Give it five minutes by Jason Fried

原文give-it-five-minutes

翻译：

几年前，我还是一个容易冲动的人。无论何人何时谈论何事，我总会想着去反驳。如果某事不符合我的世界观我会狠狠地拒绝。

就好象我必须是这个观念的发现者（第一人），因为是第一个才会有意义。但是真实的情况是，有关那些问题我并没有思考的够深。你反应的越快，你思考的越少。并不总是这样，但通常会是。

谈论膝跳反射很容易，因为它们是只有人类才有的反应。你也有。如果你的邻居不是该反射的免疫者，你也不应当是。

时间返回到2007年。那时候我在RI省举行商业创新工厂的会议上谈话。Richard Saul Wurman也在。我谈完后Richard过来自我介绍并恭维我的谈话。他很宽容大量，他本不必那样做的。

我是怎么回应的呢？我反驳了他的谈话。当他在大会上阐述自己观点的时候，我列了一份我不同意事情的单子。当有机会与他说话的时候，我很快地反驳了他的一些想法。我一定看起来是非常的可恶。

他的举动改变了我的生活。事情很简单。他说，老兄给我五分钟时间。我想问他这是啥意思。他说，可以不同意，可以反驳，可以有强大的信念和信仰，但在你想争论这些想法之前请不妨思考它们几分钟。五分钟代表思考，绝非反应。他绝对是正确的。我开始以讨论的观点去证明某些事情，而不是学习它们。

对我来说，那确实一个伟大的瞬间。

Richard花了毕生去思考那些问题，对于它们，他奉献了30年，我却只给了几分钟时间而已。现在，当然他可以是错误的我可以是正确的，但最好还是先好好思考那些问题在你确信你是对的之前。

提问题和反驳是有区别的，反驳意味着已经认为你知道了；问问题意味着你想知道。问更多问题吧。

遇事先思考而不是快速反驳是值得一生追求的信条。我知道这很难。我时而还是会头脑发热，当我不再总是头脑发热时，我真的享受这种观念带来的好处。

如果你还不确定为什么这是重要的，考虑一下Jonathan Ive的这段向Steve Jobs致敬的话。

“正如Steve热爱想法，热爱制造东西，他对创新有着罕见和崇高地尊敬。你知道我认为他比任何人都理解想法最终是强大的，想法刚开始也许很脆弱，几乎算不上想法，所以很容易被忘掉，很容易被妥协，很容易被扯碎”

这段话很深刻，想法最初都是脆弱的，他们一开始并没有任何能量，他们算不上是想法，因而很容易被忽略。

这世界上有两种事情不需要技巧:1,花别人的钱;2,摒弃想法。

摒弃想法非常容易它不需要涉及任何努力。你可以嘲笑它，可以忽略它，可以朝它喷烟圈，这都容易。难的是保护它，思考它，浸淫它，探索它，重复它，实验它。正确的想法会开启我们的生活，一如错误的想法一样。

所以，下一次你听到某件事情的时候，或者某个人谈论某个想法，抛出或者建议一个想法的时候，给这个想法五分钟。在反驳它之前稍微思考一下，而不是说思考很难做或者很费工夫。也许真的很难，但是也可能有另外一个事实：思考是值的。

原文：

A few years ago I used to be a hothead. Whenever anyone said anything, I’d think of a way to disagree. I’d push back hard if something didn’t fit my world-view.

It’s like I had to be first with an opinion – as if being first meant something. But what it really meant was that I wasn’t thinking hard enough about the problem. The faster you react, the less you think. Not always, but often.

It’s easy to talk about knee jerk reactions as if they are things that only other people have. You have them too. If your neighbor isn’t immune, neither are you.

This came to a head back in 2007. I was speaking at the Business Innovation Factory conference in Providence, RI. So was Richard Saul Wurman. After my talk Richard came up to introduce himself and compliment my talk. That was very generous of him. He certainly didn’t have to do that.

And what did I do? I pushed back at him about the talk he gave. While he was making his points on stage, I was taking an inventory of the things I didn’t agree with. And when presented with an opportunity to speak with him, I quickly pushed back at some of his ideas. I must have seemed like such an asshole.

His response changed my life. It was a simple thing. He said “Man, give it five minutes.” I asked him what he meant by that? He said, it’s fine to disagree, it’s fine to push back, it’s great to have strong opinions and beliefs, but give my ideas some time to set in before you’re sure you want to argue against them. “Five minutes” represented “think”, not react. He was totally right. I came into the discussion looking to prove something, not learn something.

This was a big moment for me.

Richard has spent his career thinking about these problems. He’s given it 30 years. And I gave it just a few minutes. Now, certainly he can be wrong and I could be right, but it’s better to think deeply about something first before being so certain you’re right.

There’s also a difference between asking questions and pushing back. Pushing back means you already think you know. Asking questions means you want to know. Ask more questions.

Learning to think first rather than react quick is a life long pursuit. It’s tough. I still get hot sometimes when I shouldn’t. But I’m really enjoying all the benefits of getting better.

If you aren’t sure why this is important, think about this quote from Jonathan Ive regarding Steve Jobs’ reverence for ideas:

And just as Steve loved ideas, and loved making stuff, he treated the process of creativity with a rare and a wonderful reverence. You see, I think he better than anyone understood that while ideas ultimately can be so powerful, they begin as fragile, barely formed thoughts, so easily missed, so easily compromised, so easily just squished.

That’s deep. Ideas are fragile. They often start powerless. They’re barely there, so easy to ignore or skip or miss.

There are two things in this world that take no skill: 1. Spending other people’s money and 2. Dismissing an idea.

Dismissing an idea is so easy because it doesn’t involve any work. You can scoff at it. You can ignore it. You can puff some smoke at it. That’s easy. The hard thing to do is protect it, think about it, let it marinate, explore it, riff on it, and try it. The right idea could start out life as the wrong idea.

So next time you hear something, or someone, talk about an idea, pitch an idea, or suggest an idea, give it five minutes. Think about it a little bit before pushing back, before saying it’s too hard or it’s too much work. Those things may be true, but there may be another truth in there too: It may be worth it.