Exposing your idea to the elements…
Sometimes the best way to judge an idea is to talk about it…
In my creative thinking classroom, I often tell people to talk about their ideas. Talking about them fosters more creativity and hence the build up from something that might be ‘okay’ to ‘awesome’.
But there’s another benefit of talking about your idea, and it holds true, even if you are talking to yourself, aloud.
In your head, there are a lot of dots that need to be connected, especially, of something as complicated as a business idea. There are too many moving parts that, in your head, look reasonable, rational and relatively well-connected to each other. The reason for this is because in your head, thoughts whiz about faster than you can grasp or grapple with them.
Imagine this. I know it’s an absurd thought experiment, but bear with me and go along. Imagine that a vehicle is zooming past you nearly at the speed of 1000 kmph. How well would you be able to see the car as a whole? Not well at all, because it just drove by very fast. And if I asked you if you noticed anything peculiar about the car, chances are you wouldn’t have. For example, you might not notice that the car had no windshield wipers, or that it was missing a door, or that its tires was low on air. Stuff like that, you just miss when a car whizzes past you that fast. While you can make out it’s a car, you can’t really say anything else about it.
Well, your business idea is that car in your head.
When you talk about it (or write it down in a business plan), you are forcing your mind and thoughts to slow down to the speed of sound. It might not seem like much, but compared to near-speed of light, it’s a whole lot slower.
And that’s when you start realizing things that you hadn’t seen before. Like simple questions that you missed answering or dependencies you did not map out.
“I just heard it as it came out of my mouth and realized how absurd it must have sounded.”
I have been in so many meetings with aspiring and current entrepreneurs, pitching their idea to me for guidance or money. And almost every meeting that I have been in, results in a new revelation for the opposite side of the table. They usually don’t admit it aloud, but you can see it in their how-the-fuck-did-I-miss-that?, that-can’t-be-right!, or I-never-thought-of-that! face.
Some of these guys have been so cocooned in their idea or their work, that talking to me or my partners was probably the first time they actually said their idea aloud. At times, it may just be a small part of their idea that was thought of, shelved and forgotten, until I asked a question to remind them of it.
This is why having a good set of people to work with helps — co-founders, advisers, mentors, (potential) customers, etc. You are forced to say it aloud and hear it for yourself.
Note: you can skip this section if you do not want to delve into scientific and psychological/neurological reasons and just move to the Bottomline.
Your brain processes inputs from different sources differently. For example, when you read, the brain processes the text and patterns and converts them into meaningful concepts that is used to understand the words. When you hear things, it processes the input very differently. For one, it (usually, for most people) absorbs things better because the intermediary layer or combining and converting symbols is eliminated and goes directly to pattern recognition and matching with the lexicon you have.
This is why, most people find it easier to understand a concept when they hear it in class versus reading it in a textbook.
And the funny part is that your brain does not entirely differentiate your voice from that of others. Yes, there is a sub-conscious subroutine in your brain that knows it’s your voice, but the system that takes the input and processes it, does not really care whose voice it may be. For that system, your voice is the same as everyone else who might be saying something.
This is where the objectivity kicks in. Because you brain doesn’t differentiate your (spoken) words from others, it is as critical, analytical and cynical of them as it would be if a random stranger spoke to you.
So, when you speak your idea aloud, your brain can actually go, “hey man, that’s utter nonsense!”
Bottomline
Couldn’t put it better than these words by Colin Cowherd in his book You Herd Me!: I’ll Say It If Nobody Else Will:
… simple piece of advice if they find themselves pondering the sanity of a particular idea.
Say it out loud.
Get it out. Let it breathe. Judge its merits based on how it sounds when it hits the open air. Certain concepts seem outrageous when exposed to the elements.
