Page 100 - THE DO-IT-YOURSELF LOBOTOMY Open Your Mind to Greater Creative Thinking

Speed Doesn’t Kill 91

seem to have sped ahead of myself here. Let’s look at that quantity
thing a bit more closely.

YOU’LL HAVE BETTER IDEAS ...IT’STHE LAW

The quantity concept is based on a simple mathematical principle—the
law of large numbers. While a mathematician might state this law more
complexly, I look at it with a sort of Forrest Gump profundity: “If you
come up with more ideas, you’ll have more ideas.”
If the law of large numbers were applied to baseball, we’d all be
great hitters, because we’d have unlimited swings at the ball, not a
mere three strikes. If applied to the stock market or Las Vegas, the law
of large numbers would make us all winners, because we could put our
money on as many potential opportunities as we’d like. But baseball
and Wall Street and the roulette table at Caesar’s Palace give us finite
limitations. Conversely, when it comes to generating ideas, we can take
as many shots as we want. There are absolutely no limitations, except
maybe time. That’s where thinking fast comes in.

SPEED DOESN’T KILL

Coming up with lots of ideas very quickly offers many benefits.
Speed gives you momentum of thought, which silences the judge,
circumvents fear, and makes failure less painful. “Get that root canal
over with quickly, please.”
But mostly, speed gets you to the large number of ideas quicker.
Let’s slow down and look at those many benefits of thinking
quickly.

The Silence of the Judge
Judging is one of the worst things you can do when ideating.

I believe when you take the time to judge each idea as it exits the birth
canal of your mind, you lose, whether you think the idea is good or bad.

Here’s what happens. You come up with an idea and judge it. If it’s
a bad idea, how does that make you feel? “Oh, no. I’m a bum. I’ll never