#038 – The Mad Men Brainstorming Method & Your Next Big Move

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Bringing 5 interesting ideas to your inbox every Thursday morning to ignite your curiosity and drive your growth.

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read time 3 minutes 

#038 at a Glance:

• Quote that will get you thinking: The highest form of wealth.

• Podcast you should listen to: Joe Rogan x Jimmy Carr.

• Mental Model: The Mad Men Brainstorming Method.

• Question to ask yourself: Your Next Move.

• Tweet I liked: Keep looking.

Quote that will get you thinking:

Podcast you should listen to:

The Joe Rogan Experience #2045 - Jimmy Carr

Jimmy Carr is an English stand-up comedian, writer, actor, and television host.

I know this episode came out last month but I only just got around to listening to it over the weekend and wow, what an episode.

If you’ve never listened to an episode of Joe Rogan before, I recommend two things:

1. Give yourself a long, hard look in the mirror and ask yourself, “Why?”

2. Listen to this episode. It’s the perfect episode to start on and represents the absolute pinnacle of the Joe Rogan Experience. Humorous, insightful, and deftly thought-provoking.

Here were some of my favourite snippets of wisdom:

• What do you really pay attention to? Do that.

• All criticism is the tragic result of unmet needs.

• Envy is when you want what someone else has got. Jealousy is when you don’t want someone else to have what they’ve got.

• Knowing how you’re perceived in the world is such an underrated skill.

• Ask yourself: What do you find easy that other people find hard?

• Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. You want this feeling to end, not life in its totality.

Listen or Watch on Spotify here.

Mental Model:

The Mad Men Brainstorming Method 

In a recent episode of The Ben & Marc Show, American businessman and software engineer Marc Andressen said something pretty fascinating:

"One of my favourite shows is Mad Men. One of the things that really jumped out was how many times the viewer's expectations were subverted. You never actually knew what would happen. I read an interview with Matt Weiner who ran it, he said that the rule in the Mad Men writing room was, whenever the question was 'what happens next?', they would write down the first five ideas for the plot on a board, and then they would cross them all off. Then they would come up with something. So they never did the obvious thing. It forced the writers to go out on the edge - into a creative realm they otherwise wouldn't have gone to."

So simple yet incredibly effective.

Facing a decision and don't want to follow the crowd (particularly in a business/work setting)?

Make a list of 5 things people would expect you to do, cross them out, and then start brainstorming from there.

Brilliant.

Question to ask yourself:

Your Next Move

A question I came across from Alex Brogan earlier this week blew me away and I’ve been thinking about it ever since:

If someone was watching you in a movie, your current life and assuming they have access to your thoughts and feelings, what would the viewer be referring to when they yell at the screen, “Why don’t they just do that already?”

Wild.

Tweet I liked:

That’s all for this week, thanks for reading!

Grateful for your support.

Stay hungry, stay humble, & stay curious. ⚡

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