Five terrible ideas (and one game-changer)
Last Tuesday night at improv, we played “Five Things.”
The category? “Five ancient civilizations yet to be discovered.”
I stood in the circle while everyone counted.
“The Basement Dwellers of Nebraska—ONE”
“Pizza Rat Kingdom under the 6 train—TWO”
“Silicon Valley before Silicon—THREE”
“The Lost Accountants of Atlantis—FOUR”
“Whoever built that weird pyramid in Memphis, Tennessee—FIVE”
Pure nonsense. Everyone laughed. We moved on.
But here’s what I keep thinking about:
That game taught me something James Altucher has been saying for years—if you want one great idea, you need to generate hundreds of terrible ideas first.
Most Ruckus Makers I work with are stuck because they’re editing before they create.
They need a new strategy, but they kill the first three ideas in their head before speaking them out loud.
They need to solve a team alignment issue, but they workshop the solution to death before testing it.
They need to find their category-defining narrative, but they’re waiting for the “perfect” version to arrive fully formed.
That’s an internal belief gap.
You don’t believe you’re allowed to be wrong. You don’t believe messy thinking leads to breakthrough thinking.
So you wait. Edit. Refine. Polish.
Meanwhile, execution stalls.
Here’s what I learned from the “Five Things” game:
The fastest path to ONE breakthrough idea is FIVE rapid-fire attempts without self-editing.
Not because all five will be good.
Because four will be terrible, and that’s exactly how you find the one that changes everything.
Your brain doesn’t work in a straight line. It works in a messy, associative, stream-of-consciousness loop. And when you give it permission to blurt out the bad ideas, it eventually stumbles into the game-changer.
That's what Altucher discovered too. (James explains it better than I can in 60 seconds here).
Ten ideas a day. Most of them garbage. A few of them gold.
The belief gap? Thinking you need to only produce gold on the first try.
If you’re a Ruckus Maker stuck in strategic paralysis … editing before creating, polishing before testing, waiting for perfection before moving … we should talk.
I help close the belief gaps that kill execution. Starting with the one that says “I need to get this right before I try it.”
We’ll find your game-changer.
Keep Making a Ruckus,
Danny
P.S. My five terrible ideas at improv became one good post. What could your five terrible ideas become?