Thinking vs Strategizing

I remember reading a funny line from an author: "I don't know why they call hunting a sport. If it were really a sport, animals would have weapons so they can shoot back."

With that in mind, let me share wtih you an important distinction between "thinking" and "strategizing."

Thinking is like hitting a tennis ball over the net. It's also like shooting at aluminum cans a few meters away.

Strategizing, however, is "thinking about thinking so that your thinking beats the other guy's thinking."

In other words, strategizing is "meta-thinking."

The key is to be able to "predict, explain and control (or influence)" other people's thinking. Read Robert Cialdini for more on persuasion techniques.

However, before we even get to a point where we can influence other people's thinking, we first have to prevent them from influencing our own thinking.

Noam Chomsky calls this "intellectual self-defense."

Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of people on this planet have not been trained in the art of intellectual self-defense.

Indeed, the doors to people's minds are flung wide open. Any and all information from TV, magazines, social conversations, etc. will easily pass through those doors and enter a person's mind.

In the long run, people's minds are filled with so much junk information that they are literally incapable of thinking straight.

Let me give you a powerful metaphor to illustrate what is really going on.

Suppose you have a house and that every day, at 9 AM, you hear the door bell ring. You open the door and see a long line-up of people who carry something in their hands: boxes, appliances, even furniture. There's about 200 people lining up in front of your house.

Surprised, you ask them: "What's this all about? How come you guys are lining up at my door?
"

And they say: "Oh, we come bearing gifts. We have stuff for you. It's all free! Can we come in?"

You're thinking: "Hmmm. It's free, so I got nothing to lose." So you tell them: "Alright, come on in!"

And one by one, they bring stuff into your house. The process is repeated every day. Then, at the end of the week, you realize that there's so much stuff in the house that you barely have space to walk!

However, you can't persuade yourself to throw anything out. And you can't refuse to open the door the next day, because the stuff that keeps coming is all FREE!

The worse part is that you can't even find your usual electric appliances, because it's buried deep underneath the useless stuff piled on top of it. So you can't even use your own stuff!

The above is a brutal visual metaphor, but it's exactly what is happening to people's minds. The mind of the ordinary citizen is filled up with so much junk and irrelevant information that people can't think straight anymore.

And with blackberries and text-enabled cell phones and iPods, etc. information now furiously comes to you from so many sources.

Now compare that situation with that of a mental master, who has learned to say No to most of the junk information that comes to him. The mental master hears the door bell ring, so he opens the door. The first guy in the long line-up says the usual thing: "We come bearing gifts for you. It's all free! Can we come in?"

The mental master says: "I appreciate your gesture, but I won't be needing any of that stuff."

So all the people lining up in front of the house turn around and go home. The mental master shuts the door and continues his practice of a lethal martial art called "mental kung fu." Since his house (or mind) is not cluttered by useless and even misleading information, he can think clearly and can see realities which most people do not see.

Because he can think clearly, he can strategize.

Most people, however, can't even think clearly because their mind is full of clutter and useless information.

The secret is that your mind is the holy space where wealth is born. So you have to protect that sacred space. Don't give away your attention to anyone. Treat your time as the ultimate resource.

Rich people have known this for a long time. Donald Trump for instance requires of his presidents and vice-presidents that they give him verbal reports by phone in 30 seconds or less. He doesn't have time to read lengthy reports. He says to his direct reports: "Tell me what I need to know in 30 seconds."