Redefine The Problem: How To Eat A Hot Dog!

Over the long weekend, I watched one of the greatest American ‘athletic’ events you could watch: The Coney Island Hot Dog Eating Contest.

There was a pivotal moment in the history of this contest, when the Michael Jordan of hot dog eating entered the contest: Takeru Kobayashi.

He says that up until the point when he entered the contest, most competitive eaters simply didn’t think about the problem properly.

He showed up- and revolutionized the contest by REDEFINING THE PROBLEM.

His first year – he won the contest by eating 2X as many dogs as 2nd place, and set a record by more than 25 dogs.

His attacked the task by:

• eating two dogs at a time
• balling up the bun after ‘dipping it’
• and introducing the famous “Kobayashi shake’

He started by viewing his task a differently and says:

“My honest opinion was that people were just eating as an extension of regular eating meals, and it looked like they were all like rushing to try eat more than they normally could. Just one more hot dog, just a little more. And I thought, “Well, if you just look at it as a way of trying to put something in instead of, how much more can I eat than normal,” then it really just takes a few questions and a little research on my part and experimentation to see how far I could actually go.

 He continued:

“I think the thing about human beings is that they make a limit in their mind of what their potential is. They decide, “I’ve been told this,” or “this is what society tells me,” or they’ve been made to believe something. If every human being actually threw away those thoughts and they actually did use that method of thinking [about] everything — the potential of human beings is great, it’s huge, compared to what they actually think of themselves.”

So- as you are getting after your projects, I challenge you to redefine the problem.

Here’s a good Freakonomics podcast on the topic: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/a-better-way-to-eat-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast/