TLDR:
- “People don’t have ideas, ideas have people.” ~David Perell
- By letting the idea you spark in your gut take hold and grow, there’s nothing else you think of.
- The need to share, express, and teach consumes you so much that you’d much rather die. By that point, it’s your raison d'être. You must do it.
- Sahil Bloom talks about Bill Gates’ Think Week in this week’s episode of “How I Write.” He needed to escape, escape, think, read, and sit with the ideas, slowing down to identify the things to dramatically improve the future of the things he was building.
- We all need a version of that like Sahil says. Certainly, it’s uncomfortable to sit alone and just think while the idea takes hold and consumes your being, but if you barrage yourself with stimuli from all four directions after an idea crosses your mind, the idea will never take hold, for after, like Blaize Pascal says, “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit in a room alone.”
- You’ll be amazed by how being consumed by something figurative can bring out the best version of you, as you’re driven by the desire to share it to the world at any cost.
Unleashing the idea holding you hostage to the world
“People don’t have ideas, ideas have people.”
This is the quote David Perell initiates the “Writing Process” section in this week’s episode of “How I Write” with Sahil Bloom.
And I couldn’t agree more.
It’s as though by letting the idea you spark in your gut take hold and grow, you literally can’t stop thinking of anything else.
Like David says, it’s the need to share, express, and teach, and if you’re so consumed by the idea but you still can’t convey it to the world, you’d much rather die, a sentiment I find myself aligning with for certain ideas.
Indeed, it becomes your raison d'ĂŞtre by that point. You must do it.
There was an idea I was working on that spanned a year. I thought it’d do well enough, but I didn’t care, I had to let it out.
I had to conduct all the relevant research so I could bring to life the best possible version I’ve envisioned, something that was truly grandeur.
When my first semester at university started, it had to go on the back burner. It took a few months for me to get back to working on it, but until the very moment I sat at the table to work on it once again, it was frequently crossing my mind.
When you allow the idea to take hold so deeply rooted, you must let it out.
There’s no other option.
Sahil brings up Bill Gates’ Think Week in that segment, which was devised so he could escape, think, read, and sit with the ideas, slowing down to identify the things to dramatically improve the future of the things he was building; substantially moving the needle in other words.
Just like Sahil says, we all need a version of that, where we don’t feel the need to create movement and progress, something we have to rewire our brains to deviate from given how society is so obsessed with it, and the fact we cannot deny that we’re victims of it ourselves.
However cliché Blaize Pascal’s quote “all of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit in a room alone” is, as I think about it, it still holds even in today’s world.
It will be uncomfortable to sit alone and just think as Sahil describes it, but if you barrage yourself with stimuli from all four directions after an idea crosses your mind, the idea will never take hold, and you’ll most probably forget it.
But it’s a pertinent exercise to engage in, as throughout the process, you’ll most likely amaze yourself with what you’re pulling off, in awe of the fact that you could even bring such a spectacle to life.
Personally, what I’ve found with such ideas (particularly my personal, aforementioned idea) is that there’s a tendency it bring forth the best version of yourself, an innate ceiling so high within you that you couldn’t even imagine could be applicable to an ability of yours.
As I think about it, it is amazing how being consumed by something figurative can have such an effect on an individual.
That for me, is what it means to be consumed by an idea and unleashing it to the world, by breaking the chains you’re bound to as elegantly as possible.