Go back to first principles

I genuinely believe in the power of one good idea helping to overcome a challenge, I've seen it in other's lives and my own over and over again. In 2017, our brains are so clogged with information and "10 ways to...." articles that I'm not sure the good advice gets out all that often. This article is a simple attempt to explain one powerful principle from someone I admire.

Go back to first principles.

This is a really profound idea, and something that I learned from Elon Musk. Musk explains that many people think by analogy, when they should really be thinking from the ground up. He connects this frame of mind to his incredible science projects that are defying what humans have thought are possible - but it applies to all areas of life.

Here is a simple example. Say you want to get a job at your dream company - somewhere that it seems "impossible" you could even get an interview.

Reasoning by analogy would lead you to think about what your friends might have tried. You could fill out an online application where you dot your i's and cross your t's as carefully as you ever have, or you could try to "network" through someone who used to work at the company years ago.

The first principles approach will be significantly more successful.

Start with who you need to convince that the company needs to hire you. The analogy thinker says you should be talking to a recruiter, but I would argue you should start at the top. Great CEO's, from what I can tell, are always looking for people with a fire in them.

Next, you need to control the delivery method. If you send an email at 10:30am on Monday, it is somewhat unlikely that you are going to catch them at a good time. If you send an email at 4:30am with a great subject line, you have a much better chance (even if they don't start work until 6am, not many people will have emailed them at that point, and you know they at least have to read the subject line). Or, if you send a fun package, you know that it going to get opened by them or someone on their team. You also know that the person opening the package (hopefully them) would read a handwritten message sitting at the top of the box.

You now have their attention, and 2 sentences to keep it. Reverse engineer again. What do you need to say to get them excited? How are you different?

More broadly, I think going back to first principles is great advice for any new venture. Instead of thinking "this is how others do this" or "this is how it has always been done," we need to think creatively from the ground up. Oracle CEO Mark Hurd builds his capital budgets from scratch every year - people working for him have to justify every single dollar they are asking for, regardless of what they were given the year before. Vaynermedia CEO Gary Vaynerchuk is an absolute master at this when he breaks down social media marketing and matching message to medium. Thomas Payne, an American Revolutionary hero, had such a simple ground-up understanding of democracy that he could have drawn it on a napkin.

Although you might not realize it, you are smart enough to innovate without the input of others - just break down the challenge, understand the physics of the situation, and continually iterate until you get the desired result.

The quality of the answer is only limited by the quality of the question.

I think you'll be happy with the results.