THINK STRAIGHT: Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life
Published November 20th 2017 by Darius Foroux (first published 2017), Kindle Edition 82 pages
I know something about you without knowing you. I bet you spend A LOT of time in your head. You know, thinking, worrying, stressing, freaking out — call it whatever you want. I call it a preoccupied mind. And with what?
99% of your thoughts are useless. William James, once the leading psychologist in America, and one of the founders of the philosophical school of pragmatism, put it best:
“A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.”
Pragmatism believes that the mind is a tool. Your mind should work for you, not against you. People who don’t master their mind, don’t believe it’s possible.
They say: “I can’t help but thinking these things.”
Well, you can TAKE CONTROL of your mind with enough practice. I’ve done it. And in THINK STRAIGHT, I share exactly how. It’s a quick read and you can use it to immediately to improve your thinking.
You have the ability to decide what you think. Or, you can choose NOT to think.
And that is one of the most important and most practical things you can learn in life. Before I learned that skill, I would spend hours and hours inside my head.
Just think about how much you think.
“I wonder what my boss thinks?”
“What happens if I screw up and lose my job?”
“What if my business never takes off?”
“Does she love me?”
“Why does my life suck?”
"What if I get cancer?”
“I can’t finish anything. What’s wrong with me?”
And the list goes on.
THINK STRAIGHT reveals the recipe for taking control of your mind so you can improve your life, career, relationships, business.
I wrote this little book in a way that you can read it more than once. And I hope that this book serves as an anchor to you—especially during trying times.
The mind is the most powerful tool on earth. Change the way you think. And you’ll change your life.
User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
I picked up this book because I was looking for an instant motivation. A ready-to-lift-your-mood sorts. The brief was compelling and I headed right into it.
Turns out that this book is more like a self-help refresher-it has points picked up from the best of the motivational reads and compiled all together, in short chapters that you can literally breeze through in an hour's time. The author sets out on a quest to compel you why controlling your thoughts is important, and does that rightly so. The book hardly has any novel idea, and the good part is the author is pretty clear about that from the start. The other good thing about it is that it is precise, and does not harp on the concepts that have been repeatedly talked about across the self help world.
So if you are looking for a ready to motivate sort of book that gives you instant results, this is the book you should pick. Just keep your hot water (mind) ready (open). :)
Rating: really liked it
this would make a great blog post or podcast, but not all bloggers and podcasters have enough material for writing actual books. there isn't enough new information here to make it worth it. it sounds more like stray notes for a book that were shuffled together and printed. it's only 80 pages with a lot of blank space after every 'chapter'. they're more like vignettes, since they're only a couple of pages each. it doesn't go into detail about anything, just seems to ramble on and then stop and head into a completely different topic.
a lot of it is just autobiographical anecdotes or assumptions, like: after reading a lot of books, you have a "mental breakdown" and that's what makes you give up. he may have been talking about burn-out. it's confusing and lacks explanation for weird-ass theories. for example, and i'm paraphrasing page 59 here: "you don't need meditation, just let go of everything and go inside your mind and relax. if you don't know how, practice." - i'm pretty sure that's the definition of meditation. besides, a few pages later... there's a chapter explaining how to meditate XD i'm serious p. 79
there are a LOT of one-liner quotations and they are all formatted: "like so and so famously said:" or "as so and so put it:" and then their quote (which we've all heard a thousand times).
there's also weird grammar every now and then, like:
"i'll prove them!"
"let loose of your thoughts"
"use it or leave it"
"the devil is in the detail"
"don't play favors"
"you'll never going to use (...)"
i find it hard to take seriously any book that keeps telling me to google something or has a link mid-sentence to someone's website.
other pearls:
a pros and cons list of being in a relationship. each list has only 1 item on it.
a half-page long graphic explaining how to 'think outside the box'
"avoid making decisions based on beliefs, obvious logic, and even science" p. 40
and by the way, 'Predictably Irrational' was Dan Ariely's book, not 'predictable irrationality' :P can't even get the title of a famous book spelled properly, seriously.
like NBC's 'A.P. Bio' famously said: "Start shutting up now."
Rating: really liked it
I usually don't pick these Gyaan books for some obvious reasons. This books was surprisingly great and I am glad I read it. Its medium length, practical, direct and honest. Read it when you really are controlled by your thoughts. This was such an experience to me.
Rating: really liked it
"Think straight" is a book about pragmatic thinking. We usually tend to overthink in certain situations, when we try to make decisions. And Sometimes, we don't get into the details before coming up with conclusions. Either way, we might mess up.
Our brain is a powerful tool. We need to use the tool wisely for proper functioning i.e., for useful thoughts, which leads to our actions and eventually our life.
Like Steve Jobs said, “You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.”
This is my best take away from this book. To connect the dots( applying the knowledge), we need to form the dots in the first place ( get the knowledge) which comes through learning. Important!
There are many pragmatic approaches towards better thinking explained in the book like, how to filter useful thoughts and how to reflect on your own thoughts.
Never forget the phrase,"Cogito ergo sum", meaning , " I think, therefore I am".
Best part about this book is, it is a very light read and there is no beating around the Bush. All points are conveyed in crisp and clear manner.
Rating: really liked it
There is plenty to like in this book. At about 80 pages, it will only take you about an hour or two to read.
But...I think there are better books out there.
*Essentialism
*Personal MBA
*Outliers
*On the Shortness of Time
*my own book: Underground Novel
*Mindfulness for Beginners
I think more than anything, this book should inspire you to write your own short book of personal philosophy, or at the very least to keep good notes of what you read.
Rating: really liked it
If you happen to pick up this book thinking about the title, then please do. It does reflect the title.
Otherwise if you want to pick a good, short self-help book, also you can choose this book.
This short book focuses on how ee think affects different aspects of our life. Love the writing, the examples are awesome.
You will not feel you are wasting your time reading this book.
Rating: really liked it
This is a blog version of Pragmatism, the thought movement (hard to call it philosophy because it argues against philosophising) started by William James and Charles Peirce.
Centred around the moniker 'true is what works', Foroux elucidates that behavioural scientists tend to give a 'why' for our cognitive biases so he attempts to discuss a 'how' framework to filter our thoughts because it's the thoughts that leads to actions.
There is nothing life changing in the insight he offers. It is all very 'pragmatic', but worth a read as he hammers home the good 'ol wisdom of how to organise your thoughts by shifting your focus from what you cannot control to what you can. It's barely a 2 hour read, making it ideal for those that generally struggle in building a reading habit.
Rating: really liked it
This is a very simple, concise and straight forward book that tells you ways to get better in an easy-to-understand, to-the-point manner.
It primarily deals with some principles of pragmatism, how to think straight, come out of a chaotic mindset and work towards life.
The author seems like a staunch pro-pragmatist and puts his points across clearly. I did not agree with everything that the author says in the book, however, there are more things that make sense than not.
This is definitely a book that can be read multiple times to have different perspectives. The concepts were common, yet important enough to be written as a book.
Think Straight is a quick read self help, that everyone can just pick up and read. I found myself annotating and underlining many things, which is why I rate this book a whopping 4 stars! ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
Rating: really liked it
Not very impressed with the contentI cherish reading compelling non fiction, especially around psychology and human behavior. And I loved the way this book started. It seemed for a while that author was building upon a theory, But somewhere about middle it started devolving into multitude of loosley connected topics. I'm fine with author expressing his experiences and opinions but what was missing was a common thread tying all of them together. Not a satisfactory read.
Rating: really liked it
I think I read it in one hour and like the author himself says in this book, it needs to be read again.
The concept discussed in this book is impressive and I definitely want to dig deeper into it and use it to my advantage.
Rating: really liked it
It’s a nice book. Easy to read, but I don’t think it gets to the point. It’s a bit confusing actually...
Rating: really liked it
Nice short one. Actually learning something from it not just reading it. Somethings needs an updates or further information but nevertheless good read !
Rating: really liked it
Amazingly quick read. No complex theories or practices.
Simple and straight.
Rating: really liked it
This book came up as a recommendation on my Kindle and I am regretting my decision to pick it up. It is just a mish-mash.
This whole episode confirms to me that AI and ML still have a long way to go before it achieves considerable usefulness.
Rating: really liked it
Straightforward and practical, this book doesn't offer any new insights. The author's personal experiences, however, made it a good enough read for me. A one time read!
