The art of digging deep

TED has popularised the art of presenting big ideas. What gets easily overlooked is how another art is even more essential to a great TED talk: the art of digging deep.

This is the art of not only identifying the stones but actually picking them up and looking under. The art of scratching our heads and asking further. The art of looking for answers as opposed to stopping at the questions. So that we arrive at ideas that don’t just look big but actually are big.

For this, it’s not enough to copy the looks of a TED talk: the structure, the storytelling, the stage layout, the timing. That’s just the surface.

A big idea is not in how the idea looks.

A big idea is in what it inspires. What it changes. Such as a fundamental change of perspective.

More often than not, these ideas originate in the mud and dirt. By digging deep. And getting your fingers dirty.

People on the TED stage are standing there because they have an important story to tell. One that originates from doing the work. Sweating the details. Looking beyond the obvious. Asking the questions and looking for answers.

The problem with our world of inspirational TED-like speeches is that it’s copying the looks of a great TED speech while missing the work that precedes it. These people copy the TED part but not the digging deep part.

Yet, digging deep is the most reliable way of arriving at a big idea talk. Dig deep and do the work. And then, tell a true story about what you worked out.

This is how you light the path.

About a happy man – Donald Knuth’s approach to email

I have been a happy man ever since January 1, 1990, when I no longer had an email address. I’d used email since about 1975, and it seems to me that 15 years of email is plenty for one lifetime. – Donald Knuth

We’re now 31 years past Jan 1, 1990 and Donald Knuth still is a happy man who has no email address. Knuth is one of the most famous computer scientists (in case you don’t know him). His work includes “The Art of Computer Programming”, a beautiful but at the same time scary multivolume and never finished piece of art about the craft of computer programming.

But why would a computer scientist – of all people – get rid of email? Here’s Knuth’s answer:

Email is a wonderful thing for people whose role in life is to be on top of things. But not for me; my role is to be on the bottom of things.

Thus, he takes roughly one day every six months to answer to mail and he spends the rest of his days digging deep (and continuing to write The Art of Computer Programming).

When have you last dug that deep? When have you last consciously shut down email (and other messaging channels) to focus on a thing that is near and dear to your heart? What could you achieve if you shut down email for just one week?

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Picture of Dr. Michael Gerharz

Dr. Michael Gerharz