>And one of the things that I trained myself to do a few decades ago is pulling ideas out and pursuing them in a way where I’m excited about them, knowing that most of them don’t pan out in the end. Much earlier in my career, when I’d have a really bright idea that didn’t work out, I was crushed afterwards. But eventually I got to the point where I’m really good at just shoveling ideas through my processing and shooting them down, almost making it a game to say, ‘How quickly can I bust my own idea, rather than protecting it as a pet idea?’
'Kill Your Darlings' is one of the most fundamental skills in anything creative. It is a hurdle that, once taken, allows you to ascend above a plateau of mediocrity.
The lesson to be learned is that it’s less risky, not more, to understand that some ideas don’t work out and to have ways to identify failures quickly.
I wonder if, societally, it's true though, or if statistically the more reliable way to "succeed" in life, is getting good at selling and defending ideas, even the bad ones.
For most people that lean heavily towards this (we all somewhat do, we all have our pride from time to time) it's probably not a very conscious decision. Framed slightly differently it can easily be made a virtue, for example "be headstrong" or "stand up for what you believe in".
Yeah if your families income etc depends on it yeah its hard to take that many risks. Not everybody has enough wealth to prosper from the passive income such wealth could create.
I don't think it's something he "trained himself to do."
He's always taken risks. He went to juvie for breaking and entering (with thermite) as a kid. He's a college dropout. The pattern from early in his life has been to do whatever he wanted without any kind of risk analysis, not following "common sense."
I feel that, I’m often doing a thing thinking “this is wrong it won’t work for xyz” but continue because I want it to work, only to give in to what I knew a day+ ago but refused to acknowledge. It would definitely be more efficient to listen to.. myself, and kill things early.
I guess the hardest bit is finding the line between stubbornly pushing dead idea forward vs "wouldn't it be cool if <...your idea...>, neah, that won't work" and you never even try.
Cool life lesson there