Thinking Is to Acting Like a Torch Is to a Floodlight
Psst! I’m about to let you in on the biggest secret in writing: the best ideas come to you while you’re writing, not while you’re mulling things over. Even if you’re not a writer, this insight may prove useful, because it holds true for all spheres of human activity. An entrepreneur won’t know whether a product will be successful until she produces it and launches it onto the market—no matter how much consumer research she’s done. A salesman develops a killer pitch by making countless refinements and experiencing numerous rebuffs—not by studying sales manuals. Parents become proficient at childrearing by dealing with their own kids on a daily basis—not by reading handbooks. And musicians develop mastery through practice—not by debating the potential of their instruments.
Why should this be? Because the world is opaque to us—non-transparent, cloudy as frosted glass. Reality is never fully illuminated; even the most erudite among us can see only a few meters in a particular direction. If we want to go beyond the limits of our knowledge, we’ve got to forge ahead instead of standing still—we’ve got to act, not agonize.
I have a friend, an intelligent man with an MBA (but let’s not hold that against him) and a good middle-management job at a pharmaceutical company, who has spent more than ten years setting up his own firm. He’s devoured hundreds of books about entrepreneurship, spent thousands of hours considering his product offering, pored over stacks of market research and written two dozen business plans. The upshot? So far, nothing. He always reaches a point at which his deliberations tell him: Your idea’s got a lot of promise, but so much depends on how well you implement it and how your competitors behave. And no amount of contemplation will take him a millimeter beyond this point. This is the moment at which the amount of additional information that can be gleaned by pondering an issue drops to zero. This is the moment I like to call the point of maximum deliberation.
Not that I’ve got any objection to mulling things over! Even brief periods spent considering an idea can produce tremendous insights. Yet this process gives rapidly diminishing returns, and it’s astonishing how quickly the point of maximum deliberation is reached. Take investment decisions, for instance: once you’ve got all the available facts on the table, you need at most three days to chew them over. Decisions about your private life? Perhaps a week. A career change? Five days, max. You might give yourself a bit of extra time so that passing mood swings don’t have an undue impact on your decision. But after that, meditation won’t get you any further—if you want new information, you’ve got to act.
Compared with the pocket torch of deliberation, action is a veritable floodlight. Its beam carries far further into the unfathomable world beyond. And once you’ve reached a place that’s new and interesting, you can always switch your torch back on.
The following question illustrates the importance of enterprise. Whom would you choose to keep you company on a desert island in the middle of the ocean? Take a moment to think about it before you read on. Your partner? Your boyfriend or girlfriend? A consultant? The cleverest professor you know? Or an entertainer? Of course not! You’d choose a boatbuilder.
Theorists, professors, consultants, writers, bloggers and journalists like to imagine that the world reveals itself to them through contemplation. Sadly, this is rarely the case. Thinkers like Newton, Einstein and Feynman are exceptions. Nearly all progress toward greater understanding—whether in the sciences, the economy or everyday life—is achieved through physical interaction with the invisible world. Through exposure to the unknown.
This is easier said than done. Even I tend to give things far too much thought, going well beyond the point of maximum deliberation. Why? Because it’s more comfortable. It’s much nicer to mull things over than to seize the initiative. Speculation is more agreeable than realization. As long as you’re still weighing up your options, the risk of failure is nil; once you take action, however, that risk is always greater than zero. This is why reflection and commentary are so popular. If you’re simply thinking something over, you’ll never bump up against reality, which means you can never fail. Act, however, and suddenly failure is back on the cards—but you’ll gain new experiences. “Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted,” as the saying goes.
Pablo Picasso knew how valuable it was to be bold, to experiment. “To know what you want to draw,” he said, “you must begin to draw.” And it’s exactly the same with life. To know what you want, it’s best to just embark on something. This chapter may give you a prod in the right direction, but be warned: you won’t find the good life by thinking about it.
Psychologists call it the introspection illusion: the mistaken notion that contemplation by itself can allow us to identify our true desires, our purpose in life, the golden core of personal happiness (see Chapter 8). It’s more likely that self-inquiry will get you bogged down in moodiness, vague thoughts and diffuse emotional impulses.
So the next time you’re about to make an important decision, mull it over carefully—but only to the point of maximum deliberation. You’ll be surprised how quickly you reach it. Once you’re there, flick off your torch and switch on your floodlight. It’s as useful in the workplace as it is in the home, whether you’re investing in your career or in your love life.