I was taking a trip down archive.org memory lane last night, looking back on some of the first websites I ever built. Really matrixy, techy fonts on black backgrounds circa 2001… funny stuff. I also spent some time revisiting the first web community I ever created: REiToolBelt, for real estate investors. Even back then I enjoyed writing articles about the experiences I had, giving advice to my fellow young investors. (I was 20 at the time.) Here is one article I found from 2002 that is a bit self-helpy, but I think has some good points that are worth revisiting.

Originally written in 2002 by Darius A Monsef on ReiToolBelt

Thinking About Sand

You are standing on the most beautiful beach in the world.

It may have palm trees for some, and none for others. It may be a small secluded beach or extend as far as the eye can see. It could be black sand or white sand.

This beach is perfect to you. It is how you imagine it.

Now imagine that you are standing in the center of this beach, but instead of taking a few steps back to enjoy every aspect of what this beach has to offer, you look down and focus on a single grain of sand.

It’s hard to make it out from standing height so you crouch down. It’ s still hard to focus so again you lean even closer to the sand.

You now have your face an eyelash away from this single grain of sand. You’ve focused every particle of thought on it.

While you are focused on the grain, a nice breeze passes by. An unexpected thing happens; the grain of sand is blown into your eye.

Why when you are standing on a perfect beach would you focus on the smallest part of it?

Our lives are this beach. Our lives are in the whole perfect, beautiful; we chose to see the whole beach or focus on grains of sand.

Each day starts as the next; a chance for you to enjoy the view or get sand in your eye. Think of how your day went. Were you focused on the whole of it or only each task at hand? Were you working on each task as a part of the whole?

If you saw your day as the whole; why did you let an argument take up so much of your valuable time?

We spend so much of our time only focused on what we are doing that moment. The problems arise when we don’ t conduct the tasks at hand with an idea of how they apply to the whole picture. We started the day with certain things to accomplish but at the end of the day there was not enough time to get to them all. Where did all that time go?

Often that time goes to things that matter so little compared to the whole of our lives. We spent x amount of time today trying to prove someone else’ s opinion was wrong. In the end all that was proven was that time will pass whether you chose to be productive with it or not.

We get so wrapped up in these tiny specs of sand, that we lose the ability to see the beach. We lose the ability because with our focus so tightly wrapped around this grain of sand, we lack the peripheral vision to see anything else. If we stepped back we would see there are hundreds, thousands, millions of grains of sand; and that this is just one small spec that makes the beauty whole.

Making Choices & Deciding to Be Angry

We make choices every second. Are they choices that involve looking at grains of sand or beaches? You have the choice to get angry. Anger does not control you; you control anger. Something does not anger you unless you let it.

What does being angry accomplish for you? Have you thought about how much energy goes into being upset? How much time is wasted? How much more anger is created when you are upset?

Have you thought that you have a choice to be angry or not?

You had a choice a few minutes ago to respond to a post that added no value to your life. Did you look at it as part of your beautiful beach and move your attention to something else, or did you get your face right up next to that spec so it could get you in the eye?

We create the world that is around us, so pay attention to what you are creating or the tide will wash your beach away and you won’ t even notice it.

Communication

You are out enjoying the night when a stranger approaches you and tells you “you look fat in those pants.” Do you get upset or do you take the time to figure out that what you misheard was that they asked you to dance. Communicating takes time. There is no way around that, but communicating poorly takes more energy and more time.

We are in the age of communication. We can communicate with millions of people across the globe; we can enter into millions of other lives in an instant. We improved the communication network, but we didn’t improve communication.

Jane told you John said you were a terrible person.

Did you call John to ask him why he felt that way about you or did you call Sally to tell her John felt this way about you?

Did you take Johns opinion of you as simply his opinion and move on or did you tell everyone that John was a terrible person?

We can use our communication tools to build or destroy. Use them to build.

OTFD

I will pass onto you a great communication tool my mentor taught me early on. It’s called an Open The Front Door. Think of it as opening the front door to the problem.

Open
Observation
What did you observe? What did you hear? What did you see?
“I heard you thought I was a terrible person.”

The
Thought
What does what you observed make you think about? How do you think about what you observed?
“I think you have the wrong opinion about me.”

Front
Feelings
What does what you observed and think make you feel?
“I feel hurt and angry.”

Door
Desire
What is the outcome you would like to arrive at? How can this problem be resolved?
“I would like you to tell me if you feel this way about me and not tell others.”

It’s not important that you actually use an OTFD, I only hope that if nothing else it helps you think about how you communicate when you have a problem or disagree.

My opinion is different than yours and yours is different than mine.
That is ok.