The Practical Guide to Thinking Like Me

Foreword

Ok here we have it- the grand experiment. 

A year ago I sold my first book to a friend who heard me ramble about a book I wanted to write.  A trove of insights, learnings, thoughts, beliefs, you know the drill, stuff that excites you, makes you go etc.

This friend of mine, John.  Gave a few jabs before this conversation.  

"You used to be a lot harsher and more real Dan..." - he said this to me after I left my cubical job and started my own thing.  I used to be more critical and more vocal when I was protected.  Now I was exposed to the elements and as a result, less time or less heart, I wasn't sure.

This jab stuck with me for awhile.  

Was my tone and approach to the whole "scene" that being the tech scene, the startup scene in Columbus, Ohio, was I tame now, was I just another nod in the distance?

Truth is a combination of things typically.  Its our perception of truth, and then the evidence of truth that stands there and mocks us every day.  

Its true I was getting tame.  I was less relevant.  But it was also true that I was doing about a million other things along with it.  

"Here... " John said as he put a twenty on the table in front of me.  

"My advance... I expect it to be good.." he said leaving the meeting.

I'm about 16 months late on that book I figure.  But what was the book really supposed to be about?  Well I've done my fair share of crisis writing, that being writing about my various ups and downs, depression, addiction.  My rampant introspection of the human condition that being my own.  At first that writing was to help a friend a paper and then it turned into a kind of confessional as I dabbled in a whole host of behaviors some good, some largely bad, and basically provided a kind of onboard counseling to aid me.  

Writing was therapy.  

I suppose its always been like that.  

Creating is therapy.  

When I look back at my life I see interesting patterns- almost all of them intersect with my drive, my ego, my creativity and my yearning to fit or belong in society.  

I think we all have a kind of compass.  Some of us are aware of our powers, our capabilities of good and bad, some embrace it, others ignore it.

Coming to terms with who I am has been a life long journey.

The premise of this book- isn't exactly what John paid for, thats a classic Dan thing, the old bait and switch.  Now to John's credit of his intelligence, just getting anything out of me is likely a win.  So this book will appease him regardless.  He'll like how it came about.  He will be thrilled that he's in the beginning!

About four months ago I looked at my big list, a constant reminder on my phone of commitments and todo's.  I'm a list guy.  Nothing feels more thrilling in life than to wipe out a list of things to do.  Feeling momentum from things done.  

True momentum relies not just on actions done, but feelings gained.

You're gonna see a lot of these btw- these statements in bold.  

These are what I call my ism's.  

Things I say, stuff I believe.  I keep a list of them as well.  They often come to in odd hours of the night, in shower, in the middle of a movie or just in any average day of the daily Dan.  They are a reflection of thoughts, patterns, learnings, things that my brain is saying... oh thats good, write that down.

Since I was 12 or so I've always had a notebook of phrases and names.  I used to be strangely obsessed with names.  

True Navigation.  

The Last 18 Days of Mystery.  

I later wondered what those were?  What did they mean?  Later in life, actually in the past five years or so, I wonder if they are books I'm supposed to write.  The Last 18 Days of Mystery sounds like a great book- gotta get on that.

This book- The Practical Guide to Thinking Like Me, is likely anything but that.  Again I just like that title.  This book is really the result of a brainstorm I had six months ago about "Fuck! I need to write that book for John..." !!  I was pretty upset with myself.

I had spent that $20 some dollars John gave me months ago.  I probably enjoyed tasty or it was poured into my car for gas.  Maybe used to extend my growing empire of selected rums.  

I broke out a sheet of paper, all white, no lines - EVER!  And wrote down a series of chapter headings.  A masterclass I watched last year talked a lot about writing books and an outline as key.  I figured ok, lets write some chapters and then use that constraint to write the book- simple enough, then to fuse it all together I'll figure that out later.

So there you have it.  The chapters in this book reflect the brainstorm I had. The words, they'd come next.

The organization of it all- did that really matter?  I mean this is just a simple practical guide to thinking like me, right?  Since when was I really organized with a set process?   Shouldn't my audience just be exposed to me realness and piece it together for themselves?  Must I spoon feed you the reality you seek?  

You already have a judgement- be open to the possibility that this book is a game of sorts.  Play by adventure chapter reading.  Who knows.. let's see.  

It is after all just one several books I'll have to write for John, and..

We gotta get started or we're never start