The long game: how to be a long term thinker in a short term world

Introduction

"The Long Game: How to Be a Long-Term Thinker in a Short-Term World" by Dorie Clark is a guide to achieving lasting success by focusing on long-term goals and strategies. The book emphasizes the importance of strategic patience, optimizing for interesting experiences, and creating white space for thought and planning. Clark argues that while our culture often pushes us towards immediate results and easy wins, true success requires persistence, effort, and a willingness to embrace failure as part of the learning process.

Key points

1. Create white space: To become a long-term thinker, you need to clear your schedule and create space for thought and planning. This involves understanding why you're busy and learning to say "no" to non-essential tasks.

2. Focus where it counts: Long-term thinking requires focusing on what matters most and being willing to experiment and learn from failures.

3. Have strategic patience: Long-term thinkers understand that success takes time and that setbacks and challenges are part of the journey. They keep moving forward, knowing that as long as they're learning, they're not failing.

Questions and Reflections

1. How often do you find yourself focusing on short-term results at the expense of long-term goals? How can you shift your mindset to become a more long-term thinker?

2. What are some ways you can create more white space in your schedule for thought and planning? How might this impact your ability to focus on long-term goals?

3. How comfortable are you with failure? Can you view it as a learning opportunity rather than a setback?

4. What does strategic patience look like in your life or career? How can you cultivate more of it?

5. How can you optimize for interesting experiences in your life or career? How might this lead to more fulfilling long-term success?

Conclusion

Clark's advice is grounded in her own experiences as a successful business coach and consultant. She encourages readers to embrace the uncertainty and challenges that come with pursuing long-term goals, and to see these not as failures, but as opportunities for growth and learning. By playing the long game, she argues, we can achieve meaningful and lasting success. This was a summary by Brews and Books, brewing ideas together.

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