The more mental models we have access to, the better our decision-making. If one model does not fit, we can use another. Without options, we end up thinking from only one perspective, and we may miss a bigger part of the picture that can be accessible from another point of view. In the book, Parrish and Beaubien present nine general thinking concepts. These are my favorites.

The Map is not the Territory

A map is a representation of the reality, and it is also a picture in time. A map, however, does not represent reality accurately, a fact that we tend to forget. Maps are especially useful because without them, we could never navigate the world, as it is just too complex. These representations help us take these intricate circumstances and simplify them so we can have a manageable model to support our work. Parrish and Beaubien give the example of financial statements, which are a map that companies create to give us a quick snapshot of how the company is standing. A company is made up of thousands of transactions, and it would be impossible to grasp the meaning of all of them if we did not have a tool like financial statements. The same is true for company processes and policy manuals, which are an attempt to organize the work that we do in companies.

Our work as managers is to make the best maps possible — to keep our processes, manuals, and organizational charts updated. And it is important to remember that these tools are only maps and that there is a wider reality outside them that we may be missing. Reality is not as tidy as our maps purport it to be, and as the authors point out, if we close off or ignore feedback loops that challenge our maps, we will not update them in time, which can negatively affect our decision-making.

First Principles Thinking

When solving a problem, first principles thinking involves removing all our assumptions to find the fundamental elements that make up the issue. By working with first principles, we make sure we understand the essence of a problem instead of relying on what others have told us, and we can solve it from the basics. Then with those essentials, you can create a novel solution.

To get to the root of an issue, the authors recommend using Socratic questioning and the “Five Whys” technique. Socratic questioning follows these steps:

1. “Clarifying your thinking and explaining the origin of your ideas.

2. Challenging assumptions.

3. Looking for evidence.

4. Considering alternative perspectives.

5. Examining consequences and implications.

6. Questioning the original questions.”

The Great Mental Models, Shane Parrish and Rhiannon Beaubien

Socratic questioning is a systematic analytical tool. The Five Whys is also useful. As its name states, it is about questioning why something is, methodically, in order to arrive at the essence of a topic. We keep asking why until we reach a first principle. When we get to the basic building blocks of a solution, we can identify assumptions that are false, and we can also come up with innovative results. Our thinking is solidly rooted.

When we use first principles thinking, we can make up our own minds, and that gives us much more power. When I started working in real estate, I had no prior exposure to the industry. Everything I knew came from what others told me. They would talk about squared meters and the different construction methods, and I had no clue to what they were referring.

I knew that if I wanted to do well in real estate, I needed to educate myself, so I started to learn it for myself by reading, taking courses, researching, and simply doing the work. As I learned, I got a better grasp on the building blocks and was able to make my own decisions.

Inversion

I love the thought of inversion because it is so novel, and I must admit that it is one of the most challenging concepts for me. Instead of thinking about a problem from the beginning and moving to the end, you instead start at the end and move in the opposite direction.

The authors tell the story of Florence Nightingale, who used inversion to better understand what was causing British soldiers to die during the Crimean War. She approached the problem not from how to solve it, but from how they could prevent it from occurring in the first place. By doing so, mortality among the soldiers decreased precipitously, and she opened the door to the new era of modern nursing.

We can view any problem we have from the perspective. It is much easier to avoid problems than to be great at solving them. Therefore, if, for example, you want to develop more collaboration in your company, you could think about how you could prevent collaboration and simply not do those things. You may be surprised by what you will find. You may see, for instance, that you are doing something that may be an obstacle to that cooperation you are seeking.

The great mental models are a wonderful aid to add to your toolkit. I highly recommend learning more about them and using them in your decision-making.

Parrish, Shane and Beaubien, Rhiannon. The Great Mental Models. Latticework Publishing Inc., October 9, 2019. E-book.

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Inspired Thinking: Using Mental Models for a More Innovative Business was originally published in The Helm on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Dropping everything during the first ten weeks to homeschool my three young girls was the biggest challenge I faced as a working mom during the pandemic. I have never been a teacher, and my daughters were not used to having that relationship with me. So, I had to change and learn. On Sunday nights, I would prepare for the following week. Every morning, I developed a routine: I would put on classical music, and we would start our version of ballet dancing all over the room before beginning the classes for the day. Not every day was perfect, but somehow, we got through it by making it fun.

I worried that I was not doing a good job or teaching them enough. My second child, for example, was finishing Kindergarten, so we had to make sure her reading level was up to par in preparation for first grade. Ultimately, those weeks of homeschooling taught my husband and me about how to support our children with their learning.

Those ten weeks before summer vacation also coincided with adapting our company, Celaque, to remote work. As a team, we all had to face challenges with our families and our work. Everybody had to shift gears, and we had to reorganize the entire company to ensure we continued moving forward.

More draining than that was the underlying worry about what was to come and how it would impact our company. With two unfinished buildings, our city temporarily stopped construction. It was difficult for all of us, as we had to adjust to new roles and new ways of working. Nevertheless, little by little, things started to settle down. Although everything is quite different from how things were in February 2020, we have now come to a new normal where we are working despite the virus and moving forward as a company.

At home, we have also adapted. Luckily, I do not have to shoulder the burden of homeschooling alone. My wonderful husband and I have divided the school schedule between the two of us so that there is always a parent available during school hours, and he has taken the lead to make sure our girls are on track with their homeschooling. Right now, as I write, he is setting up the girls to start their day. I will take over in a couple of hours.

To maintain a balance, we have altered our schedules. We wake up earlier to make more time during the day to get our work out in and have enough time for our workday. We were also fortunate to find a teacher who has the afternoons available to help us with the girls. While she sets them up to do activities, I have my work meetings.

It is not always perfect. In the middle of the day, people might overhear a child screaming or crying, but that is the worse that can happen. I have also learned to lock my door so that no one will barge in with a complaint.

Schedules have become more critical than ever and having separate times and spaces for everything is vital. Every school day is the same — the girls know that their dad oversees a specific part of the day, and then it is my turn. They also know that if my door is locked, I am not to be disturbed. The little one will still try to interrupt, but we are coming to a better balance. Their schedules also give them a sense of stability.

Hopefully, schools and daycares will continue to reopen, and we will all be able to achieve a better balance as parents. This situation has been harder than any of us could have imagined, yet I will always treasure the gift of the extra time I have gotten to spend with my girls and my husband.

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Finding Balance When Working and Parenting in the Pandemic: This is Our Story was originally published in The Helm on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In his book, The Executive’s Compass: Business and the Good Society (public library), James O’Toole describes the use of a compass with the ideas of liberty (North) and equality (South) on the vertical axis and efficiency (East) and community (West) on the horizontal axis. These poles, notably the liberty-equality continuum, represent tradeoffs we must make as we search for the ideal society.

I read about the tension between the idea of full liberty and full equality, but I had never read that about the tradeoff that exists between efficiency and community. Ever since I learned about the efficiency-community axis, I have not stopped thinking about these two ideas and their location on the compass and how it applies both to work and to personal priorities.

In business, our goal is to improve efficiency: to produce as much as possible with the least amount of resources. For instance, we find ways to be more productive by buying more efficient software to cut out time. The more productive we are, the more successful the business.

By osmosis, we absorb these ideas and apply them to our schedules. Search for productivity on the web, and you will get almost 600 million hits. We are obsessed with doing more with the time we have.

However, once we start to save more time, we invest the time we have gained to produce more and more. It becomes an automatic reflex that pushes us to do more, and we may not even realize we are doing it.

Priorities

I have found myself on a treadmill of never-ending production. In 2018, my goal was to write and illustrate a children’s book, which I did. The next year, it was to write a business book, which I also wrote. I then wrote another children’s book, and in the meantime, I continued my normal responsibilities at work.

The efficiency I created has become a machine. I am proud of what I have created, but I want my productivity to work for me, and not the other way around. To do that, I am evaluating my priorities. Initially, my main concern was to launch all these new projects successfully, but now I want to rebalance.

So instead of feeding my productivity machine like I would have in the past by setting a goal for myself to write another nonfiction book as well as another children’s book, I am choosing to space out my projects more. Part of the reason for this rebalancing is to have more time for conversations and lunch meetings with friends and colleagues. I also want more unscheduled time when I can develop impromptu projects/ideas and as well as having the room to think. These are also priorities.

Changes Take Time

Reprioritizing takes time. Because life is already moving in one direction, it will likely not be feasible or desirable to cancel what we are doing and move the opposite way. Therefore, when we are ready to make a change, we will need to budget in some extra time to see the result.

Making the change to the current balance I have has been easier said than done. I had to see through the projects I had already launched. Adding the final adjustments to my business book and publishing it will take time, not to mention the marketing efforts it requires. Because I wrote it in English, I also want to translate it into Spanish, which takes a fair bit of time. I also have to launch my newest children’s book and market it.

In my case, I will see the real benefit when I have completed these projects, and I no longer have overly ambitious goals in the pipeline. I am happy that I have developed the capacity to write books, but now I must balance that with everything else in my life to make sure I am not focusing on one extreme, as tempting as that may be.

In the end, as the compass illustrates, there is no one good point on the axis of community and efficiency. Just as it is a tradeoff at the level of society, it is also at a personal level and our work is to continue to seek the one best point that is best at our current stage of life.

O’Toole, James. The Executive’s Compass: Business and the Good Society. Reprint Edition. Oxford University Press, April 20, 1995. E-book.

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Best Practices for Managing Priorities and Productivity was originally published in Live Your Life On Purpose on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

When I began setting up our processes, I tried to do it for every part of the company. This effort turned out to be very successful. We were able to avoid many preventable problems, and we have also been able to operate consistently and with the quality we envisioned. I think this is where processes shine — they help you take care of the vital work that needs to be executed to operate as you envisage.

Then I realized that there was a limit to what processes could do: there needed to be a healthy equilibrium. Not everything in a company can be scripted. Some situations are complex and don’t work linearly, where the response of one person will alter the reaction of the next. These events call for a professional’s judgment.

Judgment

There is a delicate balance between what should be added to a process and what should be left up to discretion. The line is thin, and the balance shifts.

Possibly, in the beginning, part of the context of your imagined process may mostly be unknown for those within the company, but with time, you can start to discern patterns. For instance, the real estate sales process was initially unfamiliar to me. I wasn’t sure if there was a method I could follow or what it looked like in my geographic location. There weren’t many other companies doing what we were doing, so I would manage everything on an ad hoc basis, responding in the best way I knew how at every event.

Gradually, we figured out what worked best for us as a team and in our context, and we were able to develop a process. We left room for what we cannot script — space for discussion about how to give our customers the best service possible, for example.

As new situations arise, I have noticed the same pattern. In essence, we will handle the activities on a case-by-case basis until we are sure about what we are doing and how to work with the situation in the best manner possible. Then, we add what we can to the processes to ensure quality and consistency and leave a part of the work to judgment. From there, we start the cycle again.

Furthermore, the processes themselves may vary from situation to situation. If the person who is managing the procedures has plenty of experience, the steps involved can serve mostly as guidelines. Still, if the person that is using the processes is entry-level, the required steps will have to be more explicit.

For very detailed workflows, an exact procedure is best. If the process is intricate, like the closing of a sale where the salesperson needs to get signatures for documents, update accounting records and then the company inventory, a detailed checklist will work well. The procedure will be a helpful aid to prevent missed steps. Sometimes, we have so much happening daily that a list can be the support we need to make sure we are accomplishing everything.

Processes are a reminder and help us become more efficient. They allow us to achieve all the necessary work so that nothing basic or fundamental is left out. Then, there will be less time putting out fires and more time dedicated to thinking. For any position, there must be space for thinking strategically and solving issues that will inevitably arise.

Implementing processes is a dance between the two — the list and strategic thinking.

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A Journey Into The World Of Processes was originally published in The Helm on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Implementing new ideas is not always easy. Sometimes we arrive with the best intentions at a new company and want to introduce many innovations, but we may come face-to-face with entrenched patterns within an organization. Even in organizations that we have led for some time, we might find resistance when we try to institute new practices.

Whether you wish to implement a company intranet, a new business process management system, or the use of objectives and key results in your company, you may face friction. This occurrence is normal, especially if it is not a solution to an existing problem but rather improvement. Having to learn a new tool or information system takes additional time on top of daily procedures.

Because this situation happens often, it helps to be prepared.

Make Sure You Need the Implementation

Sometimes we are tempted to implement new ideas or information systems mainly because they have worked well for others or because they seem to be ubiquitous. Still, those new concepts may not be compatible with your company. Make sure that the latest idea is needed, and it will likely have the positive outcome you foresee.

Design It Well

When you are planning the implementation, tailor it to your company and your needs, as every company is different. I also recommend giving people ample time to learn about the system or tool and developing a training plan.

Communication is Key

Before you start your implementation, let users know about the new project and how it will affect them. If the team is small enough, sharing the research and plans as they arise is a good idea. You can then obtain real-time feedback and implement an even better project. When you’re ready to launch your initiative, it’s always best to stay in close contact with the users to obtain ongoing feedback as necessary.

Answer Concerns

Often, there will be concerns. As the project implementor, you will be the one fielding those concerns. It’s also possible that you don’t hear any of the concerns, but you will notice if something is missing when you do not see the results you want. Make sure you provide channels for feedback, so people will let you know their thoughts.

If they have a valid concern or suggestion, I recommend making the necessary changes. People will feel heard and will be more likely to make suggestions in the future.

Iterate as Necessary

With the feedback you receive, make improvements. Rarely is an implementation 100% perfect once you have finished the project. Often, there will be modifications you can make to help it run better or to be more relevant to your users.

Once the implementation phase is over, and as you use the tool over time, you will likely learn even more. I recommend iterating as long as you have new ideas for improving your project.

Have Patience

It takes time for some projects to be absorbed within a company fully. When I first implemented our project management software, Wrike, to manage our processes and our projects, it took many months for people to utilize it fully. It represented a significant change in the way we managed our daily operations. People now had to handle tasks that others assigned to them, and they needed to update the tasks often. They were not accustomed to this mode of work, and as a result, it took longer than I expected.

The good news is that as new people entered the company, they quickly adapted to the system, and soon, everybody was using it.

Highlight Positive Outcomes

When someone is using a tool correctly, especially one that others have not learned as quickly, I like to highlight the achievement. In our monthly company-wide meetings, we publicly acknowledge positive examples of how people are using the tool. We also underscore the benefits of using it.

With time and patience, the implementation will become a regular part of your company’s daily operations. People will then comment, as they often do to me, that they can’t imagine working without one of those systems you likely implemented. You will then move to the next project, and the cycle starts again (though hopefully, the next time around will be more straightforward).

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How to Implement New Tools and Achieve the Best Results was originally published in Live Your Life On Purpose on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

As managers, much of our daily work is problem-solving — going from one issue to the next and resolving each one. We need to approve transactions or discuss with others how to proceed with a question. This type of work requires being able to solve one task at a time and think on our feet. It may also require building consensus and teamwork. It is dynamic work and is full of activity.

Directed Attention

There are other times, though, when we need to do a more intense kind of work. Sometimes we must do a deep-dive and research a new topic. We may have to think through an entrenched problem or start and engage with a challenging project that requires concentrated attention.

Here, a different type of performance is necessary: one in which we take the time to immerse ourselves in an issue and think through it. Because part of our work is to move from one task to the next and solve problems as they arise, the more intense type of action may be a challenge. Simply finding the time and attention necessary might be difficult.

1. Taking the Time

Setting aside a block of time in which we will not be distracted and can focus on the matter at hand is the first step. Our schedules are often hectic, and a million small activities may take priority over that one big project. Sometimes we have not organized our plans around being able to work on these types of projects, and we do not have a set time for each of the activities we do.

One thing that has worked well for me is to gradually build in the space in my schedule for more intensive projects. In my case, I reserved the morning, which is the time when I can devote the most attention to difficult assignments.

Then I save the afternoons when my energy has slightly diminished, to interact with smaller issues because I often collaborate with others, and that gives me momentum.

It took me around six months to get used to my new workflow. Eventually, though, I left the space blocked off in my schedule so that every time I must do this type of more profound work, I have the time and attention ready to do so.

2. Discipline

Intensive work also requires discipline: to sit day after day, moment after moment, working hard to get it all done. There will always exist more dynamic, easier things to do, but it is these hard, focused tasks that will often bear the most significant fruit.

Therefore, persevering is the only way that the work will get done. For more on discipline, please read Self-Discipline: The Personal Quality that will Expand Your Business.

Getting started is often the most challenging step but finding the discipline each day will help you progress in each project you begin. You will make progress without even realizing it, as showing up is half the battle.

3. Attention

Having uninterrupted time is the first step to making sure you can do intense, thoughtful work. Beware, though, because sometimes the worst interruptions are the ones that exist right next to us, in our hands — our phones.

I often have a couple of conversations going through text messaging, and sometimes they are much more interesting than whatever I am working on. From there, it is a short hop to other apps like Instagram, and I can lose more than a few minutes that I hadn’t originally budgeted.

Another one of the great enemies to thoughtful, intense work is multitasking. We unfortunately, believe that we can do more than one thing at the time. It has been shown, however, that multitasking reduces our performance. We may think we’re multitasking, but what we are doing is moving from one task to the next.

The problem is that once we move from one job to the other, it can take as many as 25 minutes to get back on track once we have interrupted the initial task. Once we are engaging with our project, it is best to shut off all distractions and give the project at hand the proper attention to focus completely.

Not only will you perform better, but you will also give your attention to those vital projects that will have the results you want.

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Finding Focus in a World of Multiple Projects and Distractions was originally published in Live Your Life On Purpose on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Sometimes we are stopped before we have even begun — fear can prevent us from taking any action at all. We might not even consciously know it because we justify our lack of action in different ways. My go-to justification for not doing something I want or must do is that I don’t have the time.

There comes a moment, however, when we don’t want to listen to our excuses, and we must take the first step. I have found that the work itself is not what is difficult, it is the anticipation before moving forward. Once I am taking the actions, despite feeling anxiety, the step is always easier than what I had made it out to be. The tricky part is moving past that paralyzing unease and stepping into what can feel like a black void. Here are some ways to move past the fear and get into action.

Educating Yourself

Education will help you learn from the experiences of others. You might be feeling anxiety simply because you don’t know much about the subject, and you may be fearful of the circumstances as much more complicated than what they are. I recently had a minor health scare, and previously I’d never had any significant health issues. After going through a biopsy, it turns out I must have minor surgery.

The whole process was not easy for me — I know little to nothing about medicine. What helped me deal with the situation was learning about the surgery I will have and that it wasn’t life-threatening, and just as importantly, I learned about what the implications could be if I didn’t have the surgery.

Similarly, for a new venture, knowledge can help you plan better. By educating yourself about what it will involve, you can learn from the mistakes that others have made without having to make them yourself. You will have a better panorama and will likely have an easier time as you complete your new project.

Baby Steps

Sometimes, the action you are taking would be easy for you under any other circumstances, yet for some reason, you cannot find the motivation. This situation happened to me when I was first writing and publishing my children’s book. For the life of me, I couldn’t send emails to my illustrator and my publisher without feeling butterflies in my stomach. I have sent thousands of emails over my professional life, yet I couldn’t get myself to take these simple actions because I was afraid of putting my book out in the world.

What helps in these kinds of situations is to take small steps, even micro-actions. If you are writing, begin with just 50 words to get the ball rolling. If you find that you are paralyzed, open a document, and put a title on it — you may find this to be more than enough. Then the next day you do a little bit more, and little by little, the inertia relaxes its grip.

Finding Support

I seldom talk to people about health or other personal problems. This time, I decided to do it differently and told my friends as soon as I found out. Some gave me advice, and others just listened. But mostly, they helped me get through the fear of having to have surgery. I’m still afraid, but I feel more secure in the knowledge of their support.

The same thing happens with your ventures. Taking the first step for a big project or even a new habit can be difficult. Others who have gone through something similar can help you, and you can also do it together! Peer coaching groups can be a great source of permanent support. For more on peer groups, see Peer Coaching and How It Can Benefit Your Business and How to Set Up Your Peer Coaching Group for Success.

It Gets Easier

I believe that it gets easier as we start to notice the anxiety every time that we start something new. It becomes almost like an old friend and we inevitably learn and get better. These new ventures teach us how to deal with whatever life presents us so that we are stronger and more capable in the future.

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Starting New Projects and Managing Uncertainty was originally published in The Helm on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I’ve thought about this often — producing the type of invention that will be just the right combination of features our customers need. My company is a real estate development firm, and we construct apartment and office buildings. Before we launch a new project, we tweak it and modify it until we are confident that we have the best possible design. Our customers and whether they buy it or not, however, are the ultimate judges.

Market Research

As part of our building design, we are continually finding out who our customer is and what he or she wants. We perform surveys and hire market researchers; we also prepare our research reports. Market research is key to understanding the market we are in as well as trying to predict what direction it is likely to follow.

I find market research to be more of an art than a science. Numbers paint a picture, but it is not always precise. The data, for example, may indicate a demand, and you may extrapolate those values to see how many of your products you can sell, but at the end of the day, it might not work the way you expected.

Market research, by definition, looks at the past. Sometimes you have to give the customer something they are not even expecting.

“Some people say, ‘Give the customers what they want.’ But that’s not my approach. Our job is to figure out what they’re going to want before they do. I think Henry Ford once said, ‘If I’d asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me, A faster horse!’ People don’t know what they want until you show it to them. That’s why I never rely on market research. Our task is to read things that are not yet on the page.”

- Steve Jobs

Although I believe in the importance of research, I like the spirit of Steve Jobs’ quote. There are products that people may have never seen or which they cannot imagine because they have not been created. Understanding the underlying need and what they like or don’t like may provide clues for that future product.

Finally, market research doesn’t just happen in research reports, you can do it every day. You can improve your knowledge by paying attention to feedback. At Celaque, my company, we listen through our surveys and feedback. We are always open to hearing from our clients and other partners. As we look, we learn more and integrate as many good ideas as we can into our designs.

Flexibility

Some products have shorter production lead times and others much longer. If your product is in the first category, it may be easier to iterate with small quantities until you find the right blend of design and price. In real estate, we do not have the luxury of experimenting once we have started construction — once you build a building, it’s there for many years. Changing it is difficult at best.

One way to leave room for iteration when we design is that we create flexible spaces. For office space, people can buy/lease smaller or larger units. If something is not selling as we expected it to, we find ways to alter our product.

If necessary, we change uses, so instead of aiming to sell, we’ll lease. We have also experimented with leasing for shorter periods and with including furniture in the rent. If all else fails, there is always the price, which we can tweak as we notice fluctuations in demand. Then the cycle repeats. We work on creating a better product in the future.

Ultimately, we do the best we can, but the market is the most critical judge. If people buy it, it’s because we designed what they wanted and needed. If it sells, it worked, and if it doesn’t, it didn’t — there is some discrepancy between their expectations and our product. As part of the design team, I can tell you this can be very hard to accept, especially if you have put your heart into what you produced. Nevertheless, in order to design a better product in the future, we listen, we learn, and we do it again and again.

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Finding Out What Your Customer Wants and Needs was originally published in The Helm on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I just finished editing the bulk of my book, and what is left now are only a few final edits and formatting work. I don’t know how I am going to publish it yet (if anybody has any tips, I will be glad to hear them!), but for now, I feel liberated. Writing that book took everything I had.

I always wanted to write a book and I finally decided to write one in 2019. Initially, when I started in January of that year, I set out to write 60,000 words. I borrowed some material from my blog because I have developed many of my ideas there. I also wanted to find academic papers and books to support the views I had and to add many other new ideas.

The Editing Process

At first, I found it hard to write — I had to find the will to sit down and write every day. I started with 200 words per day, but I gradually increased it and was able to finish the first draft of my book by July, which was six months ahead of my established goal.

I then set out to find an editor. When I found one that matched my desired requirements and hired him, he read the book and told me that while we had work ahead of us, I had a real book in my hands. That was a relief to hear until he advised me to cut at least 15,000 words and to get the book up to 70,000 words, which meant writing a new 25,000 words in two months.

To say this was hard is an understatement. I spent three weeks upset, even as I wrote. Eventually, however, I stopped feeling sorry for myself and wrote the additional 25,000 words. In the process, I added a new chapter, of which I now feel very proud.

I then resubmitted my book, chapter by chapter, and, it now totaled at 73,000 words. My editor provided comments and suggestions for every chapter that I submitted. Having to respond to each of the observations was tedious, to say the least (see The Value of Personal Growth: Pushing Through the Pain).

I also watched my word count diminish with each new chapter I received back from my editor. In the end, he cut another 9,000 words, due mostly to repetition. By then, I had stopped feeling sorry for myself about having to write more and had to instead search for the motivation to continue. In the end, I didn’t quite find it, so I just forced myself and finished the book. There was an upside to this: I learned more than I had bargained for from my editor’s feedback. It was like a crash course on how to write a book.

The goal was to send the book back to my editor by the middle of February of 2020. As I received each chapter from him, I would go through his comments, add in anecdotes where I needed more, checked the section using Grammarly (a grammar and spelling app), and reread each of the chapters. We both agreed that most chapters required more work. Even after all the editing, they still didn’t flow the way I wanted them to, so I edited them yet again. In a few cases, I only needed to add a transition paragraph or two, and that seemed to make my chapters read better.

In other chapters, however, I needed to do much more work. In one I performed major surgery. I moved paragraphs around, added new material, and cut out other passages. When I compared my final document with its original version, the enhanced section looked like I had moved every single paragraph to a different place.

The Tools that Supported Me

I would not have been able to survive without Grammarly to check my spelling and grammar throughout. Another tool that proved invaluable was my outline. I followed my editor’s advice and overhauled it. When we first started working together, he told me that this framework was everything. I believed him, as I came to realize that my original outline was not detailed enough, and in the end, it became my most reliable backbone.

I used it to make sure the logic of the content made sense. My outline helped me standardize the formats for my titles and improve each of the headings themselves. The most significant benefit, however, was that it helped me see where I needed to make changes by moving around passages.

Furthermore, I created a word count spreadsheet to keep track of how long each of my chapters was. To write my first draft, I worked with Scrivener, which is an excellent program for that stage of the process, as it helped me keep track of the entire book in one single document.

Once I started the editing process, however, I sent each chapter to my editor in a Word document. Going through his comments and then resending the edited chapters was easier to do with Word, so I never went back to Scrivener. Keeping a word count tally helped me rebalance the length of some of the chapters because some were originally much longer than the rest.

Seeing the Light at the End of the Tunnel

I feel like I birthed a new child. I’m proud and a little in disbelief. I am also a bit anxious about the publishing process. As I reflect on the experience, I feel like this book forced me to dig deep within myself and that I put in every drop of my effort into it. Besides starting and building a company, I think this is the hardest project I have ever undertaken.

If you want to write a book, I recommend it as an incredible, if also challenging, experience. I told my husband in July when I finished my first draft that the book had already paid me back. There is no way I would have learned so much about the topic, or about writing, otherwise.

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Writing a Book and What I’ve Learned was originally published in Live Your Life On Purpose on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Most of us do not buy and sell securities for a living, but we all face risk whenever we make a decision. The quality of our outcomes depends on how well we deliberate and manage the inherent risk in our choices. We aim to select the best possible path, but there is always a risk that it will turn out differently.

Measuring Risk

“First, it clearly is nothing but a matter of opinion: hopefully an educated, skillful estimate of the future, but still just an estimate. Second, the standard for quantification is nonexistent …. Third, risk is deceptive. Conventional considerations are easy to factor in, like the likelihood that normally recurring events will recur. But freakish, once-in-a-lifetime events are hard to quantify. “

- The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor, Howard Marks

According to Marks, there is no real way to quantify risk. This issue is especially true for private investments that do not have public valuations. He holds that the best way to measure risk is through judgment based on experience.

At Celaque, this is how we also measure risk. All of this is not to say, however, that judgment equals a person’s gut instinct about the uncertainty. For every critical decision, weighing all the risks and finding ways to minimize losses without sacrificing gain is essential.

Anything Can Happen

“I realized that because of its latent, nonquantitative and subjective nature, the risk of an investment — defined as the likelihood of loss — can’t be measured in retrospect any more than it can a priori.”

- The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor, Howard Marks

The past could have turned out differently. This conclusion is one of my biggest takeaways from the book. In a way, it is all a gamble: what happened in the past is only one possible outcome of many that could have happened. That great decision which had a terrific conclusion in the past may have easily not occurred. Nothing is written in stone.

The same applies to the future, as there are many possible results. When we make a decision, we are hoping for the best outcome, but an improbable one can also occur.

“Bruce (Newberg) has put it admirably into words: ‘There’s a big difference between probability and outcome. Probable things fail to happen — and improbable things happen — all the time.’ That’s one of the most important things you can know about investment risk.”

- The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor, Howard Marks

Working with Probability

“Obviously investors are required to make judgments about future events. To do that, we settle on a central value around which we think events are likely to cluster …. But to cope with the future it’s not sufficient to have a central expectation; we have to have a sense for the other possible outcomes and their likelihood. We need a distribution that describes all of the possibilities.”

- The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor, Howard Marks

Probability is not the same thing as the result. One outcome may be more likely than another, but that doesn’t mean that the less probable one will not occur. The point is that the future is unknown. Some things will happen, and others will not. We can use probability to make the most thoughtful decisions possible, and that is the best we can do.

The fact that the future is unpredictable does not mean we must not do anything. We must take action, and we must continue to make decisions. We can, as Howard Marks suggests, find a central probability around which events are likely to occur, and then determine what the rest of the probability distribution looks like.

If you take the time to study the adverse outcomes of a decision, you may find ways to reduce unnecessary risk. With enough thought, you may find easy fixes that may make unacceptable results less likely. As an example, we buy plots of land that we later use to develop our buildings. In or negotiations, we look for ways to minimize how much risk we take on by dividing the transaction in two or agreeing on more extended periods to make our payments.

“In short, what is it that makes outcomes tolerable even when the future doesn’t live up to your expectations? The answer is margin for error.”

- The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor, Howard Marks

One final insight: margin for error. If your decisions have enough of a margin of safety, you have enough room for the loss that will occur at one time or another.

Once risk has been mapped, and unnecessary perils have been removed, then, with enough margin for error, we can choose the best action. Over time, if we consistently work in this way to reduce risk, our track record will show the quality of our decisions.

Marks, Howard. The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor. Columbia Business School Publishing, May 2011. Hardcover.

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How Risk Management Can Protect and Grow Your Business was originally published in The Helm on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.