The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur

February 6Expanding Capacity

Every now and then a person's mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back to its former dimensions. After looking at the Alps, I felt that my mind had been stretched beyond the limits of its elasticity, and fitted so loosely on my old ideas of space that I had to spread these to fit it.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.—The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table (1858)

You are in the business of creating something new, perhaps something revolutionary.

But how does one develop what is not without a sense of what is?

Unless you intentionally feed and expand your mind, you'll be limited to borrowing from a very small pool of ideas and many of your efforts will be destined to become uninspired copies of something already appreciated the world over. (It's okay; you have terabytes of untapped storage.)

Consuming a diverse regimen of art, books, cultures, foods, and music is the secret to greater focus and greater confidence in your thinking. A key to developing breakthrough ideas is to discover how to make the complex simple. Ironically, when you have access to a greater store of seemingly random ideas you'll more readily recognize the patterns required to do just that.

Read books on architecture, calculus, wolves—anything not related to what you already do for a living—and pay attention to how your mind comes to life when you comb not simply for information but for parallel ideas.

Try a food you're pretty sure you're going to dislike, travel ...