Think Straight Book Summary I Get Your Thoughts In Order -

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Book – Think Straight, (Change your Thoughts, Change Your Life) – Summary

Author – Darius Foroux

Genre – Self-help Book

Published in – 2017

As they say “thoughts are things”, then it is significant that we think straight and that’s exactly what Darius talks about in Think straight.

Many books have been written describing why we think the way we think by sharing stories, but hardly suggesting how to change the way think. Think straight is the “HOW TO” book of changing thought patterns with practical steps that explained how to change the way we think.

About the Author –

Darius Foroux is an entrepreneur, author, and podcaster. He has been sharing actionable tips for optimizing life and work every week since 2015. His ideas have been featured in TIME, NBC, Fast Company, Inc., Observer, and other publications.

He is the author of many books including Do it today, Win your Inner Battle, What it takes to be free. You may consider visiting Darius Foroux Website for useful material and tips on productivity, Habit creation, Decision making, Wealth building.

About the Book –

Think Straight is based on the pragmatism philosophy founded by William James and Charles Sanders Peirce, which states that we can choose one thought over the other. In other words, we can control what we think.

In a small book of fewer than 100 pages, that shares simply to follow advice on how to get our mind work for us, not against it. As Ralph Waldo Emerson stated, “You become what you think about all day long.”

Think straight explains the significance of the thought process and helps us to eradicate not-required stuff and focus our thoughts on things that matter. As mentioned in the book – It’s about deciding.

Few Key Points from the Book

1) Clear Thinking Requires Training –

Darius views the mind as a muscle and suggests regular training of it for better use. There are things one may consider strengthening mind giving example of the gym. We don’t quit the gym after four years so why we should stop learning beyond school/college.

Learning new things like language, skill, games.
Mingling with new group and explore new perspectives.
Traveling, Reading are few best ways to learn.

2) Filter Your Thoughts –

Darius shows good way to filter our thoughts. Instead of conventional way of filtering like familiarity or ‘trial and error’. He advises using what works for you.

One good question to ask when faced with decisions, “Will the outcome of a decision change the way I live?” If you ask that yourself consistently, you’ll find that you automatically filter out useless information and only make decisions that have an actual impact on the outcome of your life.

3) Mistaking what Thinking Is? –

Darius presents an awesome point with examples of what thinking is not and makes it clear what is thinking. Most of the time our mind is preoccupied with things like

What my boss thinks of me?
Does she like me?
Why does my life suck?
What would happen if I change job or career?

Darius calls this worrying, stressing, freaking out because we aren’t doing anything with these thoughts, moreover hurting ourselves by indulging in it.

And as much as we think about why we have such thoughts there is no concrete answer to it and it’s better to be AWARE of it and decide what to ignore and what thought to pursue.

4) Rule of Thumb for Thinking –

Only think about things you can control. That automatically eliminates about 99% of your thoughts because there’s very little you control in life.

Things we control like our desires, actions, words, intentions. Other things we don’t have control are other people, past & future are given as perfect example.

5) No More Quick Decision –

Many times saying YES too quickly or committing especially if an event or invitation for the near future creates a hurdle when the time comes. Darius explains this with a simple example and urges us to take a day or two to think about any decision thoroughly.

6) Take Time to Reflect –

I resonated with this point. It is important to reflect from time to time and see how are we doing, why we do what we do, how are we growing.

Journaling is one of the best tools to reflect on, where we can understand how our thought process has changed for good or bad compared to before. We can learn more from our mistakes and refrain from repeating them.

7) Money Rules –

I found the Money topic in thinking straight book relevant because many of our thoughts are directly or indirectly revolve around money and Darius offers simple money rules, which is worth considering.

Don’t buy things you don’t need.
Save 10% of your income.
Stay out of debt.
Invest your money in things that have returns.

Loved this line from the book about money –

Remember: Money is a replaceable resource. When you’re out of it, you can earn it back. You can’t say the same for time. Don’t spend too much time thinking about money.

8) Never Look Back –

Many times we hold on to things we may never use, take way too many photographs we won’t see. Keep thinking about how we wish things would have been different.

I liked the suggestions in the book –

The only useful purpose I can think of looking back is to learn. You can draw many lessons from looking at your past.
If things don’t work out, it’s not the end of the world. Make a decision. Stand by it. Move on. And only look back to learn.
Look back, but don’t stare for too long. Life happens in NOW.

I have also created video of few quotes from the book – Hope you like it. Please do subscribe to my You Tube channel – Myread4change

Conclusion –

Think straight is one to two hours read and I recommend reading it a couple of times as they say it takes time, repetition, and practice to inculcate habits, and Thinking straight is worth your time.

You may download Think Straight free E-Book from here.

Please share your feedback/suggestion of this book summary or if you have any questions and I will be glad to answer them.

If you like this book, you may also like How to Stop worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie.

Wish you a life with Straight Thinking.

Muzammil