I’m going to give you a summary of important ideas that changed my life perspective. They’re either from important people or from numerous important sources.

  • Raphael Haftka’s emphasis on good graphics. Haftka among other things, taught me that using original and effective graphics are very important not only for effective communication but also for comprehension of the situation at hand. It is very powerful because the main advantage of our brain compared to digital computers is the pattern recognition capability. Good graphics unleash the hidden power in our brains.
  • My middle school Turkish teacher Vedat Gur’s comment on perspective. My Turkish teacher told, in one of his class, the importance of keeping ones perspective as wide as possible. People often lose themselves in details. This, in return makes you lose time, lose the one-time only chance and above all, lose track of the meaning of your life.
  • Ertekin Bayraktarkatal’s advice on mistakes. He once told me in front of the whole class that I should beware of making mistakes. Because on the way to the top, there will always be someone who won’t hesitate using your mistakes against you.
  • Tony Buzan’s advise on learning as much as, as broad as you can. While in my freshman year, Tony Buzan gave a seminar on mind enhancement techniques and specifically on mind maps. It was interesting but the only thing that had a huge impact on my life was the idea that there is no useless information. Learning as much as you can always improves oneself. Maybe you cannot recall everything you read or watch, but at the end you will definitely have a superior intuition which is critical in decision making in every aspect of life.
  • Object oriented paradigm. This paradigm is constructed for programming but the components of this paradigm (which I listed below) can be used in many areas of life.
    • Inheritance: improve upon the already established ideas
    • Polymorphism: solve different problems with analog methods
    • Encapsulation: isolate the tasks to overcome complexity
    • Abstraction: creating abstract equivalent of real life concepts

And the rest of them are listed below without further explanation

  • Keeping healthy, by good diet, natural sports, sufficient sleep and avoiding stress
  • Creating options and leaving them open all the time (Details can be read in my post Plan B (a.k.a. Redundancy))
  • Target the best, be prepared for the worst
  • Do less, achieve more