In highschool and the first few years of university I played a strategy card game called Magic: The Gathering, or just “Magic” for short. Magic is a serious game and much like professional poker, there is also a professional tournament series that sees players compete for over six million dollars in cash prizes each year. The pro tour of Magic travels around the world and culminates in the once-a-year World Championships, where the winners walk away with over $50,000 in prize money.
Needless to say the competition is quite fierce and I took the game very seriously for a while, studying deck construction strategy and competing in tournaments around Australia and even overseas in Singapore, Japan, Toronto and once to the World Championships in Seattle.
With such a strong tournament scene a huge support network grew online with many websites available to help Magic players improve their game.
One of the interesting concepts that grew out of the tournament environment is what is known as the “meta-game“. The meta-game is the study of the game environment, what decks and cards should work given what decks and cards you expect others to play. It’s a unique way of strategizing, where you attempt to predict what an environment will be like and use certain cards that specifically counteract other cards.
If your strategy is wrong you will crash and burn since you won’t have the right cards to beat the other decks, but if you study the meta-game well you will come prepared with the specific foils necessary to beat other players.
I like the concept of the meta-game because it gives you a distinct advantage over people who do things blindly, without asking themselves why they are doing something. It’s the study of what motivates others to do something to give yourself an advantage.
What Is Meta-Thinking?
I realized recently that I have a habit that I don’t believe the majority of the human race share and it’s a habit worth cultivating because it leads to some unique insights. I call it meta-thinking, or more simply put – the art of asking why and attempting to look beyond what you see on the surface.
Meta
One definition of this Greek word is transcending, or going above and beyond. In the computer field, it defines things that embrace more than the usual. For example, a metafile contains all types of data. Meta-data describes other data.
Source: http://www.answers.com/meta
For all you webmasters out there you have probably heard of meta tags, and like the definition above describes, a meta tag is a piece of code you place on a web page that describes the content of the web page. It’s data that describes data.
Meta-thinking is another way of going above and beyond what most people think. Instead of simply seeing what is in front of you for what it is, you ask yourself why the creator of this object did what they did. It’s effectively a study of human behaviour, but it applies very well to business since marketing is essentially a study of human behaviour.
The entrepreneurs reading this will no doubt relate to the way of thinking I am talking about. I often look at a restaurant I’m having dinner or lunch in, or a retail outlet I’m shopping in or any business whatsoever, whether it’s a service provider or product producer and ask – I wonder how profitable this business is? Or I wonder where they source this product from and what the wholesale price is? Or I wonder whether this business model has been applied to another industry? I wonder why the business owner decided to put this here or price this much or offer this now? etc, etc.
The questions aren’t typical of a consumer. The consumer only cares about what he or she wants to consume. The questions going through their head relate to whether the product will satisfy their want, whether it tastes good, or fits right or solves a problem they have.
You can take the concept of meta-thinking away from business and marketing and apply it to almost any human action. Whenever someone does anything there is a motivation behind it.
I find myself asking myself, and if possible, asking the creator of the subject of my attention – “Why did you do this?” – as a means to understand their behaviour and their motivations. Through understanding where they are coming from I feel a greater sense of rapport with them, I value their output more because I can attach a stronger emotional component to it. I know why they chose to do something, I understand the feeling they were hoping to elicit, both within themselves and from others who “consume” their output.
If you actively meta-think you can come up with insights, which can lead to strategies to improve your life or business. By understanding other’s ideas and actions and the motivations behind them, you can create your own ideas based on what is going on in your life. This applies to every aspect of life, from relationships, to education, to entertainment, to spirituality, to sports – any area of interest you currently have.
This might sound abstract but it really is a simple concept. The only skill you need to develop is the skill of asking why. Instead of just accepting something for what it is, become a four year old again and ask why, why, why!
Focus On Others
What most people find difficult about meta-thinking is it forces you to stop thinking about yourself. Instead you have to decide to take an interest in someone else. No longer does your frame of reference, your viewpoint or thought pattern, resolve around you, it moves to another person in attempt to understand them on a deeper level. True you are doing this to impact your own life, it is your own curiosity that you are attempting to satisfy, but until you develop a healthy curiosity of the actions of others you won’t be able to use meta-thinking to improve your own life.
Give it a try right now, ask yourself -
Why did Yaro write this article?
What is my motivation here?
- Do I hope to increase traffic to my blog and thus increase my income?
- Do I want to improve other people’s lives by making them think in a manner they have not thought before?
- Do I want to boost my ego and feel important by attracting the attention of people?
- Do I want to build incoming links to my blog in the hope of raising my search engine rankings?
- Did I feel the need to get a pillar article out since my last few articles were small newsy articles?
Those are all relevant questions related to my motivation for posting this blog article. Most people don’t ask themselves questions like that when they read other blogs, but it’s through meta-thinking like this that you can come to understand motivation and thus form your own strategies.
Remember, this applies to anything you come across in your life and while you don’t want to be constantly asking yourself for explanations of absolutely everything, it pays to ask why sometimes, especially if it relates to something you are attempting to do yourself.
One of the best ways to learn about something is watch how others do it. However this only gives you the birds eye view, the end-user experience of an output. If you want to know the strategy and the reason-why, you just have to ask or at the very least, think about it and come up with your hypothesis from which to base tests on.
Develop your meta-thinking skills and a whole new world will open up to you, just be-careful not to over-think things!
Yaro Starak
Meta-Thinker
I thought i was the only person talking to myself all the time. Not the crazy kind but you know… i find myself analysing daily scenarios, about business models, pricing strategies and how people behave when you talk to them.
Yaro, it just seemed so clear and straightforward now that you have concisely put it into writing, and to classify this into meta thinking… Good stuff.
hi Yaro…i enjoy this post coz i’ve personally using the same meta thinking but just don’t know what is it until i read your post…keep it pumpin bro,
very inspiring and unique post lol..
I strolled across your article through 9Rules and it screamed attention by the “meta” in the article. I began to read your article in search for SEO but came to find out your article was so much more. Being a company owner I had to laugh when I read the part about wholesale prices and service providers and it made me realize how often I ask myself, Why? Great article.
Thanks for the comments guys. I’m glad it struck a cord with you all.
Good insight, this is also Dale Carnegie 101 material. The point of How to Win Friends is to “be genuinely interested in others”. Being interested in others and what they do will bring a flood of opportunities your way.
So Yaro….What was your motivation to write this article?
Keep up the good posts man… I like the term meta thinking I think you coined a valuable phenomenon that happens to some of us everyday (entrepreneurs especially)
and by the way you did write the article to increase your traffic and thus your income because it’s the first thing you wrote down, and thus the first thing on yoru mind.
Cheers
What was my motivation?
A little from column A…a little from column B…
Although the number one reason – it was an idea that I had to get out.
Richard – Yes, this is a very Dale Carnegie style post. That’s a great book – everyone should read it.
Fantastic post, Yaro.
After reading this, I think I should tweak my thinking a little here from now on.
Thanks.
Meta-thinking would have to be a prerequisite for taking full advantage of 80-20 in your life. I think you have coined a winning phrase Yaro, and a timely article for me as I re-evaluate the direction I am taking in my life.
Many Thanks
Gregg
Great concept. Chess is a good way to exercise this because you have to think several steps ahead along several different avenues.
I do this a lot for business. I always have to figure why someone is doing something. And what they’ll do next.
Hi Yaro. Yes, you are an enterpreneur. Definitely! It seems many more are thinking this way. I’ve never heard the phrase “Meta Thinking” before but will be using it from now on. Sometimes, I think I should gear my brain down a bit and think less of the “behind the scenes” stuff and enjoy a restaurant meal in ignorance LOL.
Great article. Email me if you’d like a review of your blog. I wont post the site URL here as it would look like I’m Meta Thinking your comments section for personal gain. Cheers mate!
Meta-related games is another nice concept – like meta-thinking.
Then: meta-related games are the games where the choice of optimal strategies depends on the strategy selected by other players (usually locked in by the choice of one’s deck /and the sideboard/). Yaro focused on the psychological aspect of choosing a deck, while I focus on the game-theory of it. Meta-related games do not have to depend on the psychology of the players, they can be even ‘games with nature’ and the meta may be created by non-human or human factors. It is interestingly different than non-atomic games (the latter ones depend on the other games – not on the same game played by other agents).
Nice article.
There is metathinking directed to yourself and metathinking concerning others.
There are things we are doing out of habit and things just go by without having in most of the cases a higher awareness of the reason why we have an impulse to do them. I mean, there were things I was doing for years and suddenly one day I paused at that moment, I tried to understand, to feel why I am doing it, how exactly it feels what I am doing it, what are my inner motivations, what I got wrong. That moment is a moment of inner metathinking.
Also, I used to except from people to behave the way I behave myself. Because I see a human that looks like me and past experience and a habit in thinking make me believe he must feel, act and think the same way as me. And this false logical idea doesn’t even pass through my mind, I already have this image as it feels like the obvious, the granted thing I never questioned. And suddenly, say I am honest, I expect people to be honest but most people aren’t. Or, something that doesn’t bother me might hurt or embarass others and at first I come to say that the other person have it wrong because he has to feel and behave like me. Till I get into the realization that I was blind. External metathinking would be to try to understand how another person thinks and feels.
Usually there are people who analyze things very hard and others who tell them to stop thinking and do what everybody else does. Analyzing things can lead you to confusion, constant ruminations, you may take more time to act because you are thinking it too much, but it’s the core thing that might help you get closer to do frequent metathinking. As your brain makes it a habit to try to have a higher understanding, higher conscience of how you or the people around you think then metathinking stops being a rare occurence and becomes a useful and interesting tool in your life.
Also, crystalizing vs flowing knowledge or packing vs mapping are concept having to do with this. In one side most people seem to think in packets, automatic orders of how to solve a specific problem, while other kind of people have a different kind of intelligence that makes them interested into analyzing the actual problem and not taking ready-made solution as granted but having a look into the core of how things work and why things are the way they are. Maybe people with the flowing/mapping kind of knowledge/intelligence are more prone to be involved in metathinking at a time.
I often find myself doing this when I’m reading a book or watching a movie. At one time, I thought I’d try my hand at writing fiction and so as I read novels, I’d ask myself questions like, “how did the writer plot this book?” or “I wonder how she came up with such vivid, three-dimensional characters.” And then I’d try to figure out which of the methods I was studying the author used. Still do this even though I’m not pursuing fiction writing any more. Great blog post, and thanks for providing the definition of “meta tags.” Always wondered why they were called that.