David Epstein

What's the smallest possible way that you can prototype this thing before you move into this bigger execution?

Because the quicker you move into making something big,

the more likely you're going to learn harder lessons.

And the more likely I think you fall prey to that what the hell effect where it doesn't really work well.

And then you just throw the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak.

defining the problem you want to solve, whether it's an individual or an organization, incredibly powerful.

And defining it, like spending some time, again, to that think slow and thinking about what are you trying to do?

There's this famous saying, people don't want a quarter inch drill, they want a quarter inch hole in their wall, right?

So if you're thinking about serving the person, what is the actual thing that they want?

Does that mean they need a carpenter?

Does it mean they need a drill or something else?

I mean, for one thing,

it'd be crazy to say that constraints can't be bad, right?

Even in creativity, which we've talked about, if a constraint, if you're telling someone what they have to do and how they have to do it, like if under this constraint, there's no way for them to surprise you or themself, then that's bad.

It's gone too far.

As far as bills, you know, nobody likes bills, but jobs and kids and dogs and obligations actually turn out to be really important for people's sense of well-being.

So you may bristle under them sometimes because they're inconvenient.

But I think it's also pretty clear that a dense network of obligation is actually a lot of what brings meaning to people's lives.

And so the founder, Emile Durkheim, the founder of modern sociology, basically,

He did this famous study on suicide when governments started first keeping track of statistics.