What Makes an Idea Worth Believing
I have been listening to the Pet Shop Boys song ‘It’s a Sin’ on a loop for over a week.
“For everything I long to do… It’s a sin.”
While the song is about guilt, I was thinking about something else: you struggle to hold a conviction when you have not put in the work to earn it.
The thought is influenced by what I am currently reading and listening to: biographies and the Founders Podcast. The lives of entrepreneurs, filmmakers, musicians and athletes made me notice how often strong convictions shaped what they chose to pursue.
Ideas arrive easily, but conviction takes more work. Once I write an idea down, it often looks different from how I imagined it. Reading it aloud helps me judge it more clearly.
How do I get new ideas?
When I read or listen, random ideas often surface in my mind. No interesting idea has ever come when I went looking for one. Most ideas emerge when I connect what I read or hear with my own experiences and thoughts.
Once an idea surfaces, I ask myself:
- Why should this work?
- How would it work?
- What assumptions am I making?
- Where could it fail?
After I engage with an idea, I either reject it, pursue another idea, or develop it into a conviction.
Consider the idea: invest in equities. Equities typically outperform other asset classes over long periods. To start investing, I need to engage with it by asking:
- What does long term mean?
- Why diversify and how do I do it?
- What happens when markets are down?
- When should I avoid investing in equities?
An idea earns my conviction only after I understand the whys, the hows, the whats and where it might fail.