Moment 36 - How To Create Great Ideas: Marcia Kilgore

00:03What is it about you that made you successful? I mean, I've picked up on one which is really high standards. The other one I've picked up on, I picked up the door, which is you're just very pleasant human being and I'm like, all of these things, if they compound over like 30 years, you're going to get to a really good place but is there anything else within? You know, some people are visionaries, they are, you know, whatever. Is there anything else where you say, do you know what? That's probably a trait of me that made me successful. Yeah. I connect the dots. okay. in new ways. So. that if that were to be kind of my thing? Yeah, it's about uhm, have you read the book? It's called originals by Adam grant. Yes. it's on there. Yeah, yeah. So someone gave it to me.

00:40actually the art teacher in my son's school gave it to me and said this sounds like you and I read it and I was like, oh you know, when do you think you're special? Yeah, yeah and then you read a book. and you're like nope I'm not special because everybody, he's, he's got it down like every chapter is like oh yeah, this is me oh yes, this is me, this is me and um, he talks about in the book about how uh, you become an expert in your area, right? So you, you are very deep in expertise in one particular area but then you're very curious about all this other stuff, which is me. I scan everything, right, whether or not I'm really interested in it. I got newsletters coming out of my eyeballs and I just kind of scan, I'll click on things and sometimes I'll just force myself to read something that I have no interest in at all just because there might be something in there. Umm.

01:26and, and I think from doing that. I find new ideas. that's what creativity is, isn't it? Yes. I think, but you have to feed it. It's like top of funnel, mid funnel, bottom of funnel, right? And so if you don't have enough top of funnel, you dry up at the bottom where you know there's nothing that comes through and then being able to kind of edit a good idea from a mediocre idea, right? Yeah. but I guess if you come up with a lot, so the more you feed the funnel, then the more stuff you have to look at, and then being able to know which one is the one that is actually going to resonate with enough people that it's actually a business. Because a lot of people I think can be quite navel gazing in, I have this idea and people will care. so.

02:06I can also be quite brutal with my own ideas and just go, P, who cares like you think about it for a couple of months and then you have to be able to not fall in love with your own ideas, kind of like with writing, so writers will say. A really great writer is like, you can't fall in love with your own words. You need to be able to go into your writing and just chop it out, right? Just so it's succinct and you like, you can't love what you did, you have to hate what you did. I cut it all down so that just the crispy parts are there and I think it's the same with ideas. You can spend a lot of time on stuff that nobody cares about and so you have to be able to edit.

02:45So interesting. I completely agree I think about the the successes I've had in my life and it was just a process of like multiple sources from multiple disciplines. Pull one little dot as you've said from those different disciplines and then when they come together, so it could be like cryptocurrencies, music and my knowledge of social media and then you come together and you go, oh together it makes something new and interesting and valuable as a these three different points of inspiration. Um, I was going to ask you the question when we're talking about that. I was like, can you teach someone in your experience to be better at thinking of good ideas? I think you can provide the environment, okay. right?

03:23But not everyone's going to be able to do that, so there is going to be a cohort of people who just don't think of new ideas and they're probably really good at other things, and that's okay because the world needs all of them, right? Um. it's like Switzerland, like they, you know, some people are plumbers but they still make 100 grand a year and everybody's happy. So if we put people in the right seats on the bus, there's such a position.

03:45And that of course is management, isn't it? It's trying to find when someone has talent but not in a particular area, you make sure they're doing the right thing. Um, but I think you can, you see this a lot in business school, not that I've been there, but I've sat on a lot of panels with people who are entrepreneurs, right? And they're entrepreneurs because they have done a business plan and they've done a business model, they've modeled out what if, what you know, we can do. This is they haven't come up with, oh wait, just like you said, if I connect this and this and do it this way or right, then I can make this happen. They've, they've said, well, I've gone to Harvard and now I'm going to model out this business plan and I think if we do this and that, we can make, oh look, it's a profit. Yeah. and.

04:31so there's two ways to come by it and I guess both are valid and especially these days, um, the, there's so much money in the universe that people will invest in so many things that you could actually. Get to a good result by just putting a business plan down. You' having tons of money. and having gone to Harvard which is much easier to get money. Yes. And being in Silicon Valley. and being a white male. all that kind of stuff. Yeah. Um, so it works? Yeah. yeah. Is it full of passion? Yeah. I don't know, maybe if you're passionate about making money, that's a passion. It's not my way to do it because I just have to be passionate about whatever it is I'm making or selling or you know, whatever. I think I'm improving.

05:18If it's improving people's existence, then I'm passionate about it, and it was like so amazing to be at bliss and have people coming in and walk out the door after their treatment feeling like. so happy. and you could see it right, and they just had such a great time and you thought, well I'm responsible for that and what a great thing to do all day and then the same with Beauty Pie right, is wow people open up these boxes that they get delivered and it is like. It's like a fairy tale and it didn't cost them much, so they can treat themselves because everybody needs a little lift once in a while, and to be able to get this incredibly deluxe stuff for such a an affordable price, you know every time one of those boxes opens up that somebody is just feeling thrilled and that. Is a reason to like show up in the morning, right? Yeah. yeah.