Thinking Big Differently
In a recent blog post, I briefly mentioned that I like to “Think Big Differently”, which I think is a pretty compelling notion in and of itself. So here, in this post, I will attempt to expound upon this ideal.
I really love stumbling across something that blows my mind. An amazing technological advancement that literally challenges my thoughts about the future. When a new thing that some collection of people created has totally changed the way that I understand how the world will work in the future. I felt this way when I first watched a TED Talk about DuoLingo way back in the summer of 2011. I had actually just saved up for the previous semester and purchased Rosetta Stone. The thing that 16 year old me had valued more than anything else was ability to learn a new language, and it was now going to be free on the internet. To gain that new understanding of people and the world didn’t cost $500 anymore, all it required was an internet connection and your time. My mind was blown. My eyes were opened. Louis von Ahn had yet again redefined my expectations of what people were capable of creating.
Another example of this sort of technological revolution was when I saw Google’s recent advert for their autonomous car-pods. A vehicle that was designed without a steering wheel (even if they need them now) is a something that I still haven’t entirely come to terms with. People will literally be able to get around without ever needing to worry about traffic or similar driving problems. They will soon be handled by machines. Although the further economic implications was the thing that I really found striking about this technological revolution. Now that the technology has been proven to work and to work well, people in standard transportation jobs (truck drivers, ambulance drivers, taxi drivers etc.) will eventually be replaced with computers. There is no real hope for those occupations in the long run. The error-rates of the current prototypes has already been proven to have been less than human drivers. Increased safety, along with the fact that you will no longer have to pay actual real humans to do the work, will totally win out. Eventually it will make more financial sense to have a robot driver than a human one. Eventually jobs in the transportation sector will be outsourced to computers. That is a revolution that has changed a lot about how I look at the future. (Further discussion).
These revolutions didn’t come frequently but they instantly upset vast preconceptions that I had about how I will spend my time in the future. What I will be capable of doing. What the world will look like. This momentous announcements have immediate and long-standing implications for human society. That is what I want to do. I want to create something that stop people walking on the street. I want to be the man in the TED talk that inspires young children to become entrepreneurs. I want to present an idea to the world that adjusts the expectations that society has for the future. I don’t think that I can do that unless I really actually believe that I can. Unless I spend my time mulling over ideas that have the potential to change the world.
Plot a Course to the Impossible
I can’t expect myself to achieve my greatest ambitions unless I break those ambitions down into a set of steps that I can accomplish one at a time. I have to connect the dots between my present state and where I want to eventually be. In doing this, I first validate that I do indeed want to spend 5+ years working to achieve some end. I then get to think about all the possible ways that I could actually complete my greatest quest.
For me, I want to build a place that enables people to learn more things, quicker and better than ever before. I want to make the Internet’s Academy. Not an internet learning site, but the internet learning site. A place where you can go to get properly cited material about any topic ever, rather instanntly. I don’t want to build an Decision Engine, or a Knowledge Base. I don’t want to build an online encyclopedia. I don’t want to help connect people to all the public domain literary works. I want to build a knowledge collection symposium. A one-stop-shop for acquiring knowledge on any level. From serious academically rigorous certification, to a casual facts about mantis shrimps, to studying resources for textbooks. I think some permutation of those thoughts needs to exist on the internet, for all to use. Currently there is a lot of work being done by datascientists (IBM’s Watson is a good example) to use big data to answer questions more accurately and completely than humans. I want to leverage that work to generate lessons for humans to consume.
I certainly don’t have the ability to do really any of those things. I can sorta make a website and communicate ideas. But I need to be able to pay a large quantity of incredibly smart people to help me actualize my vision. To do that, I need to be good at convincing people that my ideas are gold and that they should give me a federally-backed substitute for gold. To do that, I need to be good at talking to people. I took the point a bit far, but to illustrate the importance of understanding what I need to do to do what I want.
After I broke down my long term goals into steps, I was able to move onto the next step.
Start the Journey to the Impossible
In order to ever reach my goal, at one point or another I have to try. I have to start, which might very well be the most entrepreneurial thing that a human can do. To start something that they very well may never finish. Something that could reck their professional credibility and damage their credit score. But entrepreneurs do start things that may fail. They start things that do fail, but they tried and are trying and I want to at least have tried.
After I have all of my “steps” and I think that I understand where I need to go. What I need to do. I try to execute them. So far, I have met a lot of people and done a lot of things that have taught me a lot about the challenges of breaking through to the next step. This is knowledge that I would have never been exposed to if I wouldn’t have tried to do what I didn’t think I could do. Certainly not all this knowledge is good news:
“Turns out your idea is total and complete garbage, Tim”
Oh, excellent. You make me feel so good.
or
“Yeah, getting that much exposure is going to be impossible without some serious credibility, not to mention an prodigious sum of money.”
Well at least I have zero of either of those things.
or my favorite:
“I kinda tried that. It didn’t work. Give up. I know better.”
Here’s to keeping an open mind.
In trying, you can better come to grips with the problem that you are solving: that of bringing you closer to your goals. You may re-evaluate now that you are armed with information, or merely need to add a few intermediary steps:
- Ideate
- Acquire Credibility
- Acquire Money
- Build Ultimate Learning Platform
In the End
In the end, I think the most important part about Thinking Big Differently is that you need to believe that you are the exception. You are the one that will be able to avoid all the pitfalls that destroy businesses. You will be the one that will convince investors that your idea is gold. You will be the one that will convince investors and people that your product is gold. You will be the one that will be able to convince investors and people that your product is gold and build a profitable business model. You will be the one. I believe it. I rather naively decided that I would believe it some length of time ago; a decision that I have stuck to rather firmly.
Because you are the exception to the rule, you are free to think thoughts that others are scared to think about. You are free to reach for the stars. You are free to consider the ideas that others scoff at. But you are then (hopefully) able to apply liberal amounts of brainpower to create a potential solution. You are able to draft a route to the destination.
Thinking Big is something that I will always admire. I love to be challenged by obtuse and difficult thoughts, but I enjoy with far more ferocity considering things that will change the world.
