a positive mindset and you have not learned anything, then you may be an overconfident amateur.

5. Work Harder and Smarter

Working hard is a continuation of ongoing learning. You will need to learn and work harder than most people if you truly want to win. Generally, this can mean working more hours or training more rigorously. Then when you reach a level where everyone is working quite hard, you will need to work smarter to gain an advantage.

Working smarter could mean finding any critical weaknesses in your abilities and working to develop those. It could also mean finding your greatest strengths and fine-tuning those to become even better at what you do. Working smarter can also mean prioritizing what is truly important for you to work on. All work is not equal. You could work very hard and make very little progress if the work was not important or instrumental.

Working smarter can also mean finding the right leader, colleagues, or organization to work in. If you are highly skilled but in the wrong environment that can not properly use your skills, you will not accomplish much.

6. Make Your Own Luck

To increase your chances of winning or success, you should aim to make your own luck. This can mean increasing your chances for something good to happen. The way you approach this will be different depending on your field.

For example, if you have written something that you think everyone needs to read, you may pay to translate it into several languages. Even if no one in your native language is impacted by what you wrote, perhaps you will find people who truly believe in your ideas with another language.

Also, you may practice sending out an email to an author, political figure, or owner of a company regularly, depending on your goals. Be quick and to the point. Don’t ask for anything big such as for a job. You may start by recognizing their good work and how you are interested in what they do. Then you may ask if they have any suggestions to help you with a particular problem. Or perhaps they can suggest a resource that may help you. If you feel it is appropriate and you are especially interested in learning more from someone, you may offer to buy that person lunch so that you can have a quick conversation with them.

The general idea is that you will want to put yourself in positions where you will more likely accomplish your goals, whatever those goals may be. I recently heard that in high school, Bill Gates and his friends hacked into his high school’s computer databases so that he would get placed in classes with all females. The idea was that this would help increase Bill Gates’ chances of getting a date. Surely he must have had better chances of getting a date when he was surrounded by females.

To increase your luck and opportunities, ask yourself questions such as:

• Where can I position myself to increase the chances of meeting my goals? (This may even involve moving.)

• Who can I network with or contact to increase the chances of meeting my goals?

• What can I do to make more people notice my skills and talents (e.g., starting a blog, podcast, or volunteering to work for free for someone who is known for being the best in their field)

Notice that to increase your luck, you do not need particular goals. The general goal is to put yourself in situations or circumstances that will make it more likely for good things to happen. Of course, you probably should have some specific goals that you are working toward in your life at the same time.

7. Creative Problem-Solving

When you practice generating many solutions to your problems, you can get very good at this. If this becomes a daily practice for you, you will find that eventually, you can effortlessly come up with a variety of potential solutions to virtually any problem.

This creative skill is one of the greatest assets you can have because so many people are not used to thinking this way. In school and our work lives, many of us get used to searching for one solution to our problems. When that one solution does not work, we become frustrated and need to call the boss or Google it.

If we practice our creative idea generation abilities instead, we could become better and better. In time, we would feel confident that we could solve new problems on our own without always needing extra assistance.

As I already indicated, the world we live in is rapidly changing and demands that we adapt to it. Those who can look for creative solutions will be in the best position to succeed when difficult circumstances arise.

To practice this skill, the next time someone makes you aware of a problem, try to come up with five possible solutions to solve it. Also, of course, if you come across your own life problem, do the same thing. Do not settle for the first or even second obvious solution that you come. Work harder to train your mind to be more creative.

8. React Positively to the Overwhelming Likelihood of Failure

I often see that as soon as a problem becomes difficult, people are ready to give up on it. They will say that this is too difficult. Or, if the situation involves a game or competition, as soon as one team starts to lose, they will become discouraged and feel that there is no way to win.

However, the person with a true success mindset will never stop looking for possibilities to win or accomplish what they truly want to do. A problem that can develop in our mindsets is that when you look for reasons to give up, the next time you face a difficult problem, it becomes easier to give up. You can actually train yourself to become a failure. If you choose to give up every time things get difficult, you will train yourself to give up more easily and more quickly with each new problem you face. Eventually, just the slightest indication of trouble will cause you to throw in the towel. You will fail before you truly even get started.

Rather, we must train ourselves in the opposite direction. The harder things get, the more stubborn you should become, searching for pathways to accomplish your goals. Obviously, there is an actual point where it makes sense to give up, but it depends on the circumstance. If you do not look forward to succeeding at something, then you should probably give up. But more often than not, we give up too early on our goals or dreams.

My favorite way to train this mindset for not giving up is with games. It could be chess, Monopoly, or even video games. It doesn’t matter. I’ve learned that it is fun to win, but I also enjoy having fun when the odds are stacked against me. Even when you think all hope is lost, if you keep pushing forward and going for the win, sometimes you will get it. And it is gratifying to get that win when it seemed impossible. Games are a perfect vehicle to train your mindset because there is no real excuse to give up – you are usually not risking losing money or wasting anyone’s time.

When you can do so, practice continuing to go for the win even when others think it is a lost cause.

As an example, recently, I was playing a speed chess game. The other player was higher rated than me, and he outplayed me completely. Eventually, I got to the point where I realized I couldn't win the game if I played normally. I was down a lot of material (or points).

My solution was to make the worst possible move in the game.

The move was so bad only someone new to the game could make it. (My opponent and I were both in around the top 5% of chess players). I left my Queen vulnerable, which is the most valuable piece. In his mind, he never would have expected me to make this worst possible move, and so he didn’t realize how bad it truly was. He proceeded in the game, making a “normal” move. Then I stole his queen. I made the worst move possible in the game, but a side effect of this was that it would allow me to take his queen for free. Then I proceeded to win a game that should have been impossible for me to win at that point.

Notice that I used some creative thinking here - I don’t think most people consider making the worst possible move as a viable option when trying to win. Giving up assures you that you will lose, so sometimes, in difficult circumstances, it makes sense to try something “so crazy, it just might work.”

Train your mindset in small everyday ways like this. No game is too trivial. No situation is too minor. Take whatever opportunity you can to teach yourself to have a winner’s mindset. Keep going for that win even when the odds seem stacked against you. Trust me when I say that those wins feel the best.

If you liked this post, I also recommend reading my post on Oliver James’, as he is currently on the path to success despite dealing with functional illiteracy and mental health issues. It’s a truly inspirational story.

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.

…

…

…

…

…

…

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.

---

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