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A few years ago, I thought that I loved entrepreneurship bc it gave me the ability to be creative and to build whatever a I wanted, whenever I wanted. Then one
by TheBiv 13y ago
A few years ago, I thought that I loved entrepreneurship bc it gave me the ability to be creative and to build whatever a I wanted, whenever I wanted.
Then one of my mentors gave me a challenge: 1) In 15 seconds, write down all of the things that you can think about, in the entire world, that is the color white...(I could only muster up about 2 things)...Then, 2) in 15 seconds, write down all of the things that you can think about, in you refrigerator, that are white...(I came up with about 8 things)
This was then led to him describing how I should not think about the entrepreneurship life as an unlimiting venture, he argued that I should put limits on myself and develop a process to get to whatever goal I set out to achieve.
This article echoes that sentiment of focusing on making the process more efficient and use the goals as a way to plan, but don't focus on the goal, focus on the process. I really liked this article. Thank you for sharing!
- randallsquared 13y agoOn the 2 vs 8 things... It's clear what this was meant to convey by your mentor, and I'm glad it worked for you, but those aren't the same kind of thing. Things in your refrigerator which are white only happen to be white, but things in the entire world that are white are white by definition.
- TheBiv 13y agoI can honestly admit that I was trying to follow the subtlety of that statement, but yet I don't follow. I guess my question is how are things in my refrigerator only white by happen-stance and not by definition? As everything that I see (regardless of where I see it at) is a product of my own definition, so that should not be of matter. What should be of matter is how quickly I am able to recall the things that are only defined by the scope I place them in (be in everywhere or in my refrigerator)
- justinpombrio 13y agoThere's a difference between "prototypical objects" and "specific objects". For instance, apples are red, but that specific apple you have in your hand might be green. Likewise, people have 10 fingers, but my grandmother only has 9. I suspect the parent thought this distinction was hidden in the question? But I don't see any reason you couldn't name a specific object in response to the "everything in the world" question. I also can't think of many objects that are white but not prototypically white. So maybe I've misunderstood too.
- swombat 13y agoTo give an example of this... When answering the first question, I found myself thinking only of things which are pure white almost all the time. So I thought of snow, clouds, white sails - and even with those I felt they were arguable (snow can be grey; clouds too; sails can be multi-coloured). Arguably the only thing that's prototypically white in the world is sunlight - and that looks yellow! :-P On the other hand, when considering my fridge, I only thought of what is white-looking in there... Milk is prototypically white, but cheese, eggs, bread, mold on some old sausages, etc... are just kinda sorta white sometimes. But within the limits of a fridge they're acceptable examples of white. I think that's what the GP was arguing: when asked for "white things in the world" you naturally place the bar for "white" much higher than when asked for "white things in your fridge".
- randallsquared 13y agoSorry I didn't get back to you earlier. Below, swombat intuited what I meant: when you think of things that are white in the entire world, it would likely not occur to you to mention a specific white Toyota Corolla five blocks from where you are, or to round off to X million white cars to start the list. The question seems to ask for kinds of things that are white, so answers will tend to be "milk", "snow", "whitecaps"... but even that last raises the question of whether things with "white" in the name or description are valid? If so, then "white X" where X is nearly anything is one good answer, making the question meaningless. In contrast, when thinking of white things in your fridge, you can answer "eggs" if the eggs in your fridge are white, even though eggs may or may not be white in general, so they are arguably not valid for the list of things in the world. I'm not saying you consciously went through this line of reasoning; I'm saying that the question frames different kinds of answers, entirely apart from your mentor's intended lesson of "reducing scope allows you to think more deeply about what's left in scope".
- TheBiv 13y agoI hopefully now understand what you mean and I appreciate you taking the time to respond. Since I was not able to even classify things as x million white y's probably lends itself more to the value of the question bc my scope was so broad...but if you were able to do that within 15 seconds and write down more than 8 things, then you would be better at this game than I was! :)
- randallsquared 13y agoHaha. No, I think it's unlikely that I would be better at this game than you are. :) I'm a slow thinker.
- TheBiv 13y ago:) thank you again for the note back and all the best!
- RBerenguel 13y agoIIRC this example is also in Heath's book "Made to Stick". It's a pretty mind opening example (as most on that book.) Looks like you had a good mentor.
- TheBiv 13y agoI will for sure have to check that book out! Thank you for the note!
- RBerenguel 13y agoOt's on my top 3 ever for marketing-ideas-stuff, together with "Mastery" and "Influence". Probably the best 3 non-fiction books i've read lately, for the usefulness/interestingness ratio.