A while back I heard of an old woman watching a news report of someone driving the wrong way down the freeway. In a panic, she called her husband to warn him.
“Watch out Harold,” she said. “There’s a crazy guy going the wrong way on the freeway!”
“It’s not just one crazy guy, Mildred,” he replied. “There are hundreds of them!”
I’m always thinking about thinking, partly because of guys like Harold. He thought he was driving the right way. And this thought affected his life and his fellow drivers.
Truth is, it’s no joke. Many of us think we’re doing the right thing, going the right way, only later to discover we were wrong. We collide head-on with consequences, losing precious time, money, and opportunity. The way we think triggers behaviors, which create decisions, which create the outcome of our lives for better or worse.
I want better, not worse. So I do a lot of thinking about thinking.
But not just any thinking. I’m not interested in an encyclopedic knowledge of philosophy or neuroscience. These are vast frontiers most of us don’t have time to explore. Information is abundant, and it’s easy to get buried as it avalanches down on us. I’m interested in practical thinking. In wisdom. I want things boiled down to simplest functional form by people who know enough to do the boiling right. I want the good stuff. The best stuff. So I need not worry about all the rest of the stuff.
Problem is, most don’t understand irreducible simplicity, so they don’t even know where to begin. So I’m working to help. Here’s my quest: discover the vital truths, in simplest functional form, and communicate them in a compelling way.
Discover vital truths.
To discover vital truths, it’s important to be fully informed on the science and philosophy of thinking, and have enough skill in analysis and synthesis to boil things down yet not boil too far. The goal is to explore the complete lay of the land, so I’m more likely to have found the vital truths without overlooking anything.
Communicate them in a compelling way.
Once I’ve found the vital truths, the next step is to communicate them in a compelling way, so that people who don’t share my insatiable curiosity can understand and apply them.
This is my idea of fun. So I write this blog, research and write books, and develop training programs. The goal is to identify and deliver the vital truths that transform the way we think and live.