How to Build Anything From Scratch

Yeah. ANYTHING.

It’s simple: just learn to deal with the fear of starting from zero. And, to help you out, I have the perfect training tool:

Snakes and Ladders

Yes. THAT Snakes and Ladders.

You remember the game. You roll the dice, move your piece and head up the levels of the game board. If you land on a ladder, you move up to where the ladder ends. If you hit a snake, you slide down to where it takes you.

Basically, like working with any startup in the world.

The beauty of the game is that it sucks you in. Things appear to be going so smoothly. You’re 10, 15, 20 places ahead of the competition. Then…ssssssssssssliiiiiide (insert snake sound here, please). You’re 18 behind. And then they hit a snake and all of a sudden you’re even again.

But part of the fun of the game isn’t that you’re once again tied, it’s that you thought the game was about to end and, instead, you’re both only on number 22 instead of 71.

It’s frustrating. But it’s good practice for starting anything from scratch.

I really like to cook. And my favorite thing is to take a pot, fill it with some water, and create some kind of Asian fusion soup. What I love most about the process is just that – staring at a pot with water heating up in it and thinking about what I’m going to pull out of the fridge and cupboard over the next few minutes to make it not only consumable, but, ideally, something I’m proud of.

So I’ll take a little miso paste from the fridge, some rice noodles, peanut sauce, seaweed, some kale, spring onion, maybe some lemongrass, even add a little green tea if I’ve brewed some. Maybe some sliced fish cake, a little of the salmon roe I always keep in the freezer, maybe some Malaysian curry paste and then I let it simmer.

Sometimes, for a variety of reasons, what I end up with isn’t great. And sometimes it’s stunningly good and while I’m tempted to record on paper what I just did, I never do. It’s about the art of the invention. Next time I want to make something even more delicious and I want to do it by really testing the elasticity of my ingredients. I want to try a new mix of parts to make an even more innovative whole. I’m no longer afraid of how the pot looks when it only has water in it.

I spent most of yesterday moving from a blank Keynote on my iPad to, about 14 hours and four NFL and NHL games later, a really decent deck for something brand new. The feedback this morning on what I created was strong. I feel good about what I did and how I did it. I want to do it again because the feeling of getting in front of the idea that you’ll never again create anything of value is amazing. And the way for you to experience that is to, again and again, stand in front of that empty pot, that blank screen, and make it happen. That’s how to build anything from scratch. Be prepared for the snakes and ladders and the days you forget how salty salt actually is and ruin the broth. You can always start again but you can’t start again unless you start the first time.

As always, rock on, my friends.