Idea Overload
Now this is not the end. It is only the end of the beginning.
“I think that it is possible to solve any of the problems that
are before us. I don’t think we are doomed on Earth,” Elon
said. Therefore, he will continue to come up with new ideas
as long as he can. “The goal is to retire right before senility,”
he said.^328
But what does Elon do to find a problem to solve? There
are a number of methods you can use to find new ideas.
Walt Disney used to go through trashcans to find out what
people threw away, and he tried to find new ideas from
the garbage.^30 Thomas Edison found several ideas when he
was almost asleep. To wake up just after falling asleep, he
held steel balls in his hand. When he fell asleep, his hand
relaxed and released the steel balls. They hit the floor, and
he woke up again from the noise. He immediately wrote
down his thoughts.^31
A British survey with 500 entrepreneurs showed that
49 percent found new ideas while in their bed, 72 percent
found new ideas while at work, 57 percent found new ideas
while talking to friends, and 41 percent found new ideas
while at the toilet. “I realized recently that what one thinks
about in the shower in the morning is more important than
I’d thought,” an entrepreneur said. “I knew it was a good
time to have ideas. Now I’d go further: now I’d say it’s hard
to do a really good job on anything you don’t think about