Pressure is the secret to good ideas.

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Music and links from this episode

The Ocean by MindsEye

Post Yes by Soft and Furious

in the garden of swine by alpha jaguar

Line-by-line notes

If you're a regular listener of this podcast

You'll know I like setting stupid challenges

I like testing the theory

That ideas are infinite

And if we put ourselves under enough pressure

Ideas can pop out of anywhere.

This is AADA, and I'm Craig Burgess

MUSIC

This podcast is a little bit different today

Because I've got something else at the back of my mind

Tonight, in a meeting, I accidentally set myself a challenge

Yeah, that's on top of this daily challenge of a podcast a day

I set myself a challenge to make a business by midnight

As I record this podcast, it's now 8:15pm

And after I've recorded this podcast

I need to then edit it

So easily, it'll be 9pm before I'm done with my podcast

Which gives me 3 hours

To invent a business where I can sell my skills through

And be taking money by midnight

It isn't an easy challenge

But I set it up for 2 reasons

Reason 1: I wanted to prove that it's possible with as little time as humanly possible to set up a business

So nobody has an excuse for not doing something

And 2: the idea that ideas themselves are infinite

Ideas are a little bit like diamonds

They start out as boring bits of earth that nobody cares about

But as you add pressure to them

And the more ridiculous the pressure

The better the idea crystallises into a diamond of an idea

That way of working definitely works for me

The more pressure I put myself under

The the more ideas flood out of my brain into a useful format

The longer you have to think about an idea

Not matter what it is

That idea goes from an amazing one, to a good one, to a rubbish one

And if you're lucky, back to an amazing one

Our brains are fascinating pieces of kit

They have an amazing ability to convince themselves

Of anything

No matter how ridiculous or otherwise it is

And when you leave brains to ponder things

They tend to get all realistic about stuff and a little bit more boring

I try my best to seize ideas when they strike

And ride that idea and find out where it takes me

Sometimes, they end in a blaze of glory

In fact most of them do

But every single time I've decided to make some stupid idea

That didn't go anywhere

I've learned things larger than the idea

I've learnt a new skill, a new piece of knowledge, or just become a better person

You can't put a price on that

And the only way you test yourself with those kinds of things

Is by putting pressure on yourself

And trying new ideas

MUSIC

This was AADA, I'm Craig Burgess

Music featured in this episode was

The Ocean by MindsEye

Post Yes by Soft and Furious

in the garden of swine by alpha jaguar

For a line by line rundown of this episode, go over to askadesigneranything.com/ep118

I'm back tomorrow with another episode of AADA

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