The Key Trait You Need to Develop Innovative Ideas
I recently read The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius by Paul Graham and one of his ideas dramatically changed the way I think about success.
In short, the Bus Ticket Theory proposes a set of ingredients for “genius” (or achieving extremely innovative success, like Darwin’s theory of evolution, or Einstein’s relativity theories). There are three qualities, and one supersedes the others:
- Hard work
- Innate talent
- ✨ Obsessive interest ✨
Obsessive interest is by far the most important.
Obsessive interest is dispassionate interest for the sake of it. It means pursuing something that pulls you, something you’re magnetically drawn to, despite no obvious reward for your effort.
Your curiosity wont let you leave it alone.
Graham argues that obsessive interest supersedes the other two qualities because it will motivate hard work and will necessitate innate talent since it’s very difficult to deeply and effectively explore an important topic without some basic level of intellect.
The most successful people, Graham argues, didn’t pursue their chosen fields for fame, money, or any other ambition. The pursuit of knowledge was driven primarily by internal, intrinsic motivation.
Lack of ambition is key
People who are motivated purely by ambition will pursue the well-trodden paths within the topic. In short, they won’t discover anything new. They’ll chase the questions or subtopics that are lucrative — the ones that have a market for an answer.
They’ll build products that already have customers, create content that already has an audience, pursue existing careers with high salaries, and so on.
They will favour proven techniques to fortune.
Why?
Because the risk-reward ratio of pursing new paths is too high.
There are so many unexplored subtopics within any field, niches within niches, pursuits that could get endlessly deep. While some of those pursuits contain Nobel Prize-worthy insights, the vast majority of them do not. Only people motivated by obsessive curiosity will spend their time wandering in the no man’s land of ideas that may have no pay-off.
This presents a good litmus test for yourself: In your own pursuits, are you chasing the well-trodden path? If so, ask yourself what’s stopping you from wandering down less familiar avenues or interests that could lead you to a new passion.
To lead to success, obsessive interest needs one other component
There’s one last critical Graham’s genius recipe: the interest you have must matter to the world.
Mathematics matters. Physics matters. Technology matters. Bus tickets… even though some people like to obsessively collect them, the truth is, they don’t really matter.
The world’s largest, most comprehensive ticket collection probably won’t lead to critical new insights about the world.
Comparing math to “bus ticket collecting” is somewhat contrived, and there are many interests in between who’s importance is not as obvious
Questions to determine if your interest is important:
- Does your interest involve producing output (as opposed to consuming)?
- Is your interest / topic difficult for most people?
- Are talented people pursuing that topic?
If you answered yes to all three questions, then you may be pursuing something that matters.
Now all that’s left is to get moving — let your dispassionate, obsessive interest drive you to make discoveries that others wont find because they don’t care as deeply. It will take time, and as mentioned, it’s not guaranteed.
But when it comes to extreme success and new discoveries, it’s the journey that matters.
