118 - Under Pressure

What this episode covers

Pressure is the secret to good ideas. Subscribe: ITUNES | ANDROID | STITCHER | RSS FEED 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 Support Ask a Designer Anything Ask a Designer Anything Website Twitter (@craigburgess) Ask a Designer Anything on Facebook Leave me a review on iTunes