It's Not About the Shark

Problems infect our thinking in many ways—but the basic equation is simple. If we let problems define who we are, if we let problems serve as our guide, then our problems tell us what we can’t do. We can’t do this. We can’t do that. Our lives become negatives and absences.

The science, you will see, is spectacularly clear: If we look to our problems first, if we let a problem define the entirety of what we do next, more likely than not we will fail.

This is a book about what we do when we have a problem. And research shows that what we do most of the time is crawl deep inside our problems. We define everything on the problems’ terms. We limit what we think is possible based on the boundaries the problems set for us. We look at the problems every which way, only to conclude that every available response produces alternate forms of failure. Like staring at the sun and not being able to see the sky all around it, we stare at our problems and cannot see anything else, much less a solution.

We overvalue speed in almost everything we are doing—because we associate speed with effort. But hurrying wears us down and closes out possibilities. Slow down in something you do today and see how much more you can get out of it.