1001. James Dyson's Philosophy of Design & Invention For Your Life.

All right. 3, 2, 1. Let's get it. I've been reading, uh, probably for the last month or so out of James Dyson's book Against the Odds. James Dyson is the inventor of Dyson vacuum cleaners, and I'm telling you this man, like if you think that your life is tough, um, or that you just can't seem to catch a break. Uh, read this guy's book, man, it is just unbelievable. I mean, you look at the end result today, he's like worth, I don't know, 14, $16 billion was $2 billion amongst friends, right? Um, but you, you, you look at the end result and you're like, and he, it's a private company. It's not even a public company. And you look at his life and you're like, bro, man, I mean, I wish I had a billion dollars. But what it took to get to where he is today is just unbelievable. Probably one of the best books that I've read. And David Senra on his podcast, talks a lot about James Dyson. James Dyson is a hero of his, and he kept talking about James Dyson in many episodes. So finally I was like. Look, let me, let me get the book. And I'm not sure if the book is like outta print. You can't even get it on Kindle. You can't get it in an audio book. So this was like the most expensive book I ever bought. It was like a hundred bucks. But I, I treated myself, um, I bought this for, I bought this as a Christmas present to myself, is what I'm trying to say. And so there's an interesting section that I wanna share to you. And I, when I, when I read, I read for ideas. I don't try to regurgitate what everybody else is, is saying on the pages and tell you it. It's more so what it means to me and how I can incorporate this into my life because I segment time aside in the mornings to read, and then I write about what I read and what I write about the passages they trigger me. But it's, it's, it, I write the passages down, but then how do I see it? How does it relate to me? And I think that's, that's why it's so important. For you to write and to set some time aside. My initial plan when I started this in 2017, or it wasn't even a plan, let me rephrase that. My initial just act was to read for a few minutes because I was at the bottom of the barrel. I was at a very dark place in my life, and so I began to read from books that I didn't have any money to buy. So I checked them out at the library. And I wrote those books or wrote those passages word for word. I didn't set my timer at that time or anything like that. I just read a section, wrote it because I needed to borrow someone else's voice, someone else's thoughts until I could begin to transform my own. This is why I say writing has writing literally saved my life because it was. Shaping new ideas, new ways of thinking, broadening my perspective that this may be hell for you right now, but just like good times don't last Bad times don't either, but you can prolong those things based on what you're not doing or doing. And so that's the therapeutic side of the long form of writing, because when you write, you have to. Think these things out. You have to pick up the pen because when I talk to you, I may get off on the feeder road and kind of babble.'cause I like to talk and other ideas start flooding in. But when you're writing it's, I don't know, it's a funneling effect. And so it really just kind of channels it down because you don't, you're not gonna write just babble. You're gonna be like, wait a minute, wait a minute. You're gonna pick that pen up'cause your hand gets tired. Or you know, you, you, you keep flipping papers 'cause you're going page after page after page and there's something joyful about that. Uh, but I don't wanna get off the, on the feeder road on that, but there's just something about that. So when I read. And I segment that time, I'm like, is there something in here? It's a scavenger hunt for me every morning. I don't know where this is gonna go. I don't know what I'm gonna talk about. And the only reason why I talk about it is, well, two reasons. It's an act of service. I like to give back and because I don't get to talk to. A hundred thousand people at a time and, but I can leave it behind. So whenever you're available, I'm talking to you and I'm just sharing how I see the world. You may listen to these episodes and be like, I see it. I see it kind of different. Cool. I'm just kind of leaving the breadcrumbs behind because I picked up the breadcrumbs. This is how I see it. I put 'em in the broiler a little bit and I leave them behind and leave you some croutons. So they start off as breadcrumbs and I leave them behind as croutons. So everything, uh, is analogous for food, uh, for me. But I, the what, what triggered this idea on page 2 0 2 in James Dyson's book, he said he's often asked a lot of times about his philosophy. Um, of design and invention, and I read a section and then I said, what is our philosophy of design and invention? You should have a designer's mentality. You should have an inventor's mentality. The product that you're designing is your own life. The invention is you, and if you can get you designed and invented, then your contribution, which could be in the form of a product, but it's also in the form of a service man, the world gets, gets a hell of a a benefit. And so that's how I began to think about this, because the, the, the design, I even looked it up. I'm like, and this is what I do. Like I read words. I'm like, I know of design, but like, what is the definition of design? And it's the art or the action of conceiving or producing a plan. So when you design your life, it's, it's the art of it. Right. And it's, it's how you shape it up and it's as unique to you. You're the invention. So when you invent something, you're the originator. So God has blessed you to be tremendously. I mean, you're unique. There's a reason why we're not all the same shape, size, color. Why We don't all have the same fingerprints. Well, I mean, we're, we're all a bunch of snowflakes. We're all super unique and the way we contribute. To society and to each other is an invention. And I think sometimes, man, we get dolled down from societal standards and just through the struggles and the pressures of just trying to put a bean on the table, man, that we kind of lose. That creator's mindset. That inventor's mindset. So when I was reading this this morning, I'm like, man, how does this apply to our sales life? And I say sales life because selling is a life skill. It's not a profession. And so the same skills that it takes to be successful in sales are the same skills that you need in life. To be successful because it's an iteration, it's an evolvement, it's communication, it's curiosity, it's creativity, it's continuous learning and action, and it's productive confrontation. So when you find that maybe you're in this, this rut, it could be in. One or more of those areas and when things are going well for you, it's because you're, you're firing on those cylinders also. And what's good about these Get my weenie dog down. She likes to sit in the small, on my back. She's only like 11 pounds. She likes to sit in the small on my back when I'm, when I'm doing these podcast episodes. And then when she has enough, then she goes and gets underneath the couch. Um, but anyway, so I am not sure where I was, so I'm just gonna pick up where I think I need to go because maybe I was getting off the feed road anyway. So let me share with you the design and philosophy using, uh, ma uh, James Dyson's design, his philosophy on design and invention and how I see it, how it applies, how it could apply to your life, because I, I'm just an interpreter. So the first one is, no one ever had an idea staring at a drawing board. And he said, so don't do this. James Dyson said that he really liked the way Francis Bacon looked at things. He said, there's the spider and the bee mentality. The spider mentality works in entirely upon himself and from within himself, and as a result, only produces poison. See there is an art of you working on yourself, but sometimes when you get so funneled in and working within yourself that it becomes dark. And that was like what was happening to me in 2017. I was just, I was just in my own little head. I was in my own little ecosystem and thinking like, you know, this just, I, I, I'm too late. I'm, I've, I've screwed it all up. I'm at the bottom rung in life. I got demoted. I was bankrupt, I was broke. I was homeless for a spell. And I was just like, and I, I mean, dude, it just got darker and darker and darker. And see, I had that spiders mentality, and when you do that, man, you just start oozing out poison. And so you may have had periods in your life where you're like that, or you may know of people who are like, bro, there's some spiders. But then he says, Francis Bacon says there's a bee mentality, and this is the bee mentality that we should have the B mentality. Is is drawing from other resources. So the bee gets out there and he cross pollinates. He's pollinating from different areas and so he's using nature at large. And then he produces a product such as, such as honey. So he says you gotta have this bee mentality. And so you get out there and you look at things and when an idea comes to you. You grab it, you write it down, and you play with it until it works. Play with it is very important. That is an important word. Stop looking at everything as a one-to-one ratio. Like it's all gotta stick, like it's all gotta be the savior for you, and you get all butt hurt when it doesn't. So you just, you have this, I think that's why the Bible says you gotta have a childlike nature about you. So you have this B mentality you're drawing in from other resources. Bro, there are so many things available to you. In life, in, in your every day like life is, is giving you tons of resources, tons of things to draw from, tons to pique, your curiosity and, and your creativity. She's giving you all these things yet so many times, man, we're just in our own web and we're just spinning and spooling and we're, you know, things fly by and we're just pulling those in. Killing those things too, just like a spider would and a bee man, a bee is just, bro, he's just floating along, man. He's just getting after it. He'll sting, he'll sting somebody if he needs to, but other than that, he's just, he's just pulling in from all resources, and I believe that's what you have to have is to have that a different philosophy on invention and design in your own life. It is. It, it's lateral thinking. It's, it's, it's looking at things that are not even in your field and like, Hmm, how can I apply that to my life? How can I apply that to what I'm doing? This is why like I read or I listen, or even in conversations, I'm like, man, how can I unpack that in my thoughts and share this on an episode? Like I'm just receptive to those things. But first. I'm receptive to my own, like what's it mean to me? How do I see it? Number two, James Dyson's philosophy on invention and design. Everyday products sell and he says, although it's harder to improve a mature product, something that's already been out there, although it's harder to improve a mature product if you succeed, there's no need to create a market. Try out current products in your own home and make a list of things that you don't like about them. He said, I found 20 things wrong with my Hoover Jr. At first attempt. So again, the product could be just you. So you could be representing a product, okay. Or you could be thinking of bringing something to the marketplace. And when I say product man, it could be a service too. Like you don't have to be somebody who creates the market. You don't. All you have to do is, is that market already may be established, but with curiosity. And creativity, which this is why I say it's a muscle. With that bee like mentality, the more you use it, just like any muscle, the more you use it, the faster it fires and that's what curiosity and creativity are. So there could be an existing market, but what he did is, is he looked at this and, and his Hoover Junior and was like. This is crap. And, and keep in mind too, like James Dyson took on an industry that was, I mean, the vacuum cleaner had been around for a hundred years and he wasn't, he didn't buy a Hoover Junior to make a Dyson vacuum cleaner. Had no idea where this was going. bee mentality. He just happened to be vacuuming that day. He was working on another invention, the ballbarrow, which is, you know, this, he, he took on the, the wheelbarrow. The wheelbarrows get stuck in the mud, you know, with the tiny wheels and stuff. And so he made it this, this giant container on a big bloated ball. And that way you could run on any terrain and it was good to go. And so he was working on that invention and just happened to be like cleaning up in the house, and he couldn't figure out. He's like, why does this vacuum cleaner stop sucking? Like I, I, I put a new bag on there and it's like it stops, and the rest of the time it's just pushing dirt from one corner to the next, so you're really not cleaning up like you think you are. And so he began to like break down the Hoover, Jr. And realize like the tiny pinholes that are in the bag so the bag could breathe instantly got clogged up. I mean, the minute you mow over something, think about any new vacuum cleaner you buy, like day one is like, oh my God, this is great. And then like it's just not as good anymore over time. And then you change the vacuum cleaner bag out, it works again, and then it clogs up. That had been going on for a hundred years. And he was even told when he started coming out with the hoover, I mean with the Dyson, that look, if, if, if it could have been improved, this product could improve, improve the vacuum cleaner, Hoover or Electrolux would've done it a long time ago. Like, you're, you're people think you're crazy until you're a genius. And so it was breaking these things down. And he was looking at what was already on the market. He didn't invent the vacuum cleaner market. He just improved it. And so that's with this inventor mentality, this designer's mentality, this be like mentality you, you can look at something and say, how can I prove it? Stop accepting things at face value. Stop looking at things and like, oh, well, I mean, it's already established. No, if you can improve it. With your uniqueness, and I mean like break it down, write it down, play with it, try something else, regardless of what anybody else says. I mean, you, you think of Steve Jobs, you, you get rewarded for the execution, not the idea. So the idea of a vacuum cleaner was already out there. He executed differently. He brought a uniqueness to it. He brought a different design to it. He made it a newer invention, a better invention. He made the invention better. Lemme say it like that. And so, I mean, you, you look at Steve Jobs, he didn't invent the iPod. He took something and improved on it. He challenged it. And that's what I want you to start doing. Challenge things. Same thing with Travis Kalanick from Uber. I mean, the cabs were kind of sleazy. The pricing, who the hell knows? They kinda like made up the price. They went the long way around. You didn't know if they would pick you up or not. It was, I mean, Travis Kanick looked at that and been like, Hmm. We can use other people's cars. I guess vet them on what kind of cars they have. Design a technology to go along with it, which is actually the third point I'm gonna talk about. And he, he improved it. He could have very easily let, same thing with, uh, Airbnb, Brian Chess, Chesky, same thing. Like they could have just took the status quo, but they didn't, they made some, uh, Elon Musk, he didn't, he didn't make the electric car. He just made it better. When they're a product. What was that product? There was a product. Wasn't there a product? Wasn't that their tagline? We don't, we don't make this, but we make it better. I think it was like Emerson or something like that, but whatever the case may be. Okay, so that's everyday Product sell. Number three, new technology. James Dyson's, philosophy on design and invention. New technology, he said. Pretty much anything that you've ever dreamed up, somebody somewhere has already come up vaguely with that similar idea. If it's not the exact same thing, he said, your job is to point out how original and unique what you're doing is compared to what they did. Again, let's pull in Elon Musk. Same thing. He didn't invent the electric car, he improved it. Steve Jobs, thousand songs in your pocket, or 10,000 songs in your pocket, whatever the hell it was called. Okay. Travis Kalanick with Uber, Brian Chesky, Airbnb. So, but they, they didn't let up. So, and, and, and I added something to this too, where it's like new technology. But also new techniques. So meaning that you could leverage some of the technology and improve it if it's something in in your, in your ecosystem, which you should and don't be afraid of technology. Embrace it. As you, especially as you age. I'm 53, man, I, I try to try to take that 20-year-old mentality, 20 year olds, man, they're just like, fuck it, let's try it. Okay. I try to do that every day because the older I get, the more. I don't wanna be this ba humbug kind of guy, so I have to, but I have to work against that every single day. But also new techniques. So something may be kind of weird to you. Something may be kind of foreign to you. Suspend your, how you look to people and screw your title man. Like screw, uh, like get out there and just get your nails dirty, man. Get out there and have fun with this is going to make your life so much better, so much more colorful, and you won't be this pissed off guy with a plate of mashed potatoes and sweet peas and roast beef sitting on your. Your, your little side table here next to your favorite recliner with a wife beater on a big ass gut. Uh, this gets outta that man. So, you know, when you look at these things, let's go back over it. No one ever had an idea staring at a drawing board. Get out there and experience it everyday. Products sell. There's already a market for it. Can you improve it? New technology and new techniques. Okay, again. You just execute differently than everybody else. March to your own drumbeat man. So much of the world is trying to get you to fit in, man. Fuck it. Stand out. Get out there. Dress differently. Speak differently. Rock on differently. I mean, this is, this is what? This is, this podcast, okay? The podcast market was already saturated. If I looked at it from a market in 2017, they were. Like 300,000 now there's like 4 million. But, you know, I just, I did it my way because the traditional sense was, you know, be a famous person, bring on a well-known person. Y'all have a scripted conversation and share it. I didn't, I had no street cred. Okay. I had no money. I, I nobody knew who I, I had no social media. And so I just, the only thing I had was a podcast platform. I had creativity I love and I used what I had. I love to read. I didn't have access to, I don't have access to James Dyson, but I have access to James Dyson, right? Anytime I, I just open a book. I have access to people that are no longer here. I have access to anybody anytime, anywhere. And then because I have access, I do something with it. And so it's just, I kind of stumbled across this and said, look, I use the limited time that I had. I work 10 hours a day, six days a week in sales. I don't have 10 hours a day to read. How much time you got? I don't know, 15, 20 minutes. I took what I love, I read for 15, 20 minutes. Something sparks the idea. I see it differently. I write about it how I see it, I share it. So I learn it deeper and then fuck, I go live it. It's what I do. And so I took that right there, that simple thing. I could have very easily looked at that and been like, oh, everybody else is doing it this way. No, I'm gonna do it my way. That's what I do. And you know what? I get so much energy and enjoyment and learning. My life has improved in ways that you, you can't even put a price tag on it. I, I would, I, I, I would do this for free and I did, I, when I had three downloads, two of 'em were for me, one from Apple, one from Spotify, the other one, I don't know. Okay. That's what I started out with. I didn't have hundreds of thousands of downloads. That's all I had, but I kept coming back to it because I was learning something from it. Every day. I got to contribute. I got to think about it. I got to apply it to my life. I got to reshape my thinking and I got to contribute. That's what I'm talking about for you. Alright, I'm gonna get off my soapbox there. I The last one is the Edisonian principle. James Dyson's philosophy. The last one I'm gonna talk about, he's got some other ones. I'll, uh, probably do another episode on this. So the, the next one I'm gonna talk about is his philosophy for design and invention is the edisonian approach. I think the previous episode, episode 1000, I was talking about the edisonian approach. This is where I got the idea for the edisonian. Never heard of the term before Edisonian approach until he keeps talking about it all the time. And he says this, he says, engineering is a state of mind. It is a method of working. You could become, I love this right here, you can become an expert on anything in six months. You absolutely can. 180 days, bro, like obsessive. You could become an expert in six months on anything, but you have to steer clear of complexity. Keep things simple and only work on the empirical things. Empirical means experience. You try it, it ain't shit you read about. It's, you could read about it, but then you try it and based on that experience you keep improving it. That's, that's empirical things back to the book. You can achieve major. I love this part right here man. And we're gonna end on this 'cause this is great. You can achieve major breakthroughs. By a bit of lateral thinking. Remember from all, get outside your field. Read outside your field, okay? Be receptive to your outside of your field. Talk to people outside your field. You can achieve things through major breakthroughs by a bit of lateral thinking. And this approach will often lead to new inventions being born of the other. So for example, well the cyclone. Vacuum cleaner. James Dyson's vacuum clean cleaner came as a result from the invention he was working on with the Ballbarrow. He stumbled upon this. Life is a stumbling feat. It is. You gotta stumble and bumble, but bro, you have no idea where it's gonna lead. The, the, the, the five pillars of a fulfilled life, I stumbled across these. Faith, family, fitness, finances, fulfillment, both professional and creative. Because I thought about like if I was gonna have a great life, what would that entail? All five F's just stumbled in that. What's it take to be successful in life? The same skills it takes to be successful in sales, communication, curiosity, creativity, continuous learning and action. Productive confrontation. Okay. Those ideas I stumbled across. While reading and just, I didn't, I didn't not start the podcast.'cause I, God, I have these five Cs. Actually I think they were seven Cs when I first came out.'cause I think consistency in coaching was one of them too. But I drilled it down to five through repetition. And so back to Dyson's point, the cyclone vacuum cleaner came as a result from an invention that of the ballbarrow. The ballbarrow was. A bloated wheelbarrow that could go through anything wheelbarrows just mashed down in the mud. The ballbarrow had these big, bloated wheel on it and just would go through any kind of terrain, and so it, it didn't really, it didn't really have the effect that he hoped it would. He thought that was gonna be the money shot, but that invention, what looked like it failed actually set up the new invention that became an eventual success. And today, James Dyson, privately held company is worth billions of dollars. 14, $16 billion, whatever the case may be. So that, that, and that's what you gotta look at, man, like your life is an invention. Your life is a design man. You, it's all a work in progress. And, and I was listening to him on a, on a podcast. He said, I'm never satisfied. There's always something I can do to improve, even to this day. Like, bro, he could just easily lay up on the yacht. He was like, I, I, I just love the creator's mindset and I'm always looking for other things to invent, other things to improve. I'm gonna end it with this. He said, keep testing and retesting and believe only the evidence of your own eyes, not a formula or other people's opinions. You may have to fly in the face of public opinion and market research. They can only tell you that market research and opinions. Those things can only tell you what has happened. No research can tell you what's going to happen. Boom. We're closing the book on that one. Keep it simple, keep it moving. Never settle. State. Tough peace