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Founded in 2002, the blog here continues to be a space of daily conversation about the science of mind and its implications and applications
Three simple, powerful questions can guide our initial exploration into a new business or venture idea.
What interests us?
What's known and clear?
What's unknown and unclear?
We translate everything unknown and unclear into questions. We pursue these questions and all those evoked by our experience along the way. That's how to get started with enthusiasm and confidence.
A goal is something to achieve. An interest is something to experience.
If we have interest in launching a product or service as a new potential business, the whole effort is an exprience inspired by the quest of this interest, energized by the questions evoked along the way. Whatever we learn along the way can potentially lead to some form of new business launch of these products and services, new kinds of products or services, and new kinds of interests altogether,
We don't have the anxiety of potentially failing. Whatever we exprience is part of the exprience. We can fail to meet goals. Being inspired into new explorist experiences is completely accessible.
Unknowns can be disguised as knowns with confident declarations like: I think we can assume that; everyone knows that's the case; I don't think anyone would argue with that; that seems to be the case.
Our velocity working from any interest equals the speed at which we identify and work on our unknowns. These include anything we believe are knowns.
We can move forward in any meaningful direction simply by having compelling interests we want to explore. An interest can be something we want to learn about, make progress toward, make possible and share with others.
The form of our interests can and will evolve with each new question they inspire, evoke, provoke and invoke.
We can get a lot done and enjoy an abundance of goodness without turning some unpredictable event into a goal. It's a mor realistic way of being in relationship with life's constant of uncertainty.
In this practice of exploring the future we want to see, we work from our interests.
Our interests are things that are attractive to us. They're things that excite and inspire us. We want to explore and pursue them. They are the answers to the question: What most interests us?
They are the opposite of the obligation of shoulds that feel more like burdens than gifts. This is not to disregard the potential value of what we feel we should do or pursue. Some of our shoulds can become meaningful in service of our interests. They can become contributory and complementary interests.
It's curious that while shoulds are more extrinsically motivated, interests are more intrinsically motivated. We do a should because it leads to something else. We pursue an interest just because it is attractive in itself.
Micromoments are magic. They come as found and scheduled time. They are a few to several to dozens of minutes. When our 2 day and week lists are abundant, we always something to work on. Keeping a daily journal and/or notes app helps also to keep notes on progress so momentum is possible as we go forward.
This frees us from procrastinating on things we think need larger time blocks we don't see coming up soon.
When we’re exploring any compelling direction, we move forward one question at a time, since the most constant and abundant asset is uncertainty. The more questions we identify and classify, the better the velocity and quality of our learning and momentum.
We classify questions into 4 categories: research, reflection, rejection and repositioning.
Research
These are questions we can search on, interview people with experience and expertise for or experiment with.
Reflection
These are questions we can't research but are better suited for our own creative and critical reflection.
Rejection
These are questions that, though interesting, are not actionable. They can be unknowable or speculative.
Repositioning
These are good questions, just premature and need to be timed for research or reflection down the road.
The key is to keep identifying and classifying new questions as they emerge along the way. Every step forward answers questions we have and raises new ones. This keeps us continuously wise, realistic and agile.
The most important thing to keep in mind is that they have not necessarily thought through exactly what they know and can do. This is a call for simple listening and deep questions.
Even when we’re presented with apparently validated data, there is a handful of questions to further validation and lead to new unknown unknowns.
Are there any exceptions here?
Is anyone else presenting contrasting data?
Could the data be gathered in any different ways?
Is the data based on any assumptions, strongly held beliefs or ideologies?
Is there any support for contrasting views?
Asking good questions to others we consider informed sometimes leads to new learning. It's important to discern between getting new assumptions and new data. Even new assumptions, translated into new questions, can be useful in any discovery process.
When we go into any kind of planning mode, an emergent approach is to give attention to the emergent unknowns, the flow of things unclear, unconfirmed, unresearched and undecided. This ongoing list gives shape to the most realistic, productive and inspired actions possible.
In exploring interests, the process is intrinsically meaningful, in fact as meaningful as realizing any interest we have. The path is as meaningful as the product. This requires no motivation or pressure internally or externally.
Beginning exploration of an interest begins with questions. Questions have several advantages.
Feasibility. Unknowns make feasibilities more clear.
Collaboration. We work together more easily from unknowns than knowns.
Pathways. Questions lead to mutliple working pathways to interests.
It's possible to have more sincere interests than we have time, capability of willingness to act on. There are a few variables that make it more possible for us to act on any of our interests.
Translation: translating longer timing 2’s into shorter, like from 2 quarters to 2 weeks or 2 years to 2 quarters
Questions: identifying questions implied in an interest
Motivations: clarifying why we’re interested in something
There is unique magic when we imagine out two decades what's interesting to us. We naturally go beyond the assumption of constraints, opening more widely possibility space, more than we would just going out a year or less, or even two years.
Some basics.
What are we trying to solve for?
What could we experiment with?
Do we anticipate any concerns or exceptions?
What will we experiment with, for how long and with what success metrics?
What did we learn and what's next based on that?
When we craft possible and priority directions, it's useful to develop several nuanced versions of any, especially as we move forward with questions and learning. The more nuances, the more opportunities we have to move from directions as interests and across timeframes of 2’s.
Part of what gives any planning process depth and power is how we listen to each other along the way. How we listen is an invisible force shaping the quality of how we interact and think together.
In simple listening, we listen for nuances and distinctions. The more we listen from and for, the richer our directions, approaches and questions. It's that simple. For more about simple listening, visit SimpleListening.space
In iterations, we move toward a 1.0 version of our direction of choice. As we move forward, we start sketching out and moving toward 2.0. We adjust ultimate directions along the way. We don't move in phases toward an ultimately defined direction. The iteration approach relies on reality. The phase approach relies on assumptions.
There is no reason for a group to try to do planning through handwritten meeting minutes or emails. These incredibly slow down and fragment the process. Shared tech, like Trello and Slack, are indespensible.
