BRX Pro Tip: First Principles Thinking
Stone Payton: Welcome back to Business RadioX Pro Tips. Lee Kantor and Stone Payton here with you. Lee, today’s topic: first principle thinking.
Lee Kantor: Yeah, this is something I read about that Elon Musk kind of uses when he’s creating his businesses. So, first principle thinking requires you to break down what you think you know and rebuild it from the basics. So instead of accepting how things have always been, ask why they are the way they are. And most people say, “We’ve always done it this way.” And then they stop thinking. And then they just kind of iterate on what has been done previously.
Lee Kantor: But first principles thinking says but why did you do it this way, not we’ve always done it this way. So, in your business, this means questioning everything. Why do you charge what you charge? Oh, because that’s the price that other competitors do. That’s not the right answer. You have to kind of get into what is the actual value that our clients want and what can we deliver. And then you follow that process instead.
Lee Kantor: Just because it’s always been done a certain way doesn’t mean that’s the way it should be done. There could be ways to look at this with fresh eyes. And that’s like, for example, that’s what Elon Musk did with Tesla. He didn’t want to copy how other cars were being made. He questioned everything and built a car manufacturing process, kind of with fresh eyes thinking. So that’s what enables them to make cars so quickly and efficiently. And that works so well because they looked at this with this kind of first principles thinking.
Lee Kantor: So, at Business RadioX, we asked first principles questions about media, about community, about how businesses actually grow. And that’s what led us to do media differently. That’s why we picked different metrics that matter to us and to our clients.
Lee Kantor: So, what’s one thing in your business that you do automatically and just ask why a bunch of times until you get the real reason why you’re doing it, and question that and then try something else. The real answer is usually simpler and better than what you’ve been doing before. And that’s first principles thinking.
