Entrepreneurs-Journey.com

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