As I work through the lessons of this publishing course I signed up for a few weeks ago, there are assignments that help clarify your book idea, audience, and a host of other things necessary to get a book that people actually want to read published. Assignment #1 was writing your “Bookbait.” The idea is to write a short piece explaining your book to hook (hence the term bookbait) people’s interest. Then, apparently, you reel them in and get them to plunk down money to buy your book. You send or post your bookbait all over creation to get feedback on it so you can improve your book idea before publishing.
So dear readers, you’re my first choice to read my bookbait. The book isn’t even written yet so there’s no chance I’m asking for money. I just would very much appreciate your feedback. Please be brutally honest. Good or bad, I really need your reactions to this article. What you should know before you start reading is that my target audience is parents, grandparents, and educators of primarily pre-teen kids. Thinking 2 Steps Ahead has more universal appeal, but the book (the first book??!) will be focused on that audience.
Thinking 2 Steps Ahead: The Not Rocket Science Habit to Making Better Choices and Decisions
I was in 8th grade in a Catholic grade school. My classmates and I were standing in line waiting for something I’ve long forgotten. A girl, incredibly popular and with whom I desperately wanted to be friends, marched up to me, pulled my new glasses off my face and stepped on them. To everyone around she announced that I looked like a dog. At the time I should have realized that this couldn’t possibly be true because I’d NEVER, in my short life, seen a dog wearing glasses. Humiliated and embarrassed I ran the four blocks home and sobbed out the story to my mother. She looked at me and asked, “Are you sure you want to be friends with people like that?”
Dr Phil McGraw claims that each of us has about 10 defining life moments. That 8th grade hallway encounter was certainly a defining moment for me. Mom’s question caused me to think, in a new way, about who (and why) I chose as friends. It caused me to begin questioning whether what someone said to me, or asserted as true, was reasonable, possible, even actually true. I began to understand that day how to consider choices from different, more long-range, perspectives.
Do you ever regret decisions you’ve made? Do you ever want to take back something you’ve said or done because of the hurt it caused? Are you surprised by the unintended consequences of choices you’ve made? Do you wish you could teach kids how to make choices that prevent pain, shame, and remorse? Do you see how our culture is devolving to encourage us to parrot what we hear rather than think for ourselves? Do you want a simple method to weigh options that will yield the best possible outcome?
I’ve cultivated a simple, yet powerfully effective habit to make better choices and decisions. I dare say that this habit, which literally takes 2 seconds, is life changing.
Change your life because of a 2 second habit? Yes, that’s what I’m saying. And, in less time than it takes to watch a movie I can teach you (then, you can teach someone else) this habit and why it’s so important in creating the life you want. Yes, you’ll have to invest additional time to practice so it actually becomes habit, but it WILL make a difference in the quality and outcome of your decisions.
Do you know how to play checkers?
Nope. It’s not a trick question.
We all know how to play checkers, don’t we? It’s one of the first board games we are taught at, say, 6 years old.
What you probably don’t realize about the game of checkers is there’s a hidden secret to the game that few people understand, consider, or talk about. You see, learning to win at checkers is an opportunity to transfer that winning skill to one of the most important and practical life skills, that of decision and choice making.
If you’ve ever tried to read a book on how to make decisions, I’ll bet your eyes glazed over and you gave up long before you got anything useful out of the book. Most books about decision making contain fancy charts with impossible to remember names, acronyms, models, lists and probability statistics. Ordinary people don’t spend time using that stuff to make choices and decisions.
Ordinary people, people like you and me, are living in a fast paced, crazy, upside down world where we need to make choices and decisions in seconds with little information other than what’s staring us in the face at that moment.
Here’s the truth.
- Making choices and decisions is not rocket science. But that’s what a whole lot of “authorities” who write books on decision making would have you believe.
- No one can teach you to make GOOD decisions. You know what constitutes a good decision for you, because you are the one who has to live with the consequences. But you can easily (really!) learn to make better decisions. Decisions that don’t surprise you later with unintended consequences.
- Very young children can begin to learn to make better decisions. If you can teach them the fundamentals of checkers, they can learn the habit and method of making better choices.
Thinking 2 Steps Ahead is for ordinary people (OP). People like you and me who make daily decisions about where to spend our (never enough) money, what paths to follow, what behavior to exhibit, and how to react to things over which we have no control or choice. You know, everyday life. A life that involves doing the best we can with what we’ve got.
Thinking 2 Steps Ahead takes the simple process of choosing where to move a checker on the game board and shows how and why to use that very same thought process to win at the much higher stakes game of life.
Don’t you love it when you have an “Aha! Moment”? The phrase “Aha Moment” became part of the cultural lexicon following the phenomenal success of Stephen’s Covey’s impactful and inspiring book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I was a certified Covey 7 Habits facilitator for years and always thought Mr. Covey forgot a habit. I’m correcting that oversight with my book, Thinking 2 Steps Ahead, The Not Rocket Science Habit of Making Better Choices and Decisions.
Just as we never seem to have enough money, we also never seem to have enough time. But how much time would you invest for a life changing Aha Moment? Think of learning to Think 2 Steps Ahead as a gift to yourself and any other ordinary people and children over whom you have influence.
We all want to change the world…leave a legacy. Mine is to suggest how the few words, “let’s think 2 steps ahead about that for a sec…” is so radically helpful that the phrase will become a part of our cultural lexicon. Yours just might be kids who make great decisions and live the life you dream of for them.
There you have it, dear readers. Would you please let me know what you think, either in the comments or send me a private message. You all know how to reach me, or click on the contact form in the top menu bar. And thank you so much!
P.S. Have I mentioned lately how much I love living in Florida? The weather’s been absolutely gorgeous and I’m spending all my time on the lanai, writing, reading, puzzling, even doing taxes for us, my mom, and my sister. Except for if there were no taxes, there’s nothing better!
Leave a Reply