creative frameworks pt 1

I’ve always been a systems thinker, and one of my favorite things to do is make unlikely connections. In my work, I believe diversity of thought leads to a more unique investment strategy which in turn leads to better returns. In my life, I believe it leads to a far more interesting story in general). 

Yesterday,  I was at tea with my friend David, and he pulled out his journal from a recent trip to Japan. Inside were gorgeously detailed sketches with the train tickets, omakase tastings, and knife making skills. I found myself entirely engaged in his art – much more so than the pictures he showed me. 

He explained people would come up to him in Japan and gesture with their hands about his drawings. I laughed and recounted very similar experiences in Guatemala when I was painting landscapes or churches or mountains. Despite a language barrier, an expression of art enables you to connect with almost anyone. We started having a conversation about how art can serve as a global language, and I began thinking about this art as a universal language concept. 

I’d like to share a bit more of my systems level thinking over time, and how creative frameworks can allow you to share models of abstract thinking with others. In my investing and creative work, I draw inspiration from art – specifically books, games, music, paintings, sculpture, and filmmaking. Investing is a highly abstract field of work, and I believe I can bring it down to earth even just a little by leveraging the language of art. 

My exploration for frameworks represents a drive to refine and improve my decision making skills and to explain the abstract concepts in my mind and express them to others so that I can learn more about how other people view the world. My writing is not meant to be finalized by any means – simply notes of frameworks I think about. 

In my last piece, I shared more about how Kevin Macpherson’s Magic Grid allowed me to think about constraints in a system offering freedom which in turn produces an engaging effect for the viewer. As I was talking about this with David, he mentioned I should watch Brandon Sanderson’s lectures on Writing Science Fiction. This morning, I’m watching Lecture Five, on Worldbuilding. One of the most interesting concepts Brandon presents is that limitations are more interesting than superpowers. 

A jumping off point of some of my favorites:

Constraints breed creativity. Picking one or more constraints allows you more creative decision making because you limit your available choices. My constraint of not having any connections in venture when I started forced me to get creative and build an audience online first. Writing a children’s book and not having the funds to hire an illustrator forced me to get creative and 

Every business has a rhythm and a melody. In music, each song has a rhythm and a melody. In a business, you can break business activities down by rhythmic – repeating activities necessary to keep the business running and melodic – extra activities you participate in to keep a business growing. I’d often heard other people talk about the rhythm of business, but I hadn’t heard people talk about the melody – which truly makes a company sing. 

Up the stakes for clarity. I learned how to play poker a few years ago, and recently got poker lessons from Jonathan Little, an international poker star. One of the frameworks I learned from him was to up the stakes for clarity. If you were on the fence about continuing with a hand of cards, he encouraged you to consider upping the stakes to three or four times the original bet. I leverage this practice in investing now – would I make this same investment if I was investing three or four times this money? Upping the stakes has been an incredible addition to my decision making. 

Leveraging the hero’s journey in pitching: Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey is a time-honored framework of storytelling used across ancient myths and modern tales. I think about its three main phases of the initiation, the ordeal, and the return heavily when it comes to telling better stories as a founder.