I had the pleasure of sharing an Uber ride with Simone Giertz last summer while traveling from the airport to a conference in Victoria, and I got to chat with her over the next four days.
It wasn’t nearly enough time.
She’s an extraordinary human.
Simone Giertz is a Swedish inventor, designer, and YouTube creator who became famous for building deliberately impractical robots, earning her the nickname “Queen of Shitty Robots.” She has since expanded into ambitious engineering projects, including turning a Tesla into a pickup truck, and founded Yetch, a design company that makes unusual, functional products.
She was also brave and vulnerable enough to share her brain tumor journey with her audience, and she did a TED Talk that I adore and will surely write about in the near future.
But it’s about 10 seconds of a video that I want to highlight today.
In the video entitled “A fruit bowl that mechanically changes size,” Simone seeks to improve a design for a fruit bowl that changes size depending on how much fruit you have. She built it more than four years ago but has wanted to improve the design ever since.
By the end of the video, she creates a new version of her original design using stainless steel and a repurposed ice pick.
I like the new bowl better than the old, but watch the whole video and decide for yourself.
But it’s just 10 seconds that I’m obsessed with, starting at the 12:15 mark.
Simone looks at the camera and says:
“Four years!
And it’s all because I decided to let you all watch
Watch me flail forward.”
That’s it. It’s wisdom beyond compare.
The four years she’s referring to are the four years she’s spent pondering her new design. Thinking, wondering, imagining, and looking for inspiration.
But it wasn’t until the cameras were rolling, her feet were held over the fire, and she was forced to perform that she finally redesigned and built the bowl she’s always wanted.
Stakes. Pressure. Audience.
It all breeds success.
Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just get to work. And sometimes, the most pressure-packed version of that work is best.
Simone got to work.
I was onstage a few nights ago, demonstrating an improv storytelling game that I also perform in theaters with my friend, Jeni Bonaldo, for audiences who actually pay money to watch. One of the prompts I was given was “cake,” and my mind immediately went to a moment from 20 years ago when I watched a groom make a terrible decision during the cake cutting and nearly destroy the wedding.
I was the DJ that day, and my job was to help solve this problem.
Maybe it wasn’t actually my problem, given I was only the DJ, but I made it my problem.
I’ve been trying to find a way to tell that story for a decade. I’d thought, wondered, and gotten nowhere. But onstage that night, in front of an audience of highly accomplished professionals in Amsterdam, someone gave me “cake” as the prompt, so I decided to give it a shot.
The result, while imperfect, was still excellent, and a slightly refined version of the story I told for the first time ever on that stage will be ready for prime time soon.
My sentences would only be slightly different than Simone’s:
“Ten years!
And it’s all because I decided to let you all watch
Watch me flail forward.”
I raised the stakes. Held my own feet to the fire. Forced myself to perform for an audience. Gave myself no way out.
So many times in my life, my best work comes when I have cornered myself. Forced myself to perform. Removed all other options for escape.
Just as Cortez scuttled his ship so his men would be forced to fight the Aztecs, I pinned myself into a corner by sticking myself on stage. Simone sticks herself in front of a camera.
In both my and Simone’s case, we stop waiting for inspiration and get to work.
I love those ten seconds of Simone’s video so much. It’s a perfect encapsulation of what we should all be doing more often:
Raise the stakes. Eliminate all escape points. Force yourself to work like hell to survive.
Inspiration comes when stakes are high, work is a nonnegotiable, and all escape hatches have been sealed shut.
Watch Simone’s video, but pay attention to that moment between 12:15 and 12:25.
It’s everything you need to know about getting stuff done.
