Logical Thinking Holds You Back: Turkish Chips Seller Taught Me

I, along with my family, spent a few days in Antalya, Turkey, from New Year’s Eve 2026. There is this amazing vintage bazaar in Old Town, Antalya. We stopped by a street food vendor and bought some freshly made potato chips that a young lad was selling. He was very quiet and very young, probably had come out of education recently. While he was making another fresh skewer for us, I asked my wife: “Can I check that other shop real quick?” and I left for a few minutes.

My wife came to that shop after a few minutes. She said, “You know, that this guy was also selling very tasty chestnuts, freshly roasted. It was delightful”. “Where’s my share?” I asked. She explained, and something profound came up from her conversation with that Turkish street vendor guy.

Turkish guy: “Why don’t you try these roasted chestnuts as a sample?”

My wife: “aw, thank you! - this is delicious. I’ll buy this.”

Turkish guy: “Well, you need to buy this whole bowl.”

My wife: “We are full, we can’t eat that much; can you please give me that sample size only? I’ll pay you, of course.”

Turkish guy: “No, you can only buy full size.”

My wife: “My husband will love this, please give a sample for him then.”

Turkish guy: “No, one size and one sample only. I’m here to do business, not to do charity.”

-End of conversation-

So what really came up:

I told my wife that guy was doing anything but business. He was probably doing a job under his father. While there is nothing wrong with him and there is nothing wrong with “doing a job”. But this world is worlds apart from doing business.

The business world is brutally unpredictable, a very random, stochastic world. That guy was thinking transactionally, in numbers. A business is far from it.

He was perfectly logical. And this is where the problem lies, business is not “perfectly logical”. In fact, the more logical you are, the less likely you’re to succeed in business.

As soon as you start doing numbers and logic, you enter employee mode, not in business owner mode and definitely not in a founder mode.

This logical thinking begins way too early in human life and lasts way too long. As students, we chase marks and scores, the harder we work, the better we get. Then we get a job and get some reality check, but to a certain extent. We still follow the books and try to climb the ladder.

But there is no playbook for business. This is what makes a busy-ness, a business. If there is a playbook and it’s predictable, then it’s not a business, it’s just a “job”.

This is the reason good students turn out to be bad at business. That’s why good engineers do badly at their own business. It’s this years of practice: “if else else if”, “2 + 2 = 4”. This logical thinking makes us so used to the notion of “proportionate outcome”. A business is no vending machine, £1 can get you a chocolate or can get you a cocoa farm.

Don’t get me wrong, your logical thinking may have got you here. But it can’t get you there, rather, it will hold you back.

Feedback loop is tight, logic works great. You gave an exam and you can tell how good or bad you did, instantaneous feedback. Go reduce your product price by imitating a competitor, next week you can make 30% more sales, a year on and it can make you bankrupt.

So how do we manage this illogical ups and downs? Well… don’t. Embrace the volatility. Try new things to find your craft, the next big idea or opportunity. Try many things where the downside is bounded (a few weeks’ worth of work, a small amount of money) but the upside is uncapped, i.e. turn “disproportionate outcome” to your favour.