Turning Stones

Many years ago somewhere in California I was in the back seat of a minivan — you know that place that should actually be a trunk — feeling like my brains were fried from the long drive. They may have been a little, cause we just drove through Death Valley and my parents had seen a sign that told us to turn off the air conditioning a few hours before.

When we finally got out of the desert and pulled over to the first gas station we had seen in a long time, I felt somewhat dizzy, extremely lethargic and was wondering if I should drag myself out of the car. I didn’t think there would be anything interesting in a dusty old gas station. After some careless considering I couldn’t think of any good reason not to and pulled myself off the back seat to have a look inside.

Boy was that the right decision. I can still remember it clearly because of the overwhelming rush of adrenaline and endorphin (or dopamine — I have no idea honestly, but it felt great) when I saw a rack full of officially licensed Nintendo candy dispensers for only $0.50! You probably think what’s the big deal, but for a Nintendo fanboy from a small European country it meant a lot and it was a great find. Now I do honestly think of this experience quite often when I have to decide if something is worth looking into or not and most times I decide to go for it because you never know what you might find.

Decisions, Decisions

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying you should always go after everything that presents itself as a potential opportunity. In fact, that gas station didn’t look like anything worth my time at all. It was merely the assessment of the opportunity costs that were very low at that point because staying in the car some more wasn’t going to get me anywhere else. You probably get a bunch of these seemingly small decisions to make thrown at you every day. Perhaps even now you weren’t entirely sure if this article would be worth the time it takes you to read it but yet here we are… thank you for that.

The answer is always yes. Yes you should.

You might wonder if you should pick up that call without ID that keeps calling you, if you should schedule that ‘quick chat’ someone asked you to have next week, if you should go to a conference you received some free tickets for, if you should help that girl you hardly know, if you should meet up with that guy you haven’t seen in a long time, if you should write that blog post your friend suggested… etc. etc. The answer is always yes. Yes you should. At least to get to the point where you have the full picture to really understand the tradeoff you’re making. From there on you should be quick to choose which way to go.

Gold Nuggets

Now here’s the difference between ‘leaving no stone unturned’ and ‘chasing rabbits’. When you don’t know what the possible outcome might be you have to try to figure that out as fast as possible with minimum effort, only then can you make an informed decision about your next step. You should establish what you’re trying to decide upon first. How big is the impact? Is it something really big or relatively small? Find out if you’re dealing with a massive rock or just have to turn over a pebble first. In either case there might be a gold nugget inside, however one takes a lot more effort than the other.

It is usually much faster and less energy consuming to actually get to that point than to keep wondering if it would be worthwhile. All too often people get stuck speculating about potential outcomes while that by itself does not get them any closer to actually knowing anything that will help them decide. What helps is not only to ask: Why should I do this? but to follow that up with a quick: Why not? Long ago, hauling my ass out of the car got me a priceless collectible. More recently, saying cheers to someone at a bar got us a priceless technical lead and new friend. Just think about how many of the greatest things in your life, how many lucky breaks you’ve caught and awesome people you’ve met, were set in motion by a relatively small effort.

Let us know in the comments below, we’re eager to hear your story.

This article was originally published on Floown Blog.