Editor’s note: This article was first published in November 2015. Its remark on unemployment and Spanish working hours reflects that period.
In 1960, two men made a bet with just 50 dollars of the day at stake. But that trivial wager would go on to have an impact on millions of people that lasts to this day.
The two men were Bennett Cerf, founder of the publishing house Random House, and Theo Geisel, a name that may not ring a bell, because he became known as Dr. Seuss. Cerf bet Seuss that he couldn’t write an entertaining children’s book using only 50 different words.
Dr. Seuss took the bet and won. The result was a little book called Green Eggs and Ham, which has since sold more than 200 million copies, making it one of the best-selling children’s books in history.
Of course, some people say Dr. Seuss was lucky, but the truth is that if he had written the book without any limits, it would probably have been just one more among the many books that get written. That’s why this story can give us some pointers for understanding those lessons we so often mention when we talk about being more creative when resources are scarce.
How many things do you not do because you don’t have time to do them? How many projects have you never attempted because you don’t have the resources? How many business ideas have you had and never acted on because you don’t have the money to get started? Those are the limitations and constraints that so often mean we can only write a book with 50 different words.
(See: 4 people who are an example of overcoming their limitations)
And writing that book is hard, but more people fail when they’re allowed to use as many words as they need. So limitations become an excuse for not doing what we should and can do, because history shows us how having constraints helps us get better results than if every option were open to us.
Constraints force you to get things done
Take a look at the working day in Spanish companies. It’s no coincidence that we are last in productivity in Europe even though people in Spain work longer hours. Various studies have shown that a continuous 7-hour working day is much more effective than an 8-hour day split by a long lunch break, and certainly much more effective than working 12 hours.
Having so many hours to work makes us take our time over what we have to do. That’s why, contrary to popular belief, the most productive workday is Friday, because employees focus on what they have to get done so they can leave early for the weekend.
I’ve also seen for myself that when I’ve had five books lined up on the shelf to read, it has been harder to start any of them. Maybe it took me longer to decide which one to read, or maybe I started leafing through all of them before settling on one. When I only have one unread book, I already know which book I’m going to read. It may sound silly, but it happens to us all the time in many areas of life (restaurants, hiring staff, gifts…).
Whether we’re talking about life or business, constraints are good. They teach us to appreciate what we have and not to waste time. Constraints help you stop putting things off, because there’s nothing worse than having all the free time in the world. You’ll feel as if you’re very busy, but when you go to bed you’ll admit that, for some reason, you’ve wasted the whole day. Many unemployed people know what I’m talking about.
Constraints inspire creativity
Having limitations makes us smarter. If you’re not physically attractive and you want to win a woman over, you’ll have to come up with other strategies that an attractive person doesn’t need to use.
If you can’t afford to spend much on electricity, you’re more likely to come up with creative ways to keep the house warm in winter.
In fact, when a young company has no trouble raising all the funding it needs, it’s more likely to fail than a company that took off with hardly any funding. Why? Because the growth of the company that starts without money rests on more solid foundations.
With millions, anyone can make any business “look like it works”, but when the money runs out, that’s when we realise there wasn’t much of a business after all.
(See: Michael Bloomberg’s 6 tough tips for business success)
And good professionals know it
Being organised is nothing more than setting yourself limits. That’s why good professionals block out time in their calendars, while amateurs wait until they feel motivated to do something.
That’s how habits are built. When your whole schedule is organised, you already know what you have to do, how you’re going to do it and when you’re going to do it.
The truth is that we all have limitations. The point is to recognise them so we can focus on our strengths and fill the “gap” left by our limitations in a creative way.
Do you only have €1,000 to start a business? Then you already know you won’t be able to hire a secretary or rent an office. You’ll have to manage by finding customers the traditional way. The upside is that when you come to make your first investments in the business, you’ll already have the most important thing: customers. This is one of the mistakes new entrepreneurs make: piling up expenses before they even have a customer base.
So, to sum up, the question isn’t whether or not you have the resources you need to do something, but whether you have the creativity to do it with the resources you have; whether you can write the next book using only 50 different words.
Featured image: Al Ravenna, New York World-Telegram and the Sun staff photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
