Thinking Different: Smartcuts Miniseries Pt.1 with Shane Snow

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I’m extra excited about this one.

So a lot of you know that I have listened to Shane Snow’s audiobook Smartcuts many times and how much I was looking forward to having him on the show for the first time back in April. Well the only thing better was when he agreed to come back and do entire deep dive miniseries into the stories of those who have built these skills of avoiding unnecessary work and, instead of slowly climbing the “supposed to” ladder, building their own ladders to success faster, as well as how-tos of for how the rest of us can do the same thing.

A new episode of the miniseries will be out each Friday for the next 6 weeks.

If you missed the first time he was on the show you can listen to it here.

Thanks for Listening

Jess

P.S. If you like the episode please shoot me an email and let me know what you liked about it: Jess.Larsen@GraystokeMedia.com

Bio:

Shane Snow is an award-winning journalist, explorer, and entrepreneur, and the author. He speaks globally about innovation and teamwork, has performed comedy on Broadway, and been in the running for the Pulitzer Prize for investigative journalism.

Snow has helped expose gun traffickers, explored abandoned buildings around the world, eaten only ice cream for weeks in the name of science, and taught hundreds of thousands of people to work better through his books, including the business bestseller Smartcuts.

Snow's writing has appeared in GQ, Fast Company, Wired, The New Yorker, and more. He is also a board member of the media technology company Contently, and the journalism nonprofit The Hatch Institute. Make sure to check out ShaneSnow.com Follow him on LinkedIn.

Here is the auto-generated script from the interview:

Jess: So Shane, can we maybe dive into the definition of lateral thinking as you think about it?

[00:00:08] Shane: Yeah. So I think of lateral thinking juxtaposed against logical thinking. So if you think back to math class in ninth grade, or whenever you learned algebra A + B = C, A = B, that means A + A = C.

[00:00:26] You know, the, the logical straightforward solve the math problem, kind of, of thinking that's, that's linear, it's a, you know, you're taking things and you're, step-by-step coming to a conclusion. What lateral thinking is it's about, coming up with a new way to get to that conclusion. So, you know, in, in math class, I don't know if this ever happened to you, but where, you know, the teacher always wanted you to show your work.

[00:00:54] And, and sometimes I would do this, certainly, you know, it's a big story problem or whatever, supposed to find the answer and I would get the answer, but I got it by doing something completely different than I was supposed to. And then you get docked for it. that I think is kind of insane to apply that sort of thinking in real life to say that.

[00:01:15] You arrived at an answer, but the way you arrived at it was not the way that I wanted you to. So what's wrong. That is linear thinking. So lateral thinking is coming up with different ways to, to arrive at things. So elastic thinking you could think of in terms of a lateral thinking as a mechanism for finding new ways to do things, lateral thinking is the finding of new ways to do things.

[00:01:40] And then smart cuts I use this analogy of building your own ladder. So let's say we're talking about careers, the CEO of a big company and so you could get in at the entry level as an intern, and then slowly work your way up the ladder. You pay your dues, you do what the requirements are to fit the mold.

[00:02:01] And to eventually, you know, you get upgraded, promoted, you wait for people to die and didn't take their spot and eventually become the CEO. Or you could build your own ladder. You could start your own company and, and get a lot of CEO like experience early on, do a lot of things that are much more difficult than being told what you're supposed to do, but then get to a point where you get hired as a CEO of this other company, because you've proven that you have the chops and suddenly.

[00:02:27] You're CEO of the big company, you know, in half the time that it would have taken on, you're probably more creative at a successful as a CEO because you have this alternate experience. So that's you know, sort of a rudimentary analogy or example of this idea of lateral thinking is coming up with a different path.

[00:02:46] To achieving the goal and in doing so you are coming up with, you're being more innovative at achieving the goal itself. So that's how I define lateral thinking is it's, that inventing a different route to, to the goal. And fundamentally what it often means is rethinking what the goal is, rethinking the assumptions around solving the problem.

[00:03:11] So, like I said before, with the analogy of the car and the old lady. You assume that the problem to be solved is picking the right person to sit in the driver's seat to drive them home. But actually the problem to be solved I helping everyone out to achieve their goals. Repaying, the friend, saving the old lady, making a connection with the person of your dreams and living happily ever after.

[00:03:34] That's the problem to be solved. So lateral thinking by saying, we have to come up with a different route to solving this problem, it actually forces you to rethink what the problem actually, which is something that we can get into later. When we, in a future episode, when we talk about first principles, thinking.

[00:03:51] But yeah, that's, that's how I would define it as building the new ladder to, to get to the solution of the problem.

[00:04:00] Jess: I love it. And I think for me, it's so fun. I obviously I've read and reread the book, Smartcuts multiple times, and the way that you have been able to identify this, whether it's, you know, That tech CEO who became really sick, accessible quickly and not doing the old way, and then became a great race car driver or the president of the United States.

[00:04:20] They get there faster than most senators become senators. Then the surfers, the surfers who are better and when the competitions and that like that you show how it shows up in these multiple domains. For some reason helps me, kind of identify how it might show up in my space. You know, so anyways, I feel like it's a favor to the rest of us that you've identified how it shows up in multiple areas instead of having you do the work of like yeah,

[00:04:44] but I don't do that one thing. So how does that translate?

[00:04:47] Shane: Oh, well thank you. Well, I think, you know, I'm glad you brought up the surfer one because it's an example of how lateral thinking manifests in many different ways. So if all you heard was the analogy of, you want to be CEO of a big company, so come up with your own alternate career path, then you might try applying that career path, build your own ladder thing.

[00:05:10] Two other types of problems where it's not actually the best way to employ lateral thinking. It's not the most relevant way to rethink the problem. The surfing one, I think is really interesting example because when you get to basically the summary is when you get to professional well surfing levels, where everyone is an extremely good swimmer,

[00:05:27] Or they're extremely good at surfing. What makes the difference between who wins the champions championships? Is not how big their muscles are. It's not, you know, doing more exercises and becoming a better swimmer or anything like that. It's who's better at identifying the best opportunities, the best waves to ride.

[00:05:44] So the best world champion surfers are the ones that show up to the beach at six in the morning and study the water and look for the patterns and study exactly how the water is moving at that break at that day. So that then they can, can actually come up with their approach. and it's, it reminds me of a quote by Einstein.

[00:06:01] He said that allegedly, if I had an hour to solve a problem, I'd spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem. And five minutes thinking about solutions. That's the idea of lateral thinking is. If you're in surfing, that's going to mean something different. The ladder that you build is going to be different than if it's, you know, wanting to be CEO of a fortune 500 company.

[00:06:22] So that's, that's the principle, right? They're spending more time doing the painful thinking. So that you can then have an easier or faster time doing the executing because you've come up with a better plan.

[00:06:35] Jess: I love that. It's like that saying, don't just act, stop and think,

[00:06:43] Shane: and this is, this is what this is all about.

[00:06:45] Right. It's getting into the habit of stopping and thinking like that. That's actually hard.

[00:06:50] Jess: Well, especially when we've been good at something, you know, we've got our ruts, we know we can probably take this hammer and if it's not a nail, we could still pound it in, you know, and

[00:07:01] Jess: it's, it's pretty much worked in the past so far.

[00:07:03] Right. you know, it's funny you brought up stoicness, a little bit earlier

[00:07:09] Jess: and I think about like this idea of like separating what we can control and what we can't control. Right? Like, Having spent years living in Huntington beach and Sacramento and surfing all those years. I think about like, you know, you can't really change the wave.

[00:07:25] Right. You can't change how you're going to serve it. Yeah. And like that acknowledgement, what's going on and what I can control, what I can't control. And then like, you're talking about this elastic thinking of like, here's the given route, here's the, how you should surf it, but is that the only option, you know, it's anyways to me that that resonates as a surfer.

[00:07:49] Shane: Oh good. I'm glad I'm kind of a crap surfer. so, I'm glad that it holds for someone who's better.

[00:07:56] Jess: Well, it's interesting. You know, I don't know if you ever saw that video of those pros that went and built a dock out in the break.

[00:08:06]Jess: Plastic dock that looks like a big snake and they're just running out there, jumping on the wave.

[00:08:10] It's like that. Right. So awesome. no paddling involved. Anyways, we should move on, but that really works for me.

[00:08:19] Shane: It's a great example. If you recognize that, Hey, I love the surfing part of surfing and I hate the waiting and the swimming out and swimming past the waves part. I just want to work on my surfing skills, building a dock that's out there, right by the breaks.

[00:08:33] You can jump onto the wave and avoid all of that extra work. That is not accruing to your actual surfing practice. That's amazing. That's a perfect example of a smart cut. Well,

[00:08:45] Jess: and I, you know, I know we've got so many entrepreneurs listening to us. Maybe one last one I'll give you weigh in on is I think about a version of this.

[00:08:52] I feel like I learned from one of my clients, who's a good friend that went to art school at the same place. You and I both went to university. and, she has,

[00:09:01] she has big marketing firm that, you know, clients, Facebook, Intel, all these big books. Right. And so she had taken me into one of these clients with her and we were presented to this, you know, You for like 23 people that had to approve something like the big companies.

[00:09:15] And she was talking about this principle of watering holes. I'm like, yeah, you could build an audience. You could build. you could try to gather all these ideal clients, but wouldn't it be a lot faster to find out the watering hole where all these people are hanging out already and figure out what we can do to scratch the back of the people who already own that water people like.

[00:09:33] So take you years to put those people together. Well, you'd probably come up with something pretty quick to be a value to the people who've already

[00:09:39] Any thoughts on that?

[00:09:42] Shane: that? I mean, I love that analogy, like watering hole. I was wondering where you were going with that. but, I like it because, I mean, it speaks to this, you know, reinventing the wheel, right?

[00:09:54] Like there are some, if you have. In this example, right? Content information, that's valuable. You've done the work to make the thing that's going to be valuable. Why would you then reinvent all the work to get people, to pay attention to it, right. And not go somewhere where they're going to already need it and pay attention to it.

[00:10:16] Anyway, it's like we have these myths, I think. Especially, I would say in America, think culture that sort of descends from sort of a Protestant work ethic thing that came over with the pilgrims, which is that if you're not breaking your back and doing it all yourself, then you're, then it's not like a good work.

[00:10:41] Right. It's not, it's not honest work. And, and I think that's sort of a crazy notion and it flies in the face of everything we know, and that specialization and all of that. Like, if you have something of value, then why do you have to do everything else? It's like you know, for me, in my experience, running a company, starting a company and doing all the things to prove out the business model and to get customers.

[00:11:06] And all of that is a very different set of skills than scaling up the company from $15 million to a hundred million dollars in revenue. And, you know, the operational management, and so many startups, CEOs are expected. They feel this pressure to be both of those people, to have both those sets of skills.

[00:11:24] And that's kind of crazy. It's like, I don't know. It's like, I've a friend, who's a pro wrestler, which is a really cool job, actually. It's like expecting a pro wrestler to also be good at like marketing pro wrestling. It's like, no, you spend a million hours in the gym learning how to do every style of fight.

[00:11:46] And I'm like, this guy can do every judo, kickboxing, everything. And he's like massive and really good at fighting. Why does he need to be the one that knows how to make posters and like get people to come to the show? That's ridiculous. But often in all sorts of areas of life, we put all of these things on ourselves because it doesn't feel honest for some reason.

[00:12:06] And I think cause it's like that feeling comes from this, sort of misplaced notion of what hard work and what honest work is. So the watering hole thing, I think is a perfect analogy. I mean, if you have garbage and you're gonna put garbage in the water involved, that's a different story actually made the thing no value and done that hard work.

[00:12:24] It's not to say that you haven't done hard work, but if you put more effort into the thing, that's going to be valuable and then you bring it to where people already are, I think that's fantastic. And there's no dishonesty in that. And in fact, you might just make something better than the person that's so fixated on building the audience too.

[00:12:44] Jess: You know, you think about how much work it would be to like drive your land Rover across the Savanna, like get your photos of all these different animals and chasing them all down one by one, right? Versus like somebody that's already got somebody that already owns a watering hole where they all gather already.

[00:13:01] They're like, hey, I'll bring the hay. I'll bring the feed. To make it, to make your watering hole even more attractive there. Oh, that's great. I'd love that. You know, think about, I don't know. I just think about everything you just said. And it's like, for me, I tie

[00:13:15] Jess: it back to the school system so much and we just get ingrained, like you were saying earlier, solve this problem and solve it the way that I said NPS don't collaborate.

[00:13:24] Do it yourself. Otherwise that's cheating. Right.

[00:13:27] Jess: And there are so many ways to skip runs and ladders where we hurt people and like you call them smart cuts. You know, we're giving up our ethics to jump ahead the line. And everybody hates when somebody jumps, like, you know, when you've been waiting in line for two hours, somewhere in somebody's 18 friends come to the spot,

[00:13:46] Shane: yeah,

[00:13:47] Jess: there's a sense of unfairness.

[00:13:49] Right. But I feel like we've thrown the baby out with the bath water. On, you know, we just get ingrained in school. That's cheating. Wait your turn. Right. And what we throw out with that is like, we just mindlessly accept unnecessary work all the time. Right?

[00:14:10] Shane: Yeah. And it's, and it's often arbitrary, which things we, we decide are okay to let other people do or to, you know, what platforms to stand on.

[00:14:18] You, you just made me think like, people, most people who are in internet business have no problem buying a photo that someone else has taken and using it on their website. If you thought that the only honest way to do it would be to go out and take all your own photos. Then when you needed a photo of a line, you would have to go drive across the Sahara in your Land Rover and do that, which is absurd.

[00:14:42] But we applied that very same logic to so many things that we don't think about it. And this, I mean, this ties back exactly to this is what lateral thinking is about. There are so many questions in life that have assumptions built in about those kinds of things. You know, just like I made you assume that you have to stay in the car and in order to help the person out, we have so many of those assumptions that we don't even

[00:15:06] Like realize are just built into our thinking process. And it, you know, I think people it's very easy to turn into a jerk by saying like, I'm going to assume nothing and everything is wrong and everyone's wrong, but it gets out a really important principle, which is the value of skepticism when it comes to, to innovative thinking.

[00:15:27] I mean, I guess the question for you when I say that someone's a skeptical person. Does that sound like a positive thing necessarily to you?

[00:15:36] Jess: No, because so often, for me it gets lumped in with me, with pessimism, you know, people who say I'm a realist when really they're pessimists.

[00:15:45] Shane: Yeah.

[00:15:47] Jess: And like, you know, there can be like a sense of feeling special for being the one who doesn't buy it.

[00:15:56] You know, like there's people who maybe they're not even intellectually skeptical, but they would like to have the image of being the skeptical one. And they get this certain specialness from, creating friction, you know, and even though it's a negative attention, that is a form of attention.

[00:16:14] And so, and so often when it shows up in that form, there's a cutting nature to it. Like it has a bite to it. It's not intellectual honesty. It's from a place that he's kind of tearing others down rather than seeking truth together. And yet in the, you know, anyways, I would love for you to talk about value of skepticism, how to do it right.

[00:16:39] Shane: Well, you just, clicked for me. I think a way of, I think I kind of liked the idea of the term intellectual skepticism because it gets at, at a key difference. So yeah, you're exactly right. A lot of times we conflate. or we, when we hear skepticism, we think pessimism, we think cynicism, right?

[00:16:56] Pessimism being that you don't think that the world is good or will get better cynicism, meaning that you're starting from a place of people suck. And, and it's going to go wrong. Right. Where skepticism in the history of science is sort of this key breakthrough idea, which, and I think if we were to add the, you know, the modifier intellectual skepticism, this is really what the scientists, you know, like sir Francis Bacon and Isaac Newton, when they talk about skepticism, skepticism is about not accepting things face value, just because they're told to you, you know, it's, it's, just cause you see something doesn't mean that you can assume.

[00:17:39]everything. It's about making sure that things are true before you take them in, which is different than being a jerk and being acting like you're special. Cause like, Oh, I'm the one that doesn't go along, like you're saying, or then  being a Debbie Downer and saying, Oh, well it'll never work.

[00:17:56] You know, people never change whatever. That's not skepticism. That's cynicism and pessimism, but, but we do kind of lump them together. But from an intellectual standpoint saying just because someone said something doesn't mean it's true and like even better, a couple that with, and it's not personal, so I don't think you're bad.

[00:18:14] Cause you said it and I'm going to be kind about it too. Like that I think is important to like truly keeping it intellectually, intellectual.

[00:18:22] Jess: It’s like, instead of being a troll. Oh, right. We all hate the trolls who are saying they're just being a little skeptical. Right. because even saying, “I don't know, I'm skeptical of that.”

[00:18:33] It has, an almost interruptive thinking of like, maybe this person isn't trustworthy aspect too, right. But this idea of like respectful, skepticism of like, Hey, can we, can we look at the data together and then verify. No, that is actually really attractive to me.

[00:18:51] Shane: Yeah. I like that. I like that a, that distinction.

[00:18:56] So the idea of skepticism, I think in all of this is again, like kind of the theme of what we've been talking about when you encounter information, when  you encounter a question or situation, whatever it is taking a second to ask, is that true? And I think there's some steps to it. It's whenever you identify an assumption or, you know, or a thing that's that you encounter information, clarifying the origin of that, asking yourself why?

[00:19:26] Why do I assume this? Or why is this thing that's being presented to me as a fact true? And yeah. Being able to do that respectfully, I think is key. So scientists, I think of the most dispassionate scientist there exactly right. That was like nerd in a lab coat, you know, with some beakers and some things exploding in the background and they say, well, I've observed, this is three centimeters.

[00:19:48] Why is that? And it's like, there's no sort of emotion to that thinking process. And we make fun of it. But if you can you know, the separate discussion is there's a lot of value in emotions. Humans have them for a reason, but if you're thinking about lateral thinking, breaking things down and asking that obnoxious, well, why is this?

[00:20:09] And is this true question becomes really a useful and interesting and applying that actually to our own, feelings. I feel something like, I feel taken aback by this. I feel threatened by this, or I feel angry by this information or, or whatever. Okay. That means this is important to me. And why, and why do I feel this way?

[00:20:30] Using the feeling as a trigger to think harder. And so there's all sorts of cognitive biases that we bring into, into bear when we are solving problems that if we stop and we just question them. it often leads us to, to realize what are these rules or assumptions that aren't rules. And that's what skepticism is.

[00:20:50] So, you know, they affect heuristic is the cognitive bias of basically how you feel driving what you think. So I feel scared. So therefore I think that this shouldn't be the case, or shouldn't be true, or I think this is dangerous information or there's the, you know, the recency bias, which is I heard something most recent.

[00:21:12] So that's what I remember. So that's who I think is more valuable. And just questioning, say, why do I think that this thing is more valuable? That kind of thing. So I dunno if I'm explaining this, in abstract very well. So I can use, I think from Sherlock Holmes, In I believe it's the first Sherlock Holmes story.

[00:21:29] And I got this from a, from a friend of mine, Maria Konnikova who wrote a whole book about how Sherlock Holmes thinks called mastermind. she tells the story of when, in the first Sherlock Holmes mystery I believe Watson and Sherlock encounter a woman, who has a, you know, a mystery for them to solve a murder mystery.

[00:21:45] And Watson describes her as she's lovely. She's very well put together and she seems, you know, despite being well it's put together, she seems, upset, you know, with the circumstances that have been put on her. And she reminds him of a very smart women in his past that he's dealt with, who also, put themselves together very well.

[00:22:07] And so he, you know, he wants to help her and he thinks that, that they need to take her case seriously. and Sherlock disregards the fact that she's lovely. Does not connect her to other women who look like her, who's known in the past to be trustworthy and just assesses what it is she's saying. And the juxtaposition of those two things is really telling that he's operating from a skeptical point of view.

[00:22:34] He's not saying, I assume that she's bad, but he's saying I am not assuming based on how she looks that she's a good or trustworthy person. And she has nothing to do with other women who look like her or who are well put together, who I've known in the past, which by the way is not enough data. How many women do I know?

[00:22:50] Is it in a thousands, statistical stuff, women who dress like her, but I can make a connection between their trustworthiness and her trustworthiness just cause they dress alike. He says, I'm not going to do that. I'm just going to take what she says at face value. Try not to let those other things cloud my,

[00:23:06] view of the facts. The facts are her story is this, the facts are, this is what she's told us. The facts are not, it should not be affected by my past experience with people like her, unless we sit down and we actually determined that that is relevant information. So even though Watson is doing something that we often do and making connections, he's making some false connections.

[00:23:29] And so skepticism, basically it would be if Watson had said, well, my instinct, my feeling is that I should trust her. Why is that? Well, she reminds me of, so and so, and so, and so, and so and so well, is it true that that's relevant? Are they represented of all women, in the world and who I know and should I actually conflate how trustworthy they are to how trustworthy this person is?

[00:23:53] That I don't know. Another shorter example of this would be you encounter someone who's wearing glasses. You assume they're smart. But really all you can actually assume is that they don't see very well. And yet, so often we assume they're smart skepticism would be saying, well, are they really smart?

[00:24:12] Because all we really know is they don't see very well. And you don't want to say that like, hey, are you dumb? Cause you wear glasses. I want to verify that you're smart. You don't want to say that that's being a jerk. That's being acidic. Just jumping to, oh, well they're obviously stupid cause they haven't got laser surgery or whatever.

[00:24:26] Now it's just saying facts are, we observe glasses, and the only thing you can know from glasses is that they don't have perfect eyesight. No, there's a lot there I know,

[00:24:39] Jess: know, but there's so many good ideas. Like it, it reminds me of like, I guess mentally I've been thinking about the definition earlier. I feel like, you know, being Gumby, if like you know, doing my elastic, thinking to try and start a lateral thinking process would be something like playing the what if game like.

[00:25:00] They dress like this, but what if they borrowed those clothes and this isn't who they are. Yes. You know, like there are natural efficiencies. You can't throw on everything we know. there's, there's natural efficiencies that, you play, we can bring them the password as we don't have to throw them in the garbage.

[00:25:15] But if we can push, pause to think laterally of like, what if these assumptions aren't true, right. Yeah. And what if, what if this, what if this, what it is just like, almost like a thought experiment to see if there's a spark for the brain to, to like tie two dots together, or if they're got together. And like, I guess it kind of relates back to me to have, like, I think about, Clayton Christianson from Harvard has such great thoughts on innovation thinking.

[00:25:42] And when he says things like, kind of like you said, just because someone said it, we don't need to assume it's true. We don't need to assume it's not true, but we've got to assume it. And he says things like, you know, somebody proposes a plan or a kitchen investment or whatever, what assumptions mean to creep, what assumptions would need to prove true that that's come to pass.

[00:26:04] And I know it's not the same concept, but that's what it was reminding me of.

[00:26:07] Shane: Yeah. I mean, I think it's a great point that, you know, another cognitive bias that we use and usually as a shortcut is an authority figure said it, so we believe it. And that is, I mean, that's the logical fallacy, cause authority figures are wrong all the time authority figures, aren't always right. Someone being an authority means that they have some level of knowledge and expertise and credibility.

[00:26:37] However, that can be true and they can be incorrect about a thing in isolation. So just like you can make general statements about populations of people. So people from Idaho where I'm from generally are poor, or generally are Christian. If you pick one person from Idaho, you might find a rich Buddhist.

[00:27:03] So it's a same thing I think with it. Anyone that you would lean on as a way to shortcut the answer to something authority figure or someone who, you know, God forbid says, well, I have 30 years of experience, so I'm going to be right about this. You have to assume that in general, they may actually be smart and write about things, but in isolation, every single problem needs to stand on its own.

[00:27:27] And that's what skepticism is about, is it's about not relying on things as blankets truths or blanket associations, but actually analyzing every discrete fact or assertion or assumption, for its factual value.

[00:27:44] Jess: I love it. and I feel like you tease me with a story about, something about the history of Star Trek that it related to this part.

[00:27:52] Shane: Yeah. So, There's something that's in common with this idea of skepticism, which is a, so Carl Sagan who, once again he was, who's kind of like the, OG, you know, the grass Tyson, made science cool. You know, a generation or two ago. And you know, his story itself is really cool. You know, his parents were immigrants.

[00:28:14] His dad was a garment worker. His mom was a stay at home mom taking care of kids and they risked everything to come from Russia to have to immigrate to the United States. And he kept this explorer mentality, which is a, is what made him want to be a scientist. He wanted to explore the unknown. He wanted to understand the unknown.

[00:28:34] And when he encountered this idea of skepticism, being the foundation of science, you know, questioning whether things are the way they are presented to us and asking those questions and then experimenting to find the truth, he realized that that's kind of at odds with this idea of exploring. And you know, that's actually what Star Trek.

[00:28:52]I love the history of Star Trek because the fundamental premise of Star Trek was all about that, that you find the solutions to problems by exploring further than anyone else had explored. So, you know, the, the brief nerdy history of Star Trek is that the, the creator of Star Trek, Gene Roddenberry, he was a traffic cop.

[00:29:13] Who then started writing speeches for his police chief. And then when a police TV show basically came to LAPD, asking for advice on like writing up their police show, he got assigned to help them as an adviser. And then eventually he started writing episodes for this, this cop show. And so he was eventually quit being a traffic crop to full time, be a screenwriter.

[00:29:36] And he always got these jobs as writing about basically crime and murder and, and detective work. And he basically had in the back of his mind that, the TV was always about, you know, bad guys doing and good people getting murdered. What was TV be about if, we solved all of those problems in the world, no longer had crime.

[00:29:57] And that's what the premise of Star Trek ended up being is in the future. When we solved all the problems that humanity couldn't even have a cop show, what would it be about? And so, you know, by doing the thought experiment, Of this, you know what, you would recognize Jess, as one might say 10X thinking, what would the world be like 10 times better?

[00:30:17] There were no more crime. you know, we've solved energy. Energy is now free. Cause it's so cheap to get it from the sun. They, everyone has it. So everyone has their basic needs met for free, but also health technology has gotten so good that we can shine a laser beam on people and cure their cancer.

[00:30:31] So therefore health is free for everyone and we see it as a human right, because we've, it's just, we can do that. And, and you know, in that scenario, we wouldn't need to fight for resources. So therefore everyone from different races and creeds would all get along. And, you know, the Soviets and the Americans would be friends.

[00:30:51] They would no longer fight because we don't have to squabble over things. Our ideological differences wouldn't matter. And so then we'd what would we do? Well, we make art and probably go jet skiing. And, and then we did explore the universe to find people to help. And the only way that we could continue to make progress is by finding other problems to solve, which are out there in the universe that, that became the premise of Star Trek and other sci-fi, you know, stories were really niche and really never took off and other sci-fi shows of the day.

[00:31:20]didn't really make it in the way that Star Trek really changed the game and created essentially like the mainstream popularity of science fiction. And it was because they were willing to go out on a limb with these really interesting thought experiments and explore that future so far out and actually

[00:31:38] play that what if game that you're describing in terms of thinking big and that, you know, you could say, well, skepticism is sort of at odds with that. Well, like I'm skeptical that we could, you know, make a cure cancer with the laser beam and make healthcare free. you know, that's a, that's kind of preposterous.

[00:31:55] How could that even work? You know, you might stop yourself from exploring the kinds of ideas that do push your thinking. Well, there's a lot of lateral thinking that went into star Trek, just in trying to solve those hypothetical problems. That then went into real scientists, making some interesting breakthroughs.

[00:32:11] And we got laser eye surgery because of the thought experiments that went into this kind of laser technology and Star Trek, believe it or not. people exploring what Star Trek was exploring in terms of lasers actually led to those kinds of things. And so if we'd stopped ourselves by being too skeptical upfront, basically there's some tension there between those ideas.

[00:32:31] And this is something that, that Carl Sagan actually played with. He said, if you're only skeptical then no new ideas make it through to you. So you can't ever learn anything new. If you're overly skeptical, you become this crotchety old person that's convinced that the world is ruled by nonsense.

[00:32:49] And, and there's all this data to support you. That’s the case, but. You know, if you're too open, open-minded the point of gullibility. You have no, not one ounce of skeptical sense in you, then you can't distinguish useful things from worthless things. And that's what he's talking about, about your brain's falling out.

[00:33:11] So if all you're going to do is explore the universe in this hypothetical and never get real with it. Never ask the skeptical questions. Then you're also like you're going to make weird garbage that no one's going to want to watch on TV. Part of the brilliance of Star Trek is they actually had the writers go out and do scientific investigations.

[00:33:29] So they, the question is like, what would you wear in space and how would rotation work? What would be the problems that could potentially happen? You know? And they didn't have to get everything right, because they didn't have to invent the technology. But by actually applying some scientific method to that exploration, they were able to make things realistic enough that people bought it and loved it. So anyway, but the point is, this sort of idea of the Star Trek principle is by keeping those two things, intention, the simultaneously holding wonder and curiosity and deep exploration going down these sort of crazy rabbit holes, and then applying the skepticism of, well, how could that be true?

[00:34:10] What are the facts underneath this? Where do we need to draw lines? in order to not just fall into the absurd, that's where the magic of lateral thinking happens. So invention and creation, innovation is a product of someone being able to hold those two things together, this ability to explore.

[00:34:31] And I think through things that no one else is willing to think through with the ability to apply this sort of skeptical scientific method. Reasoning to it. And that's why, you know, spoiler alert. The next thing in the series is all about the scientific method and applying that to everyday life. But once again, as with everything, that's on theme here, it's the, and it's those two things that are the seem to be in opposition of each other when you combine them, that's where the magic of lateral thinking happens.

[00:35:04] Jess: Yeah. But a couple of the thoughts that came to mind as you, you're saying all that. The first one is, it almost sounds like what if we could harness skepticism in service of curiosity and exploration? Like what if you're skeptical of our limits as almost like fuel for pursuing the curiosity. And we like to add as we, you know, I'm skeptical of limit of hey, you know, like.

[00:35:33] You know, the bit, you know, I became a CEO of a private equity fund at 28 years old, not very common. Right. And it's cause I get exactly what you talked about. I started it myself and I raised the money myself until we could get salespeople to raise money for us. And, you know, I joke that the easiest way to become a young CEO is, when you don't have to turn in a resume, anybody.

[00:35:57] Right. Yeah. cause you're not getting, cause you're not going to get picked, you know? but I think about this idea of like, and then continuing, like, as you go out that curiosity or this exploration, and I think, you know, where Star Trek became so popular in America and we have all these, like it's like very much like an American ideal.

[00:36:18] Who have like gone west, maybe it's just cause I grew up in the West, but like, you know, like that explore spirit to come over from Europe or to have gone west and like we, we have some, so many admiration stories about explorers, you know what I mean? But this idea of like, and when we encounter things, instead of just going in with our knee jerk reaction or just our assumption to stop and ask those skeptical questions about what we've just explored, you know,

[00:36:47] Shane: Yeah.

[00:36:49] Jess: I'm interested in your reaction to that.

[00:36:52] Shane: Yeah, so it reminds me of one of my favorites thought provoking books is by a psychologist in New York named John Gardner, and it's called the Hypomanic Edge. And I don't think it's a very popular book, but it should be what he does is he explores, he kind of psychologically profiles, famous explorers and entrepreneurs in history.

[00:37:16] And he makes the case that the most groundbreaking people in history are a little bit on the manic spectrum. And they're either just a little bit on the manic spectrum or they're quite manic, but they have someone that can pull them off of the cliff so that their mania doesn't cause them to implode.

[00:37:35] And he says that this is valuable for society to have these people, because if let's say you live in Europe and you don't know what's out there in the ocean. If you head West and you think there might be sea monsters, you think, you know, the map might end, you might drift out into space and you know, or die or whatever.

[00:37:55] You have to have an irrational belief that you can beat the odds. If you're going to sail out into the unknown, you have to be a little bit crazy in you're a little bit manic in your beliefs. and Columbus actually when you really dig into his story? He was, I think actually crazy. Like, I think he wasn't just like a little bit manic.

[00:38:16] I think he was actually like a psychopath. he irrationally believed in himself and so that he could be at the odds. And so he sailed in, you know, and happened on that discovery of the Americas. But, this book, he goes through this and he shows how these people who are willing to go further, often do something because something's wrong in their brains that says that they can beat the odds.

[00:38:39] And the lesson to be learned is that if we push ourselves, if we give ourselves a little bit of this confidence and we, we are, we sort of check that little voice that says, no, you can't do it or this is crazy. And like push it to the side and go a little further. That's actually very helpful. You act like someone who's a little manic, you know,

[00:38:58] In a way that that's actually where innovation comes from, this is the case he makes, but like the stories that he has in there of people like Alexander Hamilton. So before the musical, Hamilton in this book, he showed how Hamilton was a manic depressive. He, would have you seen the musical or heard this outright?

[00:39:18] It's awesome story. I'm so happy they made it. But one of the songs in there is why do you write, like you're running out of time? And, you know, how he wrote like three quarters of the Federalist papers, where they were supposed to split it between four people. And he just like wrote all of them and he would do these, have these bursts where he would be so productive and do so much.

[00:39:38] And then he'd be depressed for three months. So like he really like had this mental health disorder, but he, he had people in his life who helped to temper. That, sort of that from going too far. And I think the best example in this case is when he was, under George Washington. and he was always trying to like, get, upgrade, get promoted faster than he was supposed to.

[00:40:01] And he was always pushing to like, put, give me more men put me in charge, put me in coach. Like I swear, like I can do it. And, and so he was leading a battalion of troops doing this key battle in the US revolutionary war. And Washington was his general and his mentor really. And he, Hamilton was the one who would do these crazy attacks that the British wouldn't expect because they were so ludicrous, like charging their trenches, with bayonets instead of lining up with, with guns and just like, like doing these all out sort of manic attacks that caught people off guard.

[00:40:36] And this was actually kind of a key thing that helped them win the war. But when he was about to do something too crazy, Washington would pull him back and be like, no, and he do this in his personal life as well with things that, that Hamilton was willing to try that were like little too far out there

[00:40:52] and a little too crazy. George Washington was there as his mentor. So say, you know, that's too far and pull them off of the cliff before he got himself killed. And basically in this case is the hypomanic edge. That's the case for these great explorers and innovators who pushed boundaries in social movements or in business, or, or in literally exploring the world.

[00:41:12] They had those people that could pull them back from their mania, you know, getting them killed. And I think that's an interesting way to look at this idea of innovation. Innovation is not going to happen unless you go out on a limb. But you need a mechanism to make sure that you don't go off the edge of the limb and, you know, and fall to your death.

[00:41:32] So this sometimes manifests in, you know, teams have the manic crazy person, and then  the balancing effort to pull them off the limb. But sometimes this is just actually developing that skepticism as the counterbalance to your willingness to explore really far. Exploring really far is no longer dangerous.

[00:41:51] If you then apply a layer of skepticism and don't just accept everything that you use, hear and learn at face value. And that I think is a, is what comes to mind when you say this that, you know, people are often scared of exploring certain ideas. So growing up there was this, Sort of talk to me in school and, and, you know, and sometimes in my personal life that, Hey, if you learn about this thing, it's going to harm you.

[00:42:19] And I think as kids often, that's actually like an important thing for parents to be wary of. But as an adult information is not a virus that's going to affect you and just take over just cause you explored it. You know knowledge is actually power, not a virus. So, but as being confident enough to, explore something that might seem dangerous and then to actually look at it and be skeptical about it, that makes it not so dangerous.

[00:42:45] So that I think is the magic balance to be had when it comes to approaching lateral thinking.

[00:42:55] Jess: Well, maybe, maybe we can cover another key principle, in this session still. can you talk about cognitive dissonance? And why being smart it's in the way of innovation. Maybe you haven't covered that as much as you want already.

[00:43:09] Shane: Sure. Yeah. I think that this is a, it's actually the perfect principle to, you know, to kind of wrap these altogether because it comes back to that F. Scott Fitzgerald thing, you know, being able to hold two opposing ideas at the same time, being able to hold skepticism and radical curiosity at the same time, you know, This all gets at something that is deeply ingrained in our psychology as humans.

[00:43:32] Cognitive dissonance is when two things don't line up cognitively and our brains strive for internal consistency. So we get stressed out and uncomfortable when we encounter things that don't seem to line up and our brains will automatically do whatever they can to immediately try to line things up.

[00:43:54] So in one of my books in dream teams, I write about this, in terms of balance theory. So, you could say let's talk in terms of shapes. Let's say that, that you think triangles are good and octagon are bad. If triangles think that octagon is, are bad, then everything lines up. You think octagon are bad.

[00:44:14] Triangles. Think they're bad. You think triangles are good, but if triangles think that octagon is, are good. And you think octagon is, are bad and you think the triangles are good. Now something's out of balance and your brain will kind of subconsciously freak out until it can line these up. So you either have to come up with a way to decide that triangles are bad because they think that octagons are good.

[00:44:36] And you know, that they're bad or you have to, you'll immediately think, well, maybe octagon are good. Maybe I need to change my mind about that, but either way. Your brain will automatically try to do whatever it can to rationalize this imbalance. And that's what cognitive dissonance is and what I think someone who's a really good, critical thinker that is working on lateral thinking.

[00:45:02] That's, that's trying to apply all these things that we've been talking about. There's someone that when they encounter this thing, that doesn't line up, that's out of balance. They'll try to find a reason for it rather than trying to resolve it. So they'll try to find that end by saying, they'll try to say, well, I think the triangles are good.

[00:45:21] So how could it be that octagons are also good from a triangle's point of view. If I think octagon is, are bad, why is still try to, to break that apart rather than try to immediately reconcile this. So in, in real life, this often happens when you know, a bad person, or someone who you think is a bad person.

[00:45:41] You know, has an idea that it actually might be a good idea will immediately discounted because of the source, or, you know, the, the opposite, someone who we like or who we believe is good or smart. And this is where the authority figure, you know, eh, cognitive bias or logical fallacy comes in.

[00:46:00] Someone who we believe is smart and good has an idea. We immediately think it's smart and good because our brains just want to make sure that everything's in balance. But, you know, to use an example that, that I'm hearing a lot from, you know, here in New York, I have a lot of friends who are not, not very happy with the president of the United States right now, between their politics in between just like his point of view on, on New York, if the press, if you don't like the president and the president comes out with a policy, that actually is a great policy.

[00:46:28] You're going to be more likely to write that off because you can't sort of line up how this person who you don't like could have a good idea, and that's actually extremely dangerous for one, but that's a, that's not setting yourself up to, to actually think in the smartest ways. And that's where logical thinking actually goes against us.

[00:46:48] Cause you know, algebra is great until algebra is relying on a false premise. You were saying A plus B equals C without thinking about the validity of A, B and C. So that's what cognitive dissonance is all about. And it's extremely uncomfortable, but this is where the, the meta skills of lateral thinking or say broadly more broadly Smartcuts

[00:47:13] thinking, being innovative, come into play is training your brain to be able to handle cognitive dissonance, giving yourself tools and habits that you can think of first before your brain immediately jumps to, well, I don't like the president, so therefore this is false. Ends up becoming really powerful as a way to help you automatically have of your thinking process.

[00:47:36] Be more innovative rather than be more, more, sort of, reactionary. So cognitive dissonance is the, the thing that causes our brains to, to think that they're, they're being smart when, when they need to be more, more thoughtful and, and that's also cognitive distance is something that can be a tool.

[00:47:57] If we learn to train our brains to engage when we notice it rather than to just try to find balance.

[00:48:06] Jess: Yeah, it's interesting to me how, Because I studied cognitive dissonance for, for a number of years. And when I did the journal read a lot of folks beyond vesting jurors, students, you know, and, and other folks in that living space.

[00:48:23] But one thing that's never occurred to me till today is this idea of how it could be related to skepticism and curiosity and exploration and hardest, or advances like, I like what you said earlier on when you said we need to train ourselves to be. Because as you say that, I think, you know, you're bringing how certain authority figures, if we, if we assign that, that authority figure submitted, we're going to follow that maybe we are not being as skeptical as we should be in certain times. Right?

[00:48:54] Shane: Yeah.

[00:48:55] Jess: And then give ourselves a pass on things. Right. I think, you know, Warren Buffet, I'm such a nerd for all his stuff and he is not a tech investor and he's always talking about. How he invests in businesses where they can turn the stock market off for 10 years. And he feels reasonably confident.

[00:49:13] People are still going to meet you in 10 years. Are you going to burglaries or people are still going to be shaping it 10 years. That's why they were killed or Disney movies are still going to be selling. That's why he, yeah, he is criticized all the time for not being in tech and these kind of things.

[00:49:29] And so when my friends would we'll talk to me about investing in Apple, I was like, you know, they're absolutely great today, but you don't know the future. Like you're telling me, you know, how it works. Right. And you can, you can tell me that somebody who's not going to come up with something better than Apple, like that world has changed so fast.

[00:49:47] Right. And I give myself a pass on this thinking because I'm patting myself on the back. You’re like Warren Buffett, right? Yeah. And then when Warren Buffett buys such enormous stake in Apple, all of a sudden, all of a sudden they had to come face to face with my lack of skeptical thinking. Right. I mean, as soon as I listened to his, like, listen to you, his rationale of why he's bought Apple and how he resisted, he feels like he was a student for too long, but as he recognizes the portion of a person's life that is consumed, but this little device it's in their pocket and the absolute like Canterbury King aspects that Apple has been able to dominate with it.

[00:50:29] He's not discounting that things could change in the future, but all of a sudden, all of these other books that I read come into play in support of what he's just said. And yet previous to him making that choice, not on my radar at all to consider could it detect investment, be treated like a discounted cashflow investment that Warren Buffett, you know, And so me thinking about what opportunities I'm missing, what lateral thinking or not doing, because I've taken such and such methodology, like I've taken it as face value.

[00:51:01] And I don't continue to critically ask where that, where that might not be true or in what cases might that not be true or that these kinds of things. and then I get to like eat Crow later when I realized, wow, that really strongly held belief wasn't. You think it's based on fact? Cause I claimed it was.

[00:51:21] Shane: Yeah. I love that analogy. That I'd never heard that story about Warren Buffet. It makes me think of a couple of things. You know, one is he, I mean, he's a really smart guy for a reason. He's not, he's flexible, right? Like he's not gonna just never go back on something that he said to save face or he's going to do the smart thing

[00:51:43] if circumstances change. The other thing that I, I can think of, and this is a little bit of a tease for, for something that's coming up, you know, in one of our later discussions is you realize in this case that the fundamental underlying principle to that investment strategy is not no tech. It's actually something deeper than that.

[00:52:05] That, that makes those things line up. And maybe he, I mean, I don't know no enough about him or the story or what he had previously, who said that, you know, that makes it line up perfectly, but maybe he discovered the deeper principle, or maybe he added in mind the whole time. But the, you know, even if, if the principal is like percentage of your life that involves this product, you know, or that relies on this product, right?

[00:52:29] That's a deeper principle than you know, the no tech cause that I see Gillette and Apple, you know, same category things that you're going to use every day. And aren't going to go away 10 years from now. you're still gonna need to shave, and you're still gonna need personal computing and, you know, to be seamlessly integrated into your life and especially across lots of devices or whatever, you know, to me that gets out at one of the things that we'll dig into with Smartcuts, which is the idea of discovering the fundamental first principles, underneath whatever it is that you're working on.

[00:53:02] And then basing decisions and building your problem-solving process. From that point from those observations, rather than starting from the hypothesis that you have, or the point of success that you're already at, it's actually boiling back everything so that you can start again. And I think that Warren Buffett example is a perfect example of that.

[00:53:25] Jess: You know you just made me think of them, you know, and again, I just read so many of his books and admire his integrity and some of the things right. But. He comes months, but he says things like, principles that are no longer true, are no longer principles. So like his early years he studied that, that, I haven't done it for me, university of New York.

[00:53:45] And he did, what's called cigar button investing, which is a company that's terrible, but it's actually trading at a price even worse than its real value. You basically buy those for the, for the arbitrage. The difference between how bad it is versus how insanely terrible with prices. And you pick up that last little bit, the analogy was it's like picking up a used cigar button, getting one last pop out of it free.

[00:54:10] and later in life, I mean, he, he's absolutely the number one poster board for Ben Graham father's security analysis. That he's the number one in the world goes to Berkeley and yet halfway into his career he changes and becomes much more like Phil Fisher and his partner Charlie Monger and he starts buying entire companies and he starts being willing to pay up for quality because even though he's buying like to him buying with a margin of safety, which means buying it for, buying it a discount to its future cashflow stream.

[00:54:44] Okay. Is that fine within your circle of competence? And he's got these rules that are very hard and fast, but yet

[00:54:50] Jess: he was willing to reconsider them because all sorts of other people were doing cigar, but investing. And they weren't like they used to be, and he was willing to observe that change.

[00:55:00] And then you start finding things like candies, the chocolate company out of California, because even though it was selling at a decent price, compared to what it was making today, he was willing to look out in the future and saying how much better it was likely to do than the other chocolate companies, which actually does make it cheap today.

[00:55:19] Even though it's not cheap compared to today's cash flow, it's probably cheap compared to the futures cashflow. And he has like drastically changed to becoming a guy who pays up for quality instead of just buying the cheapest of cheap. And I don't think I'd ever put it into that context. So he brought that up anyways.

[00:55:43] Shane: So last night I watched the movie Pretty Woman for the first time in my life. you know, and like 40 years late to this for 30 years or whatever it is. and, and I don't know if you remember the plot, but he, Richard Gere is, you know, he buys distress companies and dismantles them and, and sells the parts for a profit basically.

[00:56:03] And so he's working on this deal when he meets Julia Roberts, who, you know, she's, like, a good girl, but you know, on hard times and she's a hooker and you think that, and so he tries to sort of like take care of her and reform her or whatever. Like, and you think that the story is going to be like that sort of My Fair Lady thing.

[00:56:24] Like he turns her into like a proper lady, but what actually ends up happening is she helps him rethink his life. And the, you know, the, the moral of the story ends up being that he realizes that this company that is like a family business, that he's trying to do a hostile takeover and sell for parts, he realizes that actually like a better move is going to be to, to become a business partner with the old man that started the company and help them then turn it into an even better company, than it would be sort of dismantling it from, for parts.

[00:56:57] And, anyway, it's on my mind. Cause I saw it for the first time. It was a great movie. I'd never. It's just never seen it. And, and I liked that there's a couple of things in there that sort of nicely, like part of why that moved so enjoyable is because it flips what you think is going to happen on its head, into something better, which is the whole thing talking about here with, with lateral thinking, flipping things on their head to have a better outcome, better solution than you had even thought of.

[00:57:23]but also he literally does that in this, you know, the side plot of his business, that he, he operates from this MO and he's made billions of dollars doing it. And then he finds a thing, seven finds a new way to do it, and it brings him even more fulfillment, and is a better idea than deviating from the normal plan ends up being, being the move, anyway.

[00:57:47] And so it's not as powerful of a story as the Warren buffet thing. But I think once you start to see what we're talking about, all of these principles of lateral thinking, once you understand them, you start to see them everywhere and you realize this is what great stories are all about.

[00:58:03] This is where innovation and grow breakthroughs in any category come from is when people do these things.

[00:58:11] Jess: Well. The funny thing though, is I think it's so valuable to bring up such a drastically different story that illustrates the same point. One of the things I really, really looked up to my dad about before he passed away, was

[00:58:23] His ability for pattern recognition in disparate places. And it's like, you know, I think about the book you got me to read last week, the pink, like a rocket scientist and the written mental models, right. And I feel like they line up with everything you're talking about, because I guess this is why I would attach

[00:58:41] Jess: to Smartcuts so much over the years is I feel like what you're doing is you're handing us different variations on these tools and materials to construct or own ladder, you know, Yeah.

[00:58:53] And like, as you hear another principal and you can hear multiple stories of applications of it, all of a sudden my brain started being able to have a mental map to start to slot these into so that through my life, I can look at it. It's almost like looking at it and trying to get into the map and overlay the map onto the problems I'm trying to solve.

[00:59:15] And it helps me with pattern recognition like, Oh, I am doing it. I'm not doubting my doubts here. Like I love the Peter teal. thinking about, worry as, you know, really high, you know, big time tech entrepreneurs and people who have already brought up probate, but he'll say things that I'm like, well, why, why couldn't you accomplish your next 10 year goals in the next six months?

[00:59:39] like, no question. It's like, I feel like I feel like a couple of my biggest takeaways from today. I'd love for you to react to this is I feel like what you're telling me is that it, that I should be intentionally teaching myself how to think, moving intentionally, taking time away from what I already know or what I already believe.

[01:00:01] And just like suspending that belief for a minute and playing that, like elastics game of getting out of my trench of my trench worker trench and like, you know, like elastically trying all these different ideas out and it's like, it's almost like I need to. I need to doubt what I doubt my assumptions about how to do everything, which is naturally going to be biased to what I've been good at in the past practice.

[01:00:27] And then I also need to doubt my doubts as possible authority say, this is what come down to who he was. His piece says, this is what you're done. It's like, I need to doubt my doubts. And I need to doubt my own expertise temporarily, like intentionally set some time aside to doubt both those things. And see if I see any patterns and if not, I feel okay.

[01:00:48] Going back to my trenches, go down, like what I've built skills at, but if I could periodically get myself to do that on some sort of a rotation, then I'm likely to I’m likely to discover, I'm not going to discover something better.

[01:01:06] Shane: It's so well put, I mean, as usual you're able to articulate. these things that I'm saying in so many fewer words, it's, it comes back to the David Foster Wallace quote, about taking control of how you think. And I think, you know, if all you ever did was doubt everything and you're only a skeptical person, right?

[01:01:26] Like your life would be miserable and you'd be wrapped with uncertainty and unable to make a decision ever. And that'd be horrible, but deliberately taking them time to go through that kind of thought exercise. That is the point. And, And it will give you more confidence when you do pursue a path, that, you know, that you, you're doing based on your current information and current thinking, you're doing what you need to be doing.

[01:01:49] And, and then, you know, that you'll have time to in light of new information, go through that exercise again. I think that's perfect. Really the, I think one of the ironies of all of this stuff, is a, you know, the ancient Greeks figured this stuff out thousands of years ago when, when they said that true wisdom is knowing that you don't know everything.

[01:02:11] This is basically like boiling that down to more specifics. That's what makes you smart is recognizing that, that you don't know everything and that you could be wrong or that you could update things. And yet being able to move forward, knowing that that's probably the case. That is what it's all about.

[01:02:32] Jess: Well, I love it. Maybe we could wrap up with one, one more story. I know we touched on it. A lot of maybe, maybe this podcast today, and you always talked about it in Smart cuts. But to me, the guy who created Ruby on rails and became a race car driver is a fascinating story because he's in a world of people who pride themselves on their lateral thinking their ability to create their own ladders and stuff.

[01:02:56] And yet leap hogs so many people. When you think about, you know, this idea of doubting limits or doubting even skills he built already, and maybe any cognitive dissonance that he may have had as you think about any of the principles that we have covered today. Can you think of any of them and how they showed up in his life to be able to be a millionaire?

[01:03:21] Shane: Yeah. So specifically with the story of David Heinemeier Hansson, you're referring to the. He's the creator of Ruby on Rails and the cofounder of Base Camp. And, and he's a race car driver. Now, everything that he's built has operated on this principle that doing things the way that they've always been done, just because they've been done that way is a waste of time.

[01:03:43] And it goes all the way back from the way that he thought when he was in high school, he realized that he really loved computer science and that's what he wanted to do. I mean, he was lucky that he figured that out, you know, at that age. So many of us don't know that have any idea of what we want to do at that point, but he realized that what he needed to do in high school and college was optimized for being the best.

[01:04:05] At that, that he could. And so classes like PE that didn't matter to him. He didn't mind if he got to C if he could spend some of that time, that could have turned it into an A or whatever. He's probably a bad example, you know, maybe it's chemistry or whatever, as long as he could pass, he put in whatever effort he needed to, to pass, to get the fundamentals.

[01:04:28] And then he would spend that effort on letting me be a better computer scientist. That is just like classic, thinking in this way, like he realized that the thing that was important was going to take more thinking and take more time. And you realize that getting through school didn't need to mean getting straight A's and, you know, I had parents that let us get away with that.

[01:04:49]all of that, I mean, you can see just embedded in that, that little story. Like, of course he's the guy that invented the thing that allows you to automate all these tasks and programming. So Ruby on Rails is built on top of Ruby, which has already a very easy programming language, but it makes it automatic to do things like make a login page, password resets, and you know, little things that you have in every app.

[01:05:12] You don't need to recode them every time. You know, type in like make a log in the app. That's exactly how it works, but what I've just had, that'd be the same every time have the work be done for you so that you can focus on the thing that you really want to break new ground on, which is whatever you're building.

[01:05:27] And, that is, you know, it's a rejection of the assumptions, you know, around how programming should be done as rejection of this. Sort of hard work, in every way is what is honest work. Like, no, he's gonna work hard on the thing that he wants to actually break ground on. It's a rejection of this, how to pass high school, you know, try your best in every class.

[01:05:50] No pass high school by getting passing grades. That's how you pass high school. And then from there build the path that you want to build in order to get the most out of what you want to get the most out of all of that flows together. And  I think, you know, a lot of people in, in even the programming industry where you're supposed to be a hacker and come up with clever ways to solve problems, to come up with clever ways to solve problems within the box that they're giving.

[01:06:18] But if you get out of the box to use the cliché, you get out of the car and you look at the problem from that point of view of like really getting distance on it and really understanding what are the assumptions inherent in the box that you're given then that allows you to apply that same kind of creative hacker thinking that programmers are known for, but at a higher level and a, and to be able to accomplish more.

[01:06:45] Jess: You know, it reminds me so much. We had this guy on the podcast. A nice guy. He sold company called Omniture partner to OB for $1.8 billion. And he and his buddy were making websites and making a lot of money years ago at it, but then comes a lot of money. And then a friend came in and brag that said, Oh yeah, I'm making money while I sleep and tells me what if it's businesses?

[01:07:14] Right. John said, it just like stuck in his brain. Like. I want to make money while I sleep. And he really credits that. I mean, it sounds so incredibly simple, right. But he really credits that as why he was able to build a $1.8 billion business is because he we're constantly building the system so that it could be bought without being such time.

[01:07:35] He could use without needing such time that the, but there's so many

[01:07:39] Jess: aspects of it and it wasn't just while he slept, you know, CEOs of lots of companies, the staff basically, but. Almost everybody at the company was not needed for any given client. I mean, there's customer service there's issues with it.

[01:07:52] Like he couldn't get away from it. Right. It just makes me think how many limits did he have to doubt? How many, how many things about how business is done? You know, like how many of the shirts did he have to approach you epically and, and use some curiosity about, well, that's not making money while we sleep, so let's, we've got to explore more, you know,

[01:08:15] Shane: Yeah,

[01:08:16] Jess: there's such the principle of the ability to do the, if that was your goal, to build a bonehead knowledge is really the ability to duplicate and not need to raise more money, hire more staff to service more clients.

[01:08:28] This is a, this is a pretty great strategy. And I guess as you're saying that, I'm just thinking like, yeah. How many of my clients, how many friends and how much, how many of the thoughts of me and my partners are taking on the shoes of what we've been told? How to build, you know, we're trying to build a media company to get free advertising for our real estate investment trips.

[01:08:47] Right. And this is how you sell passive real estate income. That's how these investments work. How many shoots it's like we bought into that we didn't need to go down,

[01:08:57] Jess: you know, this is how you build them a media company. How many, how many shoulds are we not being skeptical? And just saying like, maybe, maybe, maybe not, but what's investigated instead of just.

[01:09:10] Take it as the gospel truth and go get in like everybody else.

[01:09:14] Shane: Yeah. I love it. It's, you know, it's not an easy, route to go, right. It's not an easy thought process to constantly check in on that, but it's also, I mean, if you're motivated to do something bigger or better or more impactful or more important, you know, and you're motivated to build a business.

[01:09:37] That, that runs itself so that you can save kidnapped victims, you know, like then you want to take on this hard mental work. And that's the thing too is, you know, if you work harder thinking wise, like Einstein said, you're still doing hard work, actually a lot of people avoid that kind of work because it's difficult.

[01:10:00] No, we'd rather do the hard manual work or the hard work that's, you know, in a proven path, then the agonizing work of rethinking things, but that's, that's how you get paid in you know, in a groundbreaking way. Whether we're talking actual money or, or just results in general is by doing that hard mental work.

[01:10:24] Jess: Yeah. I think about how often the junior team member. Or intern or somebody has come to me and said, we've thought about this. And I've just dismissed them. They don't want to

[01:10:34] Jess: take the time to really consider it. Right. And what disadvantage identity organization, you know, like I think about, you know, we want to do more undercover rescue missions of Child Rescue and there's other folks who have become much better

[01:10:48] marketers. Other charities are better marketers of that better. And I remember on this trip to Japan, I was going to the Toyota factories to learn about operational excellence, but the experience, right. And I thought, what if we went the complete opposite direction and I was able to think, you know what, the government is already paying the salaries of 900,000 cops in this town.

[01:11:11] And I'm thinking, you know, save it from missing and exploited children figures, there's a hundred thousand American kids get exploited every year. .And state department figures. There was about 8,000 foreign born kids, sold into America each year. So I think my, my little charity is not going to rescue a hundred, 8,000 kids a year.

[01:11:30] We're just, we're not set up for that. It's just not plausible, but I just don't like those stats, you know, like I can have the coolest CIA guys, the coolest FBI, Delta force, maybe SEALs workforce. And we're just not going to get 110,000 kids, but is there a way that we could incentivize the government to get budget training for 900,000 cops, because they don't want a thousand kids.

[01:11:53] Now that one was, that all of a sudden seems like something. I put some money, you know, like that feels like more reasonable bet. Right?

[01:12:01] Shane: Yeah.

[01:12:02] Jess: I'm just thinking, like, as you're saying all this stuff, like, I don't know it is hard work. It is hard work to stop and think now. And I feel like I'm not making progress.

[01:12:13] I always want to win and I want to be efficient. And this does not feel like when you're efficient, this feels like stopping. This feels like losing ground to sit around and think about why for wrong, you know,

[01:12:25]Jess: So Shane, and I feel like we've covered a lot of great ground. I feel like you really helped me with a breakthrough for myself today. can you tease us a bit, what we're going to get on the next session here in the video series?

[01:12:36] Shane: Yeah. So in the next episode, we're going to dig deep into the scientific method and how to apply it to your personal life and your decision making. So rather than in the laboratory and rather than in abstract, as we've talked about a little bit, actually breaking down the steps of using the scientific method in very clever ways.

[01:12:55] And that's going to feed into the how-to part of first principles thinking and, and all of that's gonna feed into. Actually coming up with creative, innovative, groundbreaking ideas, alternatives to brainstorming ways to actually put lateral thinking into practice. Now that we've covered the mindsets and the frameworks for a, that underlie how a lateral thinking works, we're going to actually dig into how to actually do it. Starting with that scientific method.

[01:13:25] Jess: I love it. Everybody. Please turn into episode two of the Smartcuts mini series and Shane, thanks for making time.

[01:13:32] Shane: thank you as always.