implementation

“If you’re stuck on a problem, don’t sit there and think about it; just start working on it. Even if you don’t know what you’re doing, the simple act of working on it will eventually cause the right ideas to show up in your head.”

One of the themes I emphasized was the idea of protocol money. People who live and breathe technology tend to think in terms of rapid disruption, and assume that new things will displace old things. But a point I emphasized is that while that’s a true trend for many things, it hasn’t historically applied to communication protocols. Things like

An audience is the right people paying attention to you.

conducting research, he prioritizes curiosity over canonical paths , often taking unconventional routes through the work. Though this approach can lead to roundabout explorations, he believes starting where genuine interest lies ultimately reveals the most critical insights

Category design involves educating the market about a new, often-ignored problem as well as a solution that you can provide.

evolutionary advantages don’t always occur slowly, accidentally and incrementally. We’ll learn they can be identified rapidly, applied systematically and that their impacts can be transformational.

This pattern repeats everywhere:

• Traditional path: Pay $50,000 for an MBA, then hope someone notices you.

• Attention path (shortcut): Create valuable insights for industry leaders, then get hired directly.

When you reframe every “how will I pay for this” problem as a “who can I serve” problem, you win. This is the Audience Shortcut:

• Instead of

much like Holmes talks his theories through out loud to Watson.

Holmes’s trick is to treat every thought, every experience, and every perception the way he would a pink elephant. In other words, begin with a healthy dose of skepticism instead of the credulity that is your mind’s natural state of being.