at the peak of a great mounatin, there lived a humble viking named agarth.
his village was very wellknown for his remarkable sword makers and agarth was one of them.
in yet another cold day, agarth decided to be different and to impress the yarl of the
village by making a new kind of swords.
golden swords he said was to be his unique idea.
so instead of the conventional way of going about it, agarth used
golden material instead of steal
after three days of non-stop work, his original idea
saw the light of day.
he forged his first golden sword and rushed sprinting to
the yarl of his village as he thought it would take his breath away of awe.
"yarl dough, take a look at this golden sword, nobody had thought about this before
if our viking warriors were to use it, the saxons will have no chance of fighting against
us".
the yarl took the sword tested it's balance then said : "this is a
very well made sword but i think it's too heavy to be yielded by our warriors".
"no one would want to buy a golden sword if it of no use agarth".
agarth, with a disapointed look on his face, took his sword and went back to his forge.
his idea was different and creative but he didn't concider it's weaknessess'.
this is called the confirmation bias :
when we come up with something unique, we overexagerate expecting that it is going to
shake the market and get success.
and the big idea here, when you came up with sth original, it doesn't mean that it's going
to be successful just because it seems unique to you, concider the market's needs first
and your audience's prefrence.
-be your own judge , study where you fall short and course correct from there before
you put out anything in public .
agarth could've thought about mixing the gold with other materials like steel to make the
sword lighter but he was so blinded by his overconfidence
to notice the inadequacy of his idea .
risking everything he had , agarth emptied all his resources to buy the necessary equipment
to forge that golden sword.
now he's left poor with nothing to eat.
"succesful originals take extreme risks in one arena and offset them with extreme caution
in another"
when you're about to engage in business venture, ensure a stable source of income first.
don't go on full risk mode like agarth, selling all his stock of steal hoping to get
more back with his uniqueness .
put your original idea out there.
wait for it to blosom.
if it didn't work, no problem, you have your job anyway.
bill gates, who's known as one of the world's great risk takers.
didn't dropped out of harvard even when he started microsoft.
he didn't quit university although he knew that his microsoft idea was going to be a
big hit .
"creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes, art is knowing wich ones to keep"
agarth, stranded without a home, unable to cope with the cold of the mountains, had nothing
left but to quit life and throw himself in the great lake .
as he was looking at the fish.
he felt sth strange, an idea came up to him.
he remembered, that most of the vikings were likely to catch seasickness while traveling
on a boat for long periods of time.
his idea was to create a potion that will cure the viking's illness.
so he began experimenting, mixing fish and fish eggs with other stuff
and trying out the potions himself .
after a few weeks, he visited the yarls house again, and presented him
to his potion.
luckily, there were vikings that day who were about to go fishing.
and who suffered from severe sea sickness.
the yarl trusted the fishermen to try the potion while on board and see if it works.
this time, it was a success, the potion was of great help, people came from around
the world to buy agarth's potion, this time his originality served him well.
and the idea here, is to never put all of your trust in one single original idea.
if you want to be sucesful with your originality, triple the quantity of ideas you generate.
when you put out many original ideas, you will have higher chances of succeeding.
whereas, if you bet on a single one, you limit your chances of success.
and this completely reverses the notion of quality versus quantity.
in terms of generating originals ideas. quantity equals quality.
if you go on amazon and take a look at a best selling author's profile
you will notice that he had to write many average books to be able
to produce a best seller.he had to publish many failures , and one of these failures
turned out as a masterpiece.
so "creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes,
art is knowing wich ones to keep"
"strategic procrastination"
1503 leonardo da vinci, began working on his masterpiece the mona lisa.
the thing that was intriguing for most historians, is that he was working on and off on that
painting, he didn't finish the monalisa until close to his death in 1519 .
no one would of thought that leonardo was procrastinatin with other tasks.
he said : genius's sometimes accomplish most when they work the least, for they are
thinking out inventions and forming in their minds the perfect idea"
what he meant was basicly : it's not about going full procrastination mode.
you have to procrastinate strategicly to benefit from what psychologits call, the zeigarnik
effect.
russian psychologist bluma zeigarnik demonstrated that: once a task is finished, we stop thinking
about it.
but when it is interrupted and left undone, it stays active in the back of our minds(the
subconscious) while we engage in other activities.
and ideas are more liable to manifest the moment we resume our work.
so again this isn't about mediocre procrastination, it's about
strategic procrastination
do not procrastinate before working.
otherwise you won't get that same effect.
the task has to be registered in your memory before you take a pause.
that way; when you disengage from work. you will benefit from the zeigarnik effect.