The Key To Whether Or Not An Idea Should Be Pursued

00:00:00.000 | - Hi, next question is from Jim.

00:00:03.200 | How do you know if a big, slow productivity idea

00:00:05.760 | is good enough to warrant the daily effort?

00:00:08.080 | Background, I'm a full-time online writer

00:00:10.360 | and I have a book idea.

00:00:11.920 | I think that I might find an audience,

00:00:14.160 | but I don't know if it will work.

00:00:16.020 | - Well, this is very important.

00:00:18.720 | Jim, we talked about this with the final law of less

00:00:23.720 | during the deep dive,

00:00:25.280 | but this gives us a specific case study to tackle.

00:00:29.220 | So let's go back and remember what I said

00:00:31.680 | in that fifth law of less,

00:00:33.000 | and we'll apply it to your particular situation

00:00:34.880 | about working on a book idea.

00:00:37.960 | So first of all, you're going to want to work up

00:00:42.440 | to bigger size projects.

00:00:45.040 | You might not wanna start right away

00:00:46.840 | with just I am writing a book, right?

00:00:50.200 | What is actually happening here is, okay, can I write?

00:00:53.680 | Have I actually published some writing before?

00:00:56.400 | All right, that's a step.

00:00:58.400 | Do I have an agent?

00:01:00.140 | Well, that's gonna be another first step.

00:01:01.540 | If I can get an agent, that's gonna be a justification

00:01:04.960 | or validation that my idea is good.

00:01:07.020 | There's someone else who's a professional

00:01:08.460 | who thinks I'm the right person to write it.

00:01:10.020 | So let me make that the next step.

00:01:11.020 | Now I got that done.

00:01:12.120 | Now I feel a little bit more confident.

00:01:13.400 | Now I'm writing sample chapters for the proposal.

00:01:15.580 | I can write two sample chapters.

00:01:17.420 | That's hard, but that's more tractable.

00:01:19.180 | My agent likes these sample chapters.

00:01:20.700 | Oh, now we've sold the book.

00:01:22.240 | Now we've actually can go,

00:01:23.420 | now when I'm going ahead and writing this book,

00:01:24.880 | I've done some writing, I've gotten an agent,

00:01:27.180 | I've written some sample chapters.

00:01:28.380 | Those sample chapters convinced the publisher.

00:01:30.460 | Now you're gonna find motivation to finish this book.

00:01:33.580 | This is all very different than just saying,

00:01:35.900 | let me just start writing.

00:01:37.280 | I think I could produce something really good.

00:01:39.900 | The executive functioning center of your brain

00:01:41.480 | is gonna look at that plan and says, says who?

00:01:44.680 | How do you know that anything,

00:01:46.140 | that this at all is gonna turn up?

00:01:47.780 | We have no evidence.

00:01:48.740 | We have no background experience

00:01:52.700 | with just writing every day

00:01:53.820 | and it turns out producing a book.

00:01:55.300 | So I would say you really wanna ladder your way up

00:01:57.660 | to this bigger, longer project.

00:02:01.660 | Now the foundation to what I'm talking about here

00:02:04.180 | that sort of underscores all of this

00:02:06.300 | is to be ruthlessly evidence-based

00:02:08.780 | and figuring out your plan

00:02:11.320 | for the thing you want to accomplish.

00:02:13.080 | So again, I'm really worried when I hear about,

00:02:16.760 | for example, a writer saying,

00:02:18.180 | yeah, I'm just gonna start writing every day

00:02:19.580 | because that tells me you haven't talked to someone

00:02:21.700 | in the publishing industry.

00:02:22.820 | You don't understand how the publishing industry works

00:02:24.600 | or you do understand and you reject it.

00:02:26.420 | You're nervous about talking to an agent

00:02:28.100 | 'cause they might not like your book idea.

00:02:29.380 | So you're gonna have the circuitous approach

00:02:31.460 | where well, write it myself

00:02:32.860 | but then I'll be very clever about the marketing

00:02:34.580 | and we'll do this and that

00:02:35.500 | and then the agents will come to me later

00:02:36.860 | and wanna buy my book.

00:02:37.980 | You're inventing your own story

00:02:39.840 | about how the industry works

00:02:41.860 | because you either don't know or you don't like

00:02:44.460 | or you're afraid of what the actual story really is.

00:02:48.580 | You have to be ruthlessly evidence-based

00:02:50.900 | when coming up with what you're gonna work on

00:02:52.540 | and how you're gonna work on it

00:02:53.540 | for one of these diligent, disciplined,

00:02:56.480 | long-term project endeavors

00:02:59.120 | because it's a really big investment of time.

00:03:01.620 | Your brain has to trust.

00:03:03.120 | You know what you're doing

00:03:04.700 | and this has a chance of succeeding.

00:03:07.260 | So do not skip the step of ruthlessly gathering evidence

00:03:11.260 | about how your field actually works.

00:03:14.560 | Now, I see this all the time.

00:03:15.520 | There's a lot of other common examples

00:03:17.160 | where people will write their own stories

00:03:19.320 | instead of actually figuring out how a field works.

00:03:22.460 | This happens in tech startups a lot.

00:03:23.960 | I talk to people that like the idea

00:03:26.200 | of having a technology startup

00:03:28.120 | but don't actually want to talk to,

00:03:30.960 | let's say, funders or investors

00:03:32.600 | or get a sense of what would make a company attractive

00:03:36.640 | to an investor that would allow an exit,

00:03:38.480 | that would allow growth or acquisition.

00:03:40.120 | They don't want those stories.

00:03:41.300 | They want it just to be the fun stuff

00:03:44.360 | that I have a Slack account set up

00:03:46.920 | and I'm jumping on calls with people

00:03:48.880 | to get their ideas about things

00:03:50.680 | and paying web developers to set up a website.

00:03:52.580 | They don't want the reality

00:03:54.260 | of what is the technical skill required?

00:03:56.200 | What is the work that actually goes into producing something

00:03:59.520 | that is good enough that has the potential scalability

00:04:01.800 | that can actually attract funding?

00:04:02.940 | How much talent does that actually require?

00:04:05.580 | I don't know how many times I've heard someone say,

00:04:07.060 | "Yeah, I just need to find a programmer type

00:04:10.160 | "to build the thing, but I've got this great idea."

00:04:12.840 | They want just the fun part, not the hard part.

00:04:15.600 | And there's other fields too

00:04:17.660 | where you'll see the same thing.

00:04:18.840 | You'll see it in podcasting.

00:04:20.680 | But what actually, talk to a successful podcaster.

00:04:23.520 | How does a podcast become financially viable?

00:04:25.900 | It's rare.

00:04:27.600 | So what are the elements

00:04:28.640 | that makes a podcast financially viable?

00:04:30.340 | How do you, what is required to actually get there?

00:04:32.360 | What type of audience or content

00:04:34.240 | and what differentiates a successful one

00:04:36.920 | from a non-successful one?

00:04:37.760 | People don't want to hear that too.

00:04:38.840 | They just say, "I just want to start recording

00:04:40.460 | "because you never know, maybe I'll be Joe Rogan."

00:04:43.480 | Even though that's not how it actually happens.

00:04:44.720 | So ruthlessly evidence-based approach

00:04:47.100 | to these big ambitious projects,

00:04:48.640 | it sounds at first like a downer,

00:04:50.800 | but it is the fuel that will allow you

00:04:52.220 | to actually continue and get something big done.

00:04:54.560 | The bad news is,

00:04:56.000 | it might take a lot of things off the table at first.

00:04:58.240 | Things that you want to do for your big projects,

00:05:00.760 | you gather the evidence and you realize,

00:05:02.360 | "I'm not in a good position to do this."

00:05:04.020 | And that is a downer.

00:05:04.860 | But what it does mean, and this is the side, the benefit,

00:05:08.660 | when you do find a thing that is reasonable for you to pursue

00:05:12.180 | that feeling of motivation you have,

00:05:15.040 | when the evidence is there to back it up,

00:05:17.240 | you've built your way up to this,

00:05:18.480 | your mind believes that that feeling of motivation

00:05:20.400 | is really powerful,

00:05:21.280 | and a lot of people don't even recognize it

00:05:22.680 | until they get it.

00:05:23.520 | And then they say, "Oh, this is what it feels like

00:05:25.600 | "to go after something big

00:05:27.000 | "in a way that is deeply grounded in reality

00:05:31.360 | "and has a real chance of succeeding."

00:05:33.480 | It just feels very different than the,

00:05:35.880 | "I'm writing every day, I'm doing my thousand words,

00:05:38.860 | "I'm having Zooms with people about my startup idea,

00:05:42.260 | "I bought a USB mic and now I'm a podcaster."

00:05:44.840 | It really feels different once you have that foundation

00:05:47.600 | of evidence.

00:05:49.360 | So I'm glad you brought this up, Jim,

00:05:50.920 | because I think that's, it's downplayed too much

00:05:53.600 | when we talk about these big, ambitious, long-term projects.

00:05:56.880 | All the prep work is often ignored,

00:05:58.680 | and we just say, "Well, have the courage

00:06:00.120 | "to follow your passion and just go for it."

00:06:02.520 | No, don't go for it, until you're so convinced

00:06:05.480 | that you'd be dumb not to that you have no other choice.

00:06:08.280 | All right, Jesse, I don't know, Jesse,

00:06:11.080 | I kind of feel now like I'm temporarily back

00:06:12.980 | in that beginner podcast phase.

00:06:14.360 | I have a USB microphone, I'm in a basement,

00:06:18.080 | I'm not in the HQ, I feel like we're taking steps

00:06:21.240 | backwards here, though actually, I think,

00:06:24.160 | this is what's gonna be fun, I think listeners

00:06:26.120 | are gonna see and viewers are gonna see,

00:06:28.000 | I'm slowly going to evolve my setup here

00:06:30.720 | as the summer goes on, because I flew up here

00:06:33.280 | and I'm flying back to drive up with my family,

00:06:35.160 | so I'm gonna be bringing more equipment up

00:06:37.120 | in a couple weeks, nice cameras, some nice lighting.

00:06:40.880 | My goal is by the time we get to mid-August,

00:06:43.880 | that this house here at Hanover is gonna be producing

00:06:48.280 | a really slick looking podcast.

00:06:50.460 | I think it's gonna be a fun project.

00:06:52.320 | I'm gonna build a cool setup here.

00:06:56.080 | It really will be the Deep Work HQ North once I'm done.

00:07:00.400 | So that'll be a fun progression to watch

00:07:03.040 | as the summer unfolds.

00:07:03.880 | Yeah, baby.

00:07:04.880 | (upbeat music)

00:07:07.460 | (upbeat music)

The Key To Whether Or Not An Idea Should Be Pursued

Chapters