Seven years ago, a student came to me and asked me to invest in his company. He said, "I'm working with three friends, and we're going to try to disrupt an industry by selling stuff online." And I said, "OK, you guys spent the whole summer on this, right?" "No, we all took internships just in case it doesn't work out." "All right, but you're going to go in full time once you graduate." "Not exactly. We've all lined up backup jobs." Six months go by, it's the day before the company launches, and there is still not a functioning website. "You guys realize, the entire company is a website. That's literally all it is." So I obviously declined to invest.
Hai sete anos, un estudante veume ver para pedirme que investise na súa empresa. Díxome: "Traballo con tres amigos, e imos tratar de rebentar un sector industrial coa venda en liña." Eu dixen: "Moi ben, pasastes todo o verán con isto, non?" "Non, todos estivemos de prácticas, por se a cousa non sae ben." "Xa, pero ídesvos pór a tempo completo, cando vos graduedes." "Non exactamente. Todos temos preparado outro traballo por se acaso." Pasan seis meses, chega o día do lanzamento da empresa, e non teñen aínda a páxina web en marcha. "Vós decatádesvos de que toda a empresa é unha páxina web. Iso é literalmente todo o que é." Así que loxicamente non investín.
And they ended up naming the company Warby Parker.
E ao final chamáronlle á empresa Warby Parker.
(Laughter) They sell glasses online. They were recently recognized as the world's most innovative company and valued at over a billion dollars. And now? My wife handles our investments. Why was I so wrong?
(Risas) Venden gafas por internet. Hai pouco nomeárona a empresa máis innovadora do mundo e valorárona en máis de mil millóns de dólares. E agora? A miña muller leva os nosos investimentos. Por que cometín un erro tan grande?
To find out, I've been studying people that I come to call "originals." Originals are nonconformists, people who not only have new ideas but take action to champion them. They are people who stand out and speak up. Originals drive creativity and change in the world. They're the people you want to bet on. And they look nothing like I expected. I want to show you today three things I've learned about recognizing originals and becoming a little bit more like them.
Para atopar a resposta, levo tempo estudando a persoas que chamo "orixinais". Os orixinais son inconformistas, son persoas que non só teñen ideas novidosas senón que ademais actúan e loitan por elas. Son persoas que destacan e fanse oír. Os orixinais impulsan a creatividade e o cambio no mundo. Son esas persoas polas que un desexa apostar. E non se parecen en nada ao que eu esperaba. Hoxe quérovos amosar tres cousas que aprendín sobre como recoñecer aos orixinais e comezar a parecerse un pouquiño máis a eles.
So the first reason that I passed on Warby Parker was they were really slow getting off the ground. Now, you are all intimately familiar with the mind of a procrastinator. Well, I have a confession for you. I'm the opposite. I'm a precrastinator. Yes, that's an actual term. You know that panic you feel a few hours before a big deadline when you haven't done anything yet. I just feel that a few months ahead of time.
A primeira razón pola que lle dixen non a Warby Parker foi que tardaron moito en despegar. Todos estades ben familiarizados coa mente dun procrastinador. Pois teño algo que confesarvos. Eu son o contrario: un precrastinador. Si, o termo existe. Sabedes ese pánico que sintes cando a unhas horas dun prazo importante aínda non fixeches nada. A min pásame con meses de antelación.
(Laughter)
(Risas)
So this started early: when I was a kid, I took Nintendo games very seriously. I would wake up at 5am, start playing and not stop until I had mastered them. Eventually it got so out of hand that a local newspaper came and did a story on the dark side of Nintendo, starring me.
Comezou axiña: cando era un neno tomaba a Nintendo moi en serio. Despertaba ás 5 da mañá, comezaba cun xogo e non paraba ata dominalo. Finalmente fóiseme das mans ata tal punto que un xornal local publicou unha historia sobre o lado escuro da Nintendo, comigo de protagonista.
(Laughter)
(Risas)
(Applause)
(Aplausos)
Since then, I have traded hair for teeth.
Desde entón, cambiei pelo por dentes.
(Laughter)
(Risas)
But this served me well in college, because I finished my senior thesis four months before the deadline. And I was proud of that, until a few years ago. I had a student named Jihae, who came to me and said, "I have my most creative ideas when I'm procrastinating." And I was like, "That's cute, where are the four papers you owe me?"
Pero isto foime de moita utilidade na universidade, xa que rematei o proxecto final catro meses antes do prazo. E estaba orgulloso diso ata hai uns anos. Unha das miñas estudantes, Jihae, veume ver e díxome: "As ideas máis creativas véñenme cando estou procrastinando." Contestei: "Iso está moi ben, pero onde están os catro ensaios que me debes?"
(Laughter)
(Risas)
No, she was one of our most creative students, and as an organizational psychologist, this is the kind of idea that I test. So I challenged her to get some data. She goes into a bunch of companies. She has people fill out surveys about how often they procrastinate. Then she gets their bosses to rate how creative and innovative they are. And sure enough, the precrastinators like me, who rush in and do everything early are rated as less creative than people who procrastinate moderately. So I want to know what happens to the chronic procrastinators. She was like, "I don't know. They didn't fill out my survey."
De feito era unha das estudantes máis creativas, e como psicólogo organizacional, esta é a clase de ideas que analizo. Así que desafieina a que recollese datos. Ela preséntase en varias empresas. Pídelles aos empregados que cubran cuestionarios sobre canto procrastinan. Logo pídelles aos seus xefes que valoren o creativos e innovadores que son. E efectivamente, os precrastinadores coma min, que apuran e rematan todo cedo, son valorados como menos creativos cós que procrastinan moderadamente. Así que quixen saber que pasaba cos procrastinadores crónicos. Ela respondeu: "Non o sei. Non cubriron o cuestionario."
(Laughter)
(Risas)
No, here are our results. You actually do see that the people who wait until the last minute are so busy goofing off that they don't have any new ideas. And on the flip side, the people who race in are in such a frenzy of anxiety that they don't have original thoughts either. There's a sweet spot where originals seem to live. Why is this? Maybe original people just have bad work habits. Maybe procrastinating does not cause creativity.
É broma. Estes son os resultados. De feito vemos que os que agardan ata o último minuto están tan ocupados perdendo o tempo que non teñen ideas novas. No polo oposto, os que van a todo correr padecen de tal ansiedade que tampouco teñen pensamentos orixinais. Existe unha zona ideal onde habitan os orixinais. Por que pasa isto? Pode que a xente orixinal simplemente teña malos hábitos de traballo. Pode que a procrastinación non sexa a causa da creatividade.
To find out, we designed some experiments. We asked people to generate new business ideas, and then we get independent readers to evaluate how creative and useful they are. And some of them are asked to do the task right away. Others we randomly assign to procrastinate by dangling Minesweeper in front of them for either five or 10 minutes. And sure enough, the moderate procrastinators are 16 percent more creative than the other two groups. Now, Minesweeper is awesome, but it's not the driver of the effect, because if you play the game first before you learn about the task, there's no creativity boost. It's only when you're told that you're going to be working on this problem, and then you start procrastinating, but the task is still active in the back of your mind, that you start to incubate. Procrastination gives you time to consider divergent ideas, to think in nonlinear ways, to make unexpected leaps.
Para comprobar isto, deseñamos varios experimentos. Pedímoslles a unha serie de persoas que xerasen ideas empresariais, e logo buscamos lectores independentes que avaliasen a creatividade e a utilidade desas ideas. A algúns pediuselles que comezasen coa tarefa inmediatamente. A outros asignámolos ao chou ao grupo de procrastinadores poñéndolles diante o xogo do Buscaminas durante cinco ou 10 minutos. E en efecto, os procrastinadores moderados son o 16 por cento máis creativos cós outros dous grupos. Agora ben, o Buscaminas é fantástico, pero non é o que provoca ese efecto, dado que se un se pon a xogar antes de coñecer a tarefa, non se observa unha mellora da creatividade. É só cando che din que vas traballar neste problema, e logo ti comezas a procrastinar, pero a tarefa permanece activa na túa mente nun segundo plano, entón é cando comezas a incubar. A procrastinación dache tempo para contemplar ideas diverxentes, para pensar de xeito non lineal e dar saltos inesperados.
So just as we were finishing these experiments, I was starting to write a book about originals, and I thought, "This is the perfect time to teach myself to procrastinate, while writing a chapter on procrastination." So I metaprocrastinated, and like any self-respecting precrastinator, I woke up early the next morning and I made a to-do list with steps on how to procrastinate.
Agora que estabamos rematando con estes experimentos, eu estaba comezando a escribir un libro sobre os orixinais, e pensei: "É o momento perfecto para ensinarme a procrastinar, ao tempo que escribo o capítulo sobre procrastinación." Así que metaprocrastinei, e coma calquera procrastinador que se respecte, erguinme cedo á mañá seguinte e fixen unha lista de pasos para procrastinar.
(Laughter)
(Risas)
And then I worked diligently toward my goal of not making progress toward my goal. I started writing the procrastination chapter, and one day -- I was halfway through -- I literally put it away in mid-sentence for months. It was agony. But when I came back to it, I had all sorts of new ideas. As Aaron Sorkin put it, "You call it procrastinating. I call it thinking." And along the way I discovered that a lot of great originals in history were procrastinators. Take Leonardo da Vinci. He toiled on and off for 16 years on the Mona Lisa. He felt like a failure. He wrote as much in his journal. But some of the diversions he took in optics transformed the way that he modeled light and made him into a much better painter. What about Martin Luther King, Jr.? The night before the biggest speech of his life, the March on Washington, he was up past 3am, rewriting it. He's sitting in the audience waiting for his turn to go onstage, and he is still scribbling notes and crossing out lines. When he gets onstage, 11 minutes in, he leaves his prepared remarks to utter four words that changed the course of history: "I have a dream." That was not in the script. By delaying the task of finalizing the speech until the very last minute, he left himself open to the widest range of possible ideas. And because the text wasn't set in stone, he had freedom to improvise.
E traballei con dilixencia cara ao obxectivo de non avanzar cara ao meu obxectivo. Comecei a redactar o capítulo sobre procrastinación, e un día -- cando ía pola metade -- literalmente deixeino a un lado á metade dunha frase durante meses. Foi angustioso. Pero cando voltei a el, tiña toda clase de ideas novas. En palabras de Aaron Sorkin, "Ti chámalo procrastinar. Eu chámoo pensar." E no proceso descubrín que moitos dos orixinais da historia eran procrastinadores. Leonardo da Vinci, sen ir máis lonxe. Peleou intermitentemente durante 16 anos coa Mona Lisa. Sentíase un fracasado. Así o puso no seu diario. Pero algunhas das excursións que fixo pola Óptica transformaron a súa concepción da luz e convertírono nun pintor mellor. E que me dicides de Martin Luther King, Jr.? A noite antes do discurso máis importante da súa vida, o da Marcha sobre Washington, estivo esperto ata máis das 3 da mañá, reescribíndoo. Está sentado entre o público, agardando a súa quenda e aínda sigue engadindo notas e riscando liñas. Cando sube ao estrado e leva falando 11 minutos, deixa as súas notas e pronuncia unhas palabras que mudaron o rumbo da historia: "Teño un soño" Aquilo non estaba no guion. Ao atrasar a finalización do discurso ata o último minuto, deixou aberta a porta a unha serie amplísima de ideas posibles. E como o texto non era inamovible, tivo liberdade para improvisar.
Procrastinating is a vice when it comes to productivity, but it can be a virtue for creativity. What you see with a lot of great originals is that they are quick to start but they're slow to finish. And this is what I missed with Warby Parker. When they were dragging their heels for six months, I looked at them and said, "You know, a lot of other companies are starting to sell glasses online." They missed the first-mover advantage. But what I didn't realize was they were spending all that time trying to figure out how to get people to be comfortable ordering glasses online. And it turns out the first-mover advantage is mostly a myth. Look at a classic study of over 50 product categories, comparing the first movers who created the market with the improvers who introduced something different and better. What you see is that the first movers had a failure rate of 47 percent, compared with only 8 percent for the improvers. Look at Facebook, waiting to build a social network until after Myspace and Friendster. Look at Google, waiting for years after Altavista and Yahoo. It's much easier to improve on somebody else's idea than it is to create something new from scratch. So the lesson I learned is that to be original you don't have to be first. You just have to be different and better.
Procrastinar é un vicio cando falamos de produtividade, pero pode ser unha virtude para a creatividade. O que vemos en moitos dos grandes orixinais é que comezan rápido pero tardan en rematar. E iso é o que eu pasei por alto con Warby Parker. Cando eles postergaron o tema durante seis meses, mireinos e díxenlles: "Veredes, moitas outras empresas están comezando a vender gafas por internet." Eles perderon a vantaxe de ser os primeiros. Pero do que non me decatara é de que dedicaban todo ese tempo a tratar de descubrir como facer que a xente se sentise cómoda encargando gafas en liña. E resulta que esa vantaxe do primeiro e, en boa medida, un mito. Fixádevos nun estudo clásico de máis de 50 categorías de produtos, no que se comparan os pioneiros que crearon o mercado cos que despois introduciron un produto diferente e mellorado. O que atopamos é que o índice de fracaso dos pioneiros é do 47 por cento, en comparación con só o 8 por cento dos que melloraron o produto. Fixádevos en Facebook, que construíu a súa rede social despois de Myspace e Friendster. Fixádevos en Google, que veu anos despois de Altavista e Yahoo. É moito máis doado mellorar a idea doutro que crear algo novo partindo de cero. A lección é que para ser orixinal non fai falla ser o primeiro. Só se necesita ser diferente e mellor.
But that wasn't the only reason I passed on Warby Parker. They were also full of doubts. They had backup plans lined up, and that made me doubt that they had the courage to be original, because I expected that originals would look something like this.
Pero ese non foi o único motivo polo que non aceptei a proposta de Warby Parker. Tiñan ademais moitas dúbidas. Tiñan preparados plans alternativos, e iso fíxome dubidar de que tivesen coraxe para ser orixinais, porque eu esperaba que os orixinais fosen máis ben así.
(Laughter)
(Risas)
Now, on the surface, a lot of original people look confident, but behind the scenes, they feel the same fear and doubt that the rest of us do. They just manage it differently. Let me show you: this is a depiction of how the creative process works for most of us.
A primeira vista, moitos orixinais parecen moi seguros de si mesmos, pero entre bastidores teñen os mesmos medos e dúbidas có resto de nós. Simplemente enfréntanse a iso de forma diferente. Demostraréivolo: Este esquema representa como funciona o proceso creativo para a maioría de nós.
(Laughter)
(Risas)
Now, in my research, I discovered there are two different kinds of doubt. There's self-doubt and idea doubt. Self-doubt is paralyzing. It leads you to freeze. But idea doubt is energizing. It motivates you to test, to experiment, to refine, just like MLK did. And so the key to being original is just a simple thing of avoiding the leap from step three to step four. Instead of saying, "I'm crap," you say, "The first few drafts are always crap, and I'm just not there yet." So how do you get there? Well, there's a clue, it turns out, in the Internet browser that you use. We can predict your job performance and your commitment just by knowing what web browser you use. Now, some of you are not going to like the results of this study --
Ben, nas miñas investigacións descubrín que hai dúas clases de dúbida. A dúbida sobre un mesmo e a dúbida sobre unha idea. A dúbida sobre un mesmo é paralizante. Lévanos ao bloqueo. Pero a dúbida sobre unha idea é vigorizante. Motívanos a probar, a experimentar, a perfeccionar, tal e como fixo M. Luther King. Así que a clave para ser orixinal é a simple cuestión de evitar dar o salto do paso tres ao catro. No canto de dicir: "non vallo para nada" dicimos: "Os primeiros borradores nunca valen, e aínda non logrei o que busco." Que hai que facer para logralo? Pois, según parece, danos unha pista o navegador que usades. Pódese predicir o noso rendemento no traballo e a nosa implicación simplemente sabendo que navegador usamos. A algúns non vos van gustar os resultados deste estudo.
(Laughter)
(Risas)
But there is good evidence that Firefox and Chrome users significantly outperform Internet Explorer and Safari users. Yes.
Pero hai probas de que os usuarios de Firefox e Chrome superan significativamente aos de Internet Explorer e Safari. Si.
(Applause)
(Aplausos)
They also stay in their jobs 15 percent longer, by the way. Why? It's not a technical advantage. The four browser groups on average have similar typing speed and they also have similar levels of computer knowledge. It's about how you got the browser. Because if you use Internet Explorer or Safari, those came preinstalled on your computer, and you accepted the default option that was handed to you. If you wanted Firefox or Chrome, you had to doubt the default and ask, is there a different option out there, and then be a little resourceful and download a new browser. So people hear about this study and they're like, "Great, if I want to get better at my job, I just need to upgrade my browser?"
Ademais que quedarse no seu posto un 15 por cento máis de tempo, por certo. Por que? Non é unha vantaxe técnica. Os catro grupos de usuarios teclean a unha velocidade media similar e teñen niveis semellantes de coñecementos informáticos. Ten que ver con como se obtivo o navegador. Porque se usades Internet Explorer ou Safari, eses veñen preinstalados, e é que aceptastes a opción por defecto que vos chegou. Se preferistes Firefox ou Chrome, cuestionastes a que viña por defecto, e preguntastes se existía unha opción diferente, fostes un pouquiño enxeñosos e descargastes un novo navegador. Algúns que oen falar do estudo din: "Xenial, se quero mellorar no choio só teño que actualizar o navegador?"
(Laughter)
(Risas)
No, it's about being the kind of person who takes the initiative to doubt the default and look for a better option. And if you do that well, you will open yourself up to the opposite of déjà vu. There's a name for it. It's called vuja de.
Non, trátase de ser o tipo de persoa que toma a iniciativa de cuestionar a opción por defecto e buscar outra mellor. E se o fas como é debido, poderás experimentar o contrario dun déjà vu. Ten nome. Chámase "vuja de".
(Laughter)
(Risas)
Vuja de is when you look at something you've seen many times before and all of a sudden see it with fresh eyes. It's a screenwriter who looks at a movie script that can't get the green light for more than half a century. In every past version, the main character has been an evil queen. But Jennifer Lee starts to question whether that makes sense. She rewrites the first act, reinvents the villain as a tortured hero and Frozen becomes the most successful animated movie ever. So there's a simple message from this story. When you feel doubt, don't let it go.
O vuja de é cando miras algo que xa viras moitas veces e, de repente, velo con novos ollos. É o caso dunha guionista que revisa un guion de cine que leva máis de cincuenta anos sen recibir luz verde. En todas as versións anteriores, a protagonista era unha raíña malvada. Pero Jennifer Lee comeza a cuestionarse se iso ten sentido. Reescribe o primeiro acto, reinventa o vilán como heroe torturado e Frozen convírtese na película de animación de máis éxito da historia. A mensaxe desta historia é clara. Cando teñas dúbidas, "non o soltes".
(Laughter)
(Risas)
What about fear? Originals feel fear, too. They're afraid of failing, but what sets them apart from the rest of us is that they're even more afraid of failing to try. They know you can fail by starting a business that goes bankrupt or by failing to start a business at all. They know that in the long run, our biggest regrets are not our actions but our inactions. The things we wish we could redo, if you look at the science, are the chances not taken.
E que hai do medo? Os orixinais tamén sinten medo. Teñen medo a fracasar, pero o que os diferencia do resto de nós é que teñen aínda máis medo de non intentalo. Saben que podemos fracasar por montar unha empresa que vai á ruína ou por simplemente non montar nada. Saben que a longo prazo, o que máis lamentaremos non son as nosas accións senón a nosa inacción. As cousas que nos gustaría corrixir, se nos fixamos nos estudos, son as oportunidades desaproveitadas.
Elon Musk told me recently, he didn't expect Tesla to succeed. He was sure the first few SpaceX launches would fail to make it to orbit, let alone get back, but it was too important not to try. And for so many of us, when we have an important idea, we don't bother to try. But I have some good news for you. You are not going to get judged on your bad ideas. A lot of people think they will. If you look across industries and ask people about their biggest idea, their most important suggestion, 85 percent of them stayed silent instead of speaking up. They were afraid of embarrassing themselves, of looking stupid. But guess what? Originals have lots and lots of bad ideas, tons of them, in fact. Take the guy who invented this. Do you care that he came up with a talking doll so creepy that it scared not only kids but adults, too? No. You celebrate Thomas Edison for pioneering the light bulb.
Elon Musk contoume hai pouco que non esperaba que Tesla tivese éxito. E estaba convencido de que os primeiros lanzamentos de SpaceX non lograrían entrar en órbita, nin, por suposto, voltar á Terra, pero eran demasiado importantes como para non intentalo. Moitos de nós, cando temos unha idea importante, nin nos molestamos en intentalo. Pero teño boas novas para vós. Non vos van xulgar polas malas ideas que teñades. Moitos pensan que si. Se miramos en todos os sectores industriais e lle preguntamos á xente pola súa idea ou proposta máis importante, o 85 por cento quedaron calados no canto de expoñela. Tiveron medo de facer o ridículo ou parecer estúpidos. Pero sabedes que? Os orixinais teñen moreas de malas ideas, toneladas delas, de feito. Pensade no que inventou isto. Importa moito que se lle ocorrese unha boneca parlante tan horrible que asustaba a nenos e adultos por igual? Non. Eloxiamos a Thomas Edison por inventar a lámpada.
(Laughter)
(Risas)
If you look across fields, the greatest originals are the ones who fail the most, because they're the ones who try the most. Take classical composers, the best of the best. Why do some of them get more pages in encyclopedias than others and also have their compositions rerecorded more times? One of the best predictors is the sheer volume of compositions that they generate. The more output you churn out, the more variety you get and the better your chances of stumbling on something truly original. Even the three icons of classical music -- Bach, Beethoven, Mozart -- had to generate hundreds and hundreds of compositions to come up with a much smaller number of masterpieces. Now, you may be wondering, how did this guy become great without doing a whole lot? I don't know how Wagner pulled that off. But for most of us, if we want to be more original, we have to generate more ideas.
En todos os sectores, os máis orixinais son os que máis fallan, porque son os que máis o intentan. Pensade nos compositores clásicos, os mellores dos mellores. Por que ocupan uns máis páxinas nas enciclopedias ca outros? e por que se gravan máis veces as súas composicións? Un dos indicadores máis fiables é o volume total de composicións que xeran. Canto máis produces, máis variedade obtés e máis posibilidades tes de dar con algo verdadeiramente orixinal. As tres grandes figuras da música clásica --Bach, Beethoven, Mozart-- tamén tiveron que xerar centos e centos de composicións para reunir un número moito máis pequeno de obras maestras. Preguntarédesvos: Como acadou este tío a grandeza sen facer moitas cousas? Eu non sei como o logrou Wagner? Pero para a maioría de nós, se queremos ser máis orixinais, temos que xerar máis ideas.
The Warby Parker founders, when they were trying to name their company, they needed something sophisticated, unique, with no negative associations to build a retail brand, and they tested over 2,000 possibilities before they finally put together Warby and Parker. So if you put all this together, what you see is that originals are not that different from the rest of us. They feel fear and doubt. They procrastinate. They have bad ideas. And sometimes, it's not in spite of those qualities but because of them that they succeed.
Cando os fundadores de Warby Parker buscaban un nome para a empresa, necesitaban algo sofisticado, único, sen asociacións negativas para crear unha marca de distribución, e probaron máis de 2.000 posibilidades antes de idear finalmente Warby and Parker. Así que se xuntamos todo isto, vemos que os orixinais non son tan diferentes do resto de nós. Teñen medo e dúbidas. Procrastinan. Teñen malas ideas. E en ocasións, non é a pesar desas cualidades, senón grazas a elas que teñen éxito.
So when you see those things, don't make the same mistake I did. Don't write them off. And when that's you, don't count yourself out either. Know that being quick to start but slow to finish can boost your creativity, that you can motivate yourself by doubting your ideas and embracing the fear of failing to try, and that you need a lot of bad ideas in order to get a few good ones.
Por tanto, cando as teñades diante non cometades o mesmo erro ca min. Non as desbotedes. E cando se trata de vós, non vos descartedes tampouco. Lembrade que comezar rápido pero ser lentos en rematar pode estimular a vosa creatividade, que podedes motivarvos dubidando das vosas ideas e aceptando o medo a non intentalo e que son necesarias moitas malas ideas para ter algunhas boas.
Look, being original is not easy, but I have no doubt about this: it's the best way to improve the world around us.
Mirade, ser orixinal non é doado, pero non me cabe dúbida disto: É a maneira idónea de mellorar o mundo que nos rodea.
Thank you.
Grazas
(Applause)
(Aplausos)