In this episode, we discuss the Matt Ridley Ted Talk about innovation and to implement his ideas into our lives.
Full Transcript
Hi Everyone, welcome to the You’re Daily Cup of Joe Podcast, with your host Joe Bautista. In this podcast, my goal is to give you quick lessons that you can reflect on in your journal so you can grow yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually and have a better career, better relationships, and better personal finances while you enjoy your morning cup of coffee.
I’m also the author of the book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to Get Better Every Day”. In this book, I wrote down over 30 tips to help you grow in those four cornerstones. I’m also the founder of Grow With Joe, where I combine self-development coaching and financial planning for Latino Professionals.
At the end of today’s podcast episode, I’m going to give you a prompt question to reflect on in your journal. The idea is to take one to five minutes to reflect on today’s lesson and write a minimum of one paragraph on how you can apply the lesson in your life. You can use an actual journal, a word document like on Google Drive, or your note-taking app like Evernote. The idea is that you’re actually thinking about how to process the information to help you improve your life.
In today’s episode, we are going to talk about how we should let ideas have sex with each other. Back in college, I watched this really interesting Ted Talk called “When Ideas Have Sex” by Matt Ridley. I was blown away by this ted talk because he made a really convincing argument that we need to constantly have ideas intermingle with each other or else we can face dire consequences.
In the Ted Talk, Matt Ridley discusses how there was a tribe on Tasmania was separated from Australia when sea levels rose. The tribes on Tasmania used to trade with the tribes on Australia but that ended and people on the island of Tasmania started to regress. The people on Tasmania didn’t have the population size to keep up with the different specializations required to make tools and other goods and the tribes on Australia were able to progress because trade continued.
After listening to this Ted Talk, it made me even more interested in learning from books, podcasts, and YouTube videos. Innovation happens when we can take two ideas that are pretty good and make them great. Humans are the only species on the planet that has actually gotten better overall as the population has grown and this is because we can innovate ourselves out crises. Some of our greatest achievements in humankind have come from times of crisis. Look at our space program. If it wasn’t for the Russians, would we be on the moon yet? Maybe, maybe not.
With covid-19, things have changed forever and have caused me to look at my life and see what I need to do. I feel like I’ve mastered financial planning and self-development, what I need to get good at is marketing. I’ve consumed a lot of content by Billy Gene, Russell Brunson, Tai Lopez, Gary Vee, Jim Edwards, and other sources on how I can market myself better. I need to get my message out to other folks and these folks have helped give me ideas and confidence to do my own marketing. Especially with covid-19, I need to understand digital marketing if I want to survive.
So I’m going to take the ideas from these marketing giants and apply them to my life and create something amazing for myself along with all the books I read, podcasts I listen to, and YouTube videos I watch. I was able to start my own financial planning firm by listening to Michael Kitces’ podcast Financial Advisor Success Podcast. I took the ideas in that podcast and applied it to my life for the better. It would have taken me years if not decades to figure it out on my own, what Michael Kitces has taught me.
I’m way farther down the road now than I ever thought I could be and that’s because I let ideas have sex with each other in my life. It’s a lot cleaner than it sounds but this is what we need to do if we want to survive the upcoming future. What got us here today, won’t get us where we need to go in the future. The world is a very competitive place but luckily with all can play the infinity game where resources get bigger with our innovations, not smaller.
I’m going to continue to take a portion of my day and spend it learning. I take time in the morning to read for 30 to 60 minutes. Then I go for walks where I listen to podcasts and write down ideas in my Evernote note-taking app. If there is some free time, I usually listen to podcasts. When I play a game on my iPad, I listen to a podcast while I’m playing. Sometimes I do listen to music but most of the time I listen to podcasts. The day podcasts came out, changed my life. I love how I can consume ideas to improve my life. I recommend that anytime you have a good idea, you put it in your notes for future use and then figure out a way to teach what you learned to someone else so you can retain the information even more.
There have been countless times where I was in a situation and then an idea came to my mind on how to do something easier because I had the knowledge. This is what the ted talk is about, bring in ideas to make the situation better but the only way you’re going to have ideas is if you take time to learn them. I also write down ten new ideas idea to exercise my creative mind and ready to make connections out in the real world. Remember, we don’t rise to our expectations, we fall down to the level of our training, so start training today.
That’s it for today’s episode, to summarize it, let ideas have sex with each other. This will ensure that you’re staying ahead of the growth curve and will have more control over your life. So carve out some time in your schedule and start learning some new ideas. You can also interact with different people and take ideas from them as well. The goal is that you need to start making new connections. A lot of them won’t work or just require to do the new idea for a while, so don’t get upset, just have the stamina to keep going.
So in your journal, write down ten new ideas for the day. They don’t have to be great ideas, just practice writing down ideas. Most of them will be crap but one might be the diamond you’ve been searching for. Be a prospector of ideas and see which ones will transform your life. Take an idea from economics and apply it to fashion or gaming? Or whatever idea, just be an idea content machine. After enough combinations, something is likely to hit. But when it comes to ideas, remember you have to execute on them as well. So don’t go after every single idea, go after the ones where you have a good certainty that they will pan out. If they don’t pan out, then move on to something else but not sooner than necessary. If you want access to the Ted talk, just go to growwithjoe.me/episode260.
Thanks for listening today! To get a free copy of my audiobook “More You Know, More You Grow: How to get better every day” just go to my website growwithjoe.me/book and you can download it right there.
I have a quiz on my website that grades your inner circle, so if you want to find out if your inner circle is an A, B, C, D, or F, you can take that quiz at growwithjoe.me/quiz
I’m also trying to do a feedback Friday episode, so if you have a question that you would like to have my answer on the air, just e-mail me at [email protected]
I’m also on Instagram at Grow With Joe and Facebook just look up Grow With Joe
If you’re on iTunes, don’t forget to give me a five-star rating if you liked this episode and to hit the subscribe button as well.
The greatest compliment you can give me is to share this episode with someone else.
Thanks for joining me today and remember if you go with Joe, you can grow with Joe, cause Joe knows Dough.
*Music outro
Matt Ridley’s Ted Talk https://www.ted.com/talks/matt_ridley_when_ideas_have_sex?language=en
