idea to ask a girl out walk around like
I go on to the pen my poor friend and
I’d see can I really communicate this
idea to them I’d say things like hey
we’re going hours and you’ll join us for
a milkshake and I’d kind of make sure
that I can communicate it after that I’d
move on and I kind of get that that
initial feedback from kind of the dating
expert of my school this was the guy who
of all of us really understood women if
there is such a thing
after I got his feedback I found out
that pretty much naturally everybody at
my school knew that I was into this girl
my friends had told their friends and
their friends had told friends of
friends and everybody was giving their
feedback on kind of my love interest and
so it’s funny but by the time when it
was time to actually ask her out I had
already gotten all of this information
and so I knew that it was a good idea I
knew that it made sense for me to ask
her out but I couldn’t just walk up to
her and say hey you and me we’re gonna
hold hands in the cafeteria make
smooches you know all that good stuff
it’s a bit much
so I let’s say that I noticed that
there’s a dance coming up I walk up to
her and I say hey how about we just go
to this dance just this simple thing a
little test and if she says yes well
then it’s time for me to really go all
out I know that it’s a good idea that we
go out my friends know that it’s a good
idea here her friends know that it’s a
good idea she says yes I’m gonna spend
not only the dance getting to know her
but the two weeks before going on dates
really trying to understand her cuz in
dating just like in anything if it’s
ever going to succeed
you really have to put a lot of effort
into it so that was kind of my my dating
life in high school and as you’ll notice
it kind of goes through something of a
process of natural selection where at
this kind of brings me to the topic of
natural selection of ideas so I kind of
noticed the idea of natural selection
ideas when I was at a monastery in
Thailand the Buddhists have a lot of
philosophy about how you relate to your
thoughts how you relate to your ideas
that you can choose which ones to accept
and which ones to let go so I realized
that I really wanted an objective
framework for being able to determine
which one’s I wanted to follow and which
ones I wanted to dismiss cuz back in
high school I had all of these different
ideas these were ideas like you know
should I join this club or that Club
should I even apply to college should I
go to college when I want to go to
college what should i major in and over
time I found that these ideas only
increased in intensity and difficulty
and so it was really tough to be honest
I was really afraid I was making a lot
of big life decisions and it was really
scary so now that I’m an adult I find it
really valuable to have a way to
determine kind of objectively which of
my ideas are good ideas
and I touched on it naturally with the
dating example but here let me walk you
through it now so the first step is kind
of that inner circle and we saw this
with dating the real question that I
find with my framework is you know at
the first step doesn’t even sound good
to me because I have ideas all the time
we all do and so that first step is to
talk to people and say hey does this
idea make sense when I say it aloud I
find it really valuable to have a core
group of four or five friends who I can
be silly around who I can say ideas and
not feel like I’m going to be judged so
I can say ideas that will be crazy
or offensive or who knows what because
sometimes when you give an idea
structure when you really say it you
find out whether it even make sense to
you so that’s the step that I call my
inner circle and after an idea passes my
inner circle if it does I move on and I
start communicating that idea to a wider
group of friends and the goal of this
step is to make sure that I can clearly
communicate it because later I’m gonna
want to be getting information on that
feedback on my idea and it’s important
that I’m getting that feedback on the
idea itself not on things that are say
tangentially related to the idea or
little rabbit holes that aren’t really
core parts so that second step is to
really pitch it a lot and make sure that
after I can clearly communicate an idea
I’m now able to get feedback on it and
that feedback that initial feedback I
like to get from about ten people who
are really experts at giving feedback
these don’t even have to be good friends
these are just people who I would trust
their feedback for example in the dating
world this would be my friend who seems
really good with women after that
initial feedback it’s time to get some
broad feedback and this naturally
happens in high school dating for me at
least with kind of where everybody knows
and everybody’s giving their own input
but for other ideas
I find it valuable too once I know that
the idea seems reasonable from that
initial feedback to see as many people
as possible this would be pitching the
idea to over drivers when somebody asks
me what I do for a living telling them
hey I have this idea what do you think
of this idea and when you get broad
feedback on an idea you can learn not
only what about it seems reasonable but
also who likes that idea so I call that
next step getting broad feedback after
I’ve gotten broad feedback on the idea I
want to make a prototype of it some
initial first step to really make sure
that when you have the idea and you say
out in the wild a little bit it still
works this could be for example say
writing a blog post on a topic or
walking around high school and seeing
how many people will sign up for the
club that you’re thinking of starting or
doing a TEDx on a topic before you
consider writing about it in a book and
after that initial prototype if my idea
has been able to pass through all of
these steps and succeed I know it’s a
good idea and so it’s really time to
commit and committing is really
important because at some point you have
to draw on the line and a line in the
sand and say I’m going to do this I’m
gonna put the effort into it and I am
going to see this thing through to
completion because doing things is tough
and often an idea will fail many times
before it succeeds or often you’ll have
unforeseen difficulties and so you
really need to know before you commit to
an idea before you put a lot of time and
effort into it that it’s the right one
to be committing to but when you do you
got to go all out with it so this is the
framework I call natural selection of
ideas and you saw how it naturally kind
of worked in high school dating but it
works in other areas as well for example
when I graduated college last year I
knew I wanted to write a book but I had
30 40 50 ideas for what topic to write
on so I ran them through this process at
first I was talking my ideas out with
friends just to see what they sounded
like to me if they sounded reasonable
then I moved on and I made sure that I
could clearly communicate those ideas so
that when I later got feedback from my
friends a lot of literary friends at
first I was able to make sure that I was
getting that feedback on the idea itself
my literary friends kind of the experts
in the book world that I know we’re
really helpful for that initial feedback
because I was able to find out what they
liked about it so that then when I got
broad feedback you would have caught me
pitching the idea when I was waiting in
line for a concert or whenever an uber
driver starts up a conversation with me
I only had about three ideas that got
past all of those steps and ended up
going to a prototype but when I did make
that outline and I started chopping it
around I found that it was incredibly
valuable I was able to get a lot of
incredible feedback on that prototype
and know who likes what about it so that
then when I spent a year of my life
writing a book I was pretty confident
and I knew what people liked and what
people wouldn’t like so there’s a lot of
value to going through this kind of
objective process and part of that value
is because we see pretty often the
danger of people skipping some of these
steps for example in the creative world
you see a lot of people who come up with
an idea and then they share their idea
with friends maybe kick around it a
little bit but then they jump all the
way to the end and they try to write the
entire screenplay only to realize that
the audience isn’t as big as they
thought it was or for example the idea
is only one that they and their friends
actually ended up caring about on the
other hand I’ve shared my book with
about the first two chapters with about
50 people and I already know what people
like about it and what people don’t like
about it I already know what my target
audience is I haven’t even gone into the
publishing world yet but I’m gonna be
able to talk to publishers and say hey I
already have this data he’ll if I want
to I can even just go self publish
because I know the number of people and
the demographics and all of the areas
that people already like about it by
going through kind of an objective
system I’m able to build to that success
so this is my system I call it natural
selection of ideas and I like it you’re
welcome to use it too if you’re
interested in it maybe try it out but
the key if there’s a single key of this
talk is not necessarily using my system
but having a system having an objective
way to test your ideas in order to see
which ones end up working and which ones
don’t because we’re constantly being
demanded with
ways in order to spend our time and
spend our energy and if you don’t have a
system you’re just gonna end up being
buffeted around by ideas from day to day
I remember back in high school I was
deeply deeply passionately in love
writing her name on my notebooks in love
for about a day and then the next day I
realized that wait that wasn’t actually
a great idea so if you have an objective
system then you’re able to measure which
of your ideas succeed in which fail you
can keep track and you can have a
success rate that is consistent and as
we saw with dating which as we all know
is the most important aspect of a life
if you have an objective system and you
use the steps consistently you can take the luck out of getting lucky thank you