How to Get Smarter by Thinking Dumber

:: 00:02

Hi, there. I'm David Carson, and I have a lot of dumb ideas. And for most of my life, I thought this was a bad thing. But I've come to realize that my dumb ideas or my even dumber questions are what help me to succeed in life. But it took me a long time to realize it. Early in life, I realized that it... it might just be better to keep those dumb ideas to myself, to keep the dumb questions rolling around in my head in lockdown. Because whenever I would say them in public, either at school or at home or at work, people looked at me like I had three heads and not in a good way. And I know I'm not the only one. Most of us were trained to think that way. Our school systems weren't built to reward creativity or curiosity, not by some evil mastermind twirling his mustache, but by the school system, which was designed in the 1800s to turn children into obedient little factory workers, show up on time, follow directions. So, of course, when we said something weird or unexpected in class, we got shut down. And we learned to keep the dumb stuff inside. It's not a character flaw, it's conditioning, and it really sticks, and it's why so many of us have brilliant ideas humming quietly in the background but never say them out loud.

:: 01:24

But at some point, I had the dumb idea to actually try my dumb ideas. I remember I was trying to get a job working on an old TV show called Behind the Music. This was a really big docu-style show. I loved it and I wanted in, but I didn't know how. I tried every standard approach you could think of. None of them worked. I wrote letters. I wrote spec scripts. I went to parties to network. I was really frustrated. And for some reason, I thought of this episode on Seinfeld where the George Costanza character decides to do the opposite of all of his normal instincts. He ends up having the best day, like ever, proving all his instincts were wrong. What if I did that? What if I'm George and just decided to do everything opposite? Rather than trying to write the best spec episode of Behind the Music, I would write the worst script. I would write something called Behind the Music That Sucks. And that was it. That was the dumb idea that led me to not only write this stupid little script, but put it on the internet. Keep in mind, this is very pre-YouTube, but it was the beginning of what would become my first company worth millions of dollars. Don't get me wrong, it definitely wasn't an overnight success. More like an awkward slow motion stumble in the dark wearing flip-flops. But the moment I started saying my dumb ideas out loud, actually trying them, testing them, poking them with a stick, something shifted. I stopped hiding that energy and started steering it. And somehow it led me to start four amazing companies and work with countless brands and wonderful new startups. And here's the part I love. Uh, I can teach it to you. This isn't some exclusive brain quirk. It's a skill, a muscle, a thing you can actually get better at. All it takes is a willingness to say the thing that feels dumb. Not dumb like licking batteries or joining a cult. I'm not talking about chaos, delusion, or setting your eyebrows on fire. I mean dumber as in saying the thing that feels wrong, trying the idea that sounds ridiculous, leaning into the exact moment your brain says, "Wait, that can't possibly work." And instead of shutting it down, you say it anyway. That's dumbify. It's not anti-intellectual. It's not chaos for chaos's sake. It's something different. It's what happens when you stop trying to sound smart. Because the truth is, some of the best ideas in history sounded really dumb at first. So did most breakthroughs. So did most geniuses, actually. But it takes practice and a process. Because let's be honest, most of us have spent our entire lives being trained not to say the dumb thing. We've been told it's silly. We've been made to feel embarrassed for asking the obvious question, the one any idiot should already know. So it's no wonder we hesitate. But that hesitation, it's what's holding back the good stuff. Because once you start harnessing dumb thinking on purpose, you unlock a weird little shortcut to smart breakthroughs. And the best part? I've boiled it all down into something simple, a clear, repeatable process I call dumbify. And look, I know this sounds crazy and I know you think it sounds dumb. I'm producing this podcast to prove that it's true. I will convince you that there's this part of your brain that you've been taught not to value, but has tremendous potential to solve a lot of problems and make your life more fun and fulfilling. I will prove to you that it pays sometimes to listen to that inner idiot, that your attempts to box in this dumb part of yourself is a mistake, that the key to getting smarter is to actually think dumber.

:: 05:19

Dumbify, let your neurons dance. Put your brain in backwards pants. Genus hides in daft disguise. Brilliance wears those googly eyes. So honk your nose and chase that spark. Dumb is just smart in the dark. Dumbify. Yell it like a goose. It's thinking wrong on purpose with juice.

:: 05:46

Okay, let's see if this sounds familiar. You've been in that room where everyone's nodding politely. The deck looks polished, but you can feel it. No one's really saying anything true. I've been in those rooms too.[instrumental music plays] Strategy sessions, pitch meetings, brainstorms where you could physically feel the good ideas dying in real time, not because they weren't there, but because nobody wanted to look dumb. And I get it. We've all trained ourselves to edit on instinct, to kill the weird idea before anyone else can, to bury the best parts of our thinking because they don't sound like something your boss would high-five. You've done this too, right? You get a flicker of something, a strange slightly beautiful thought, and before you even finish thinking it, your inner critic kicks in like a bouncer. "Nope, too weird, too risky. That's not how it works here."

:: 06:43

But what if that flicker wasn't the thing to shut down, but the exact thing you needed to follow? What if the idea you were about to laugh off was the beginning of something only you could see? Because here's the deeper problem.

:: 06:59

If your best ideas never leave your mouth, they never change the world. And if all we ever do is try to sound smart, we just end up repeating what's already been said. So, here's what I've come to believe, and hear me out. Looking dumb isn't the enemy. Needing to always look smart is, because when you're obsessed with sounding smart, you play it safe. You say the expected thing. You pitch the optimized idea. But when you allow yourself to sound dumb, you stop performing, and you start discovering. Let me show you what I mean. A couple guys I know couldn't pay their rent, so they bought some air mattresses, built a wobbly website, and offered strangers a spot on their apartment floor, with breakfast. What an incredibly insane, dumb idea. Letting total strangers sleep in your house, use your bathroom, maybe even hang out with your dog while you're on vacation sounds like the beginning of a Dateline episode. Back when the idea first came up, people didn't just think it was dumb, they had lists, actual lists of all the reasons you should never do that, germs, theft, murder, awkward small talk at breakfast. It wasn't just unconventional, it was borderline insane. Most investors thought it was dumb too, and not just any investors. People who are literally paid to spot the next big thing were like, "Yeah, this ain't it." Dozens of VCs passed, because the idea didn't just break the rules, it violated a whole constellation of social norms. Basically, everything your mom warned you about in one business plan. It wasn't just unconventional. To most people, it, it sounded like a Craigslist horror story waiting to happen. Honestly, it still kind of does. And yet, Airbnb turned into a $100 billion business. How? Because the founders didn't just follow their dumb idea, they ran with it all the way to the edge of reason. And then, a little past that, they realized the missing ingredient between strangers wasn't magic, it was trust. And trust, it turns out, can be engineered. Borrow a few moves from Yelp, Amazon, and every review site on the internet. Add identity checks, sprinkle in some economic incentives, and suddenly, the idea that once sounded like a terrible roommate horror story starts to look genius. What started as dumb became an iconic story of success. And then there's the smiley face. In 1963, Harvey Ball, a freelance graphic designer, was hired to come up with a design to improve morale at the State Mutual Life Insurance Company of Worcester, Massachusetts. At the time, office motivational posters were very much aligned with the intentions of the educational system. Keep people in line, keep behavior in a narrow window of acceptability, conform and produce.

:: 10:05

Nifty slogans like, "Admitting mistakes gets you higher respect," and, "To err is human, but don't wear out the eraser before the pencil," or, "Late again? Dependable workers are always on the job." These posters actually graced the walls of offices in the 1950s and 60s. They were complex ideas with complicated imagery, motivating mostly through fear and shame. And State Mutual Life surely expected something along those lines from Harvey Ball. Instead, Ball went with something so dumb it almost felt childish. No words, no mission statement, no clever tagline, just a face. What could be dumber than trying to cheer up a bunch of grown adults in an insurance office? People who literally do math for a living. With a doodle, Ball drew a crude yellow circle with two dots and a curved line, and he invented, essentially, the smiley face. It not only sounded dumb, it looked dumb, underwhelming. He was paid $45 for it, and it was turned into 100 pins for insurance reps to remind them to smile. And guess what? It worked. Soon, there were orders for thousands. Then, bizarrely, it started appearing outside of the company. And within a decade, that smiley face became a globally recognized symbol. The genius wasn't in how clever it looked, because let's be honest, it wasn't. The genius was in how fast it worked. People felt something the second they saw it, not because they thought about it, but because they didn't. It hit them right in the instincts, that gut-level reaction we've been taught to ignore, or worse, overrule, so we can look smart. But if Harvey Ball had done that, if he'd paused to make it deeper, sharper, more strategic, we wouldn't have the smiley face.[laughs] The real dumb part, if there was one, wasn't the design. It was not monetizing it. Harvey never copyrighted his smiley face. And it got so popular other people made hundreds of millions off the thing he doodled in 10 minutes. But the creation itself, that wasn't dumb at all. It was an emotional hack, pure, instinctive design, stripped down to its most primitive, most powerful form. No words. No pitch deck. Just a feeling.

:: 12:42

And it worked.

:: 12:44

And then there's Barry Marshall, a young doctor in the 1980s who had a theory that ulcers, you know, tho- those burning stress-induced stomach knots, weren't caused by anxiety or spicy food or bad vibes. He thought they were caused by bacteria, which back then was a little like saying migraines were caused by moonlight, a stupendously dumb idea. Because at the time, the stomach they thought was way too acidic for any bacteria to survive. It would be like trying to grow roses in battery acid. But Barry was undeterred. He tried to prove it with his research, with data, with conferences. And guess what? Nobody listened. So he got desperate and did something that, by all accounts, should've ended in disaster, something so colossally dumb that almost no one else would consider it. He tested himself. He gave himself an ulcer on purpose, drank some bacteria, risking his health and reputation just to prove a dumb-sounding idea was actually true. And now that one reckless act changed the way we understand the gut. So yeah, sometimes the thing that sounds dumb is until it isn't. These seemingly dumb ideas, they weren't polished. They weren't strategic master plans. They were awkward. They were strange, risky, embarrassing things to say out loud. But they worked and they were real, and that made them powerful. Because when you stop needing to sound smart, you finally start getting somewhere interesting. So how do you actually dumbify something? I get this question a lot. And what most people want to know is, how do I get over the fear of saying the dumb thing and then how do I evaluate it? How do I know if the dumb idea is a good idea? It's not a formula. It's more like a creative dare. But there is a shape to it. I call it the dumbify loop. It goes like this.

:: 14:49

Say the thing that feels wrong. Every great idea starts out as something you almost didn't say. It's the thought you almost shared in the meeting but decided to keep to yourself. It's the sticky little whisper in your brain that says, "What if we did it backwards? What if we just didn't? What if we started over with something dumb just to see?" That voice, most people ignore it. They let it float by like a balloon. But if you grab it, if you say it out loud, that's where something interesting begins. Even just naming it changes the energy in the room. You've felt it, haven't you? The moment someone dares to break the pattern and everyone leans in.

:: 15:39

Okay. Let's go onto the next step. And this one takes a little patience. Ready?

:: 15:46

Follow the absurd thread. Here's where you do the unthinkable. You don't kill the idea. You play with it. What would happen if that dumb idea actually worked? Let it unravel. Walk it further than you're comfortable. Follow the logic all the way to its most absurd conclusion. And you might start to notice something. What felt dumb at first starts pointing toward something smart. Even if the original idea breaks, what you learn from chasing it might give you a better direction than any smart idea ever could. Because the path to something original rarely starts with something correct. Recall Airbnb. Remember how dumb that original idea was. But also recall how they kept pushing. They asked, "Why is it dumb?" And in that act, they were able to work through all of the large practical operational issues that would turn it from being a bad dumb idea to a good dumb idea. And here's the last part of the loop. Filter for hidden genius. Now, and only now, is when you assess the dumb idea. You squint at the mess. You ask the honest questions. Is there a hidden pattern here? Is there a truth underneath the joke? Is this dumb idea an unpolished solution in disguise? And this is the moment when dumb starts becoming real, where chaos becomes clarity, and where something weird and wrong becomes something no one else could've thought of. That's the loop. Say it. Stretch it. Sharpen it. Say the dumb thing. Follow it until it breaks. Then find what's left standing.

:: 17:26

This framework is not about being reckless. It's about being willing, willing to look dumb, willing to wander, willing to say the thing everyone else filtered out. It's not about perfection, it's about permission. Okay. So that's the dumbify loop. Now let's put it all together with a story I love. It starts in the back of a bagel shop in Queens. Early 1980s, late-night shift. A teenage employee is sweeping out the oven trays. Poppy seeds, sesame, onion flakes, garlic, salt, all the toppings that didn't stick, all the stuff that fell off. To anyone else, it's just crumbs, trash.... but instead of dumping it, he pauses. Looks down at the mess and has a thought. One of those thoughts you're not supposed to say out loud. "What if we just put all of this on one bagel?" And he says it. Not as a pitch, not as a plan. Just a dumb, half-joke idea. Now, this could have gone nowhere. Could have ended with a shrug and a, "No, that's weird." But the shop owner says, "Sure, why not?" So they do it. They make a few, they put them out front, charge a nickel more. And for a while, nothing happens. But slowly, customers start asking for it. Then other bagel shops start copying it. Then it spreads across the city. Across the country. It becomes a seasoning, a snack, a trend. Today, you can walk into a grocery store and find everything bagel hummus, chips, popcorn, crackers, pretzels, and even ice cream.

:: 19:18

What started as a pile of failure toppings turned into a flavor empire. That's dumbify. Not some big moment of strategy, not a whiteboard session. Just someone looking at a mess and saying something that sounded a little bit dumb, but maybe worth trying. Okay, so now I want to ask you something. What's the idea you've never said out loud? Not the pitch in your notes app, not the thing you're already halfway building. I mean the one you barely admit to yourself. The one that feels too weird, too embarrassing, too unfinished, too, "Someone's going to think I've lost it." Yeah, that one. What if you said it anyway? What if the smartest thing you ever do starts with saying something that feels a little stupid? We don't talk enough about the emotional tax of trying to look and sound smart all the time. The tension, the filtering, the second-guessing. The way you shrink your ideas down just enough to make them passable, respectable, or safe. But that filter you've been building, it doesn't just keep bad ideas out. It also keeps great ones from ever making it to the surface. And maybe, just maybe, you're sitting on something that doesn't make perfect sense yet, but feels like it wants to go somewhere. And maybe part of you is already wondering, "What if I tried it anyway?" You don't have to take a big leap, just a small one. Say the thing, let it be weird, let it be messy, let it fall flat. Light a spark or start a slow burn no one sees coming. Because the truth is, some of the most powerful things you'll ever say will be the ones you almost didn't.

:: 21:09

So go ahead, say the weird thing. Try the broken version. Follow the idea you almost deleted. That might just be the moment everything changes.

:: 21:20

Not every dumb idea is brilliant, but every brilliant idea started as something brave enough to sound dumb. Thanks for getting dumb with me today. I'm David Carson, author and host of Dumbify. If you thought this episode was dumb, good. That means it's working. If you've got friends who could use a little more curiosity and a little less certainty, send this their way. And if you want more weekly weirdness, stories, and brain snacks, subscribe to my newsletter, also called Dumbify, at david-carson.com. Until next time, stay curious, stay confused, and don't forget to ask the dumb question.

:: 22:03

Dumbify, let your neurons dance. Put your brain in backwards pants. Genius hides in daft disguise. Brilliance wears those googly eyes. So honk your nose and chase that spark. Dumb is like smart in the dark. Dumbify.

:: 22:30

It's thinking wrong

:: 22:33

on purpose.