Today at the Twitter revenue all-hands meeting I heard Wade Chambers, our VP of Engineering, say:
"It's easier to act your way into a new way of thinking than think your way into a new way of acting."
He said it very casually, but it was a statement that really resonated with me and I want to reflect on that here.
First, I traced back this quote. It goes back to Jerry Sternin in his book "The Power of Positive Deviance: How Unlikely Innovators Solve the World's Toughest Problems".
I mentioned in several posts before that my top priority lately is establishing a vision for myself, perhaps in a similar way to what Dobromir did where he wrote down life goals that he wants to achieve as far out into the future as 2030.
While I have been reflecting on that, my process was still quite passive. I am, essentially, thinking my way into a new way of acting. What I really need is to act my way into a new way of thinking.
In hindsight, I started doing some of that already, but I need to do more. The biohacking I did in NYC and a lot of the side projects I have been doing, while mostly for leisure, can be considered a way of acting.
Getting into MIT's entrepreneurship bootcamp is a big step in that direction as well. I took action by reaching out to them, I have action items now to study four MOOCs in the next month before flying out to the bootcamp in Australia. And, I am hoping that the bootcamp itself inspires more action.
Action, guided by a little bit of reflection, is what I need. Let's do more of that, please.