Everything great started as someone's delusion.
A newsletter every Tuesday about believing in things that don't exist yet, figuring out how to make them real, and everything that happens along the way.
Maybe being a little delusional is one of the most human things we can do.
A while back, my friend Kendrick told me something about human history that I haven't stopped thinking about.
He walked me through the whole story of humanity, from our earliest ancestors to becoming the dominant species on the planet. His take: at some point, humans decided we could do things we had absolutely no business believing we could do.
We weren't the biggest, the strongest, or the fastest. But we figured out how to build civilizations, cross oceans, fly, and eventually leave the planet.
The more he talked, the more hooked I got. So much of human progress started with someone imagining something that didn't exist yet, and believing it could.
And it got me asking questions I still can't shake. What's the difference between being delusional and being ahead of your time? When does unreasonable belief become necessary? And when is it just denial?
Those questions became Delusion Theory. Because the interesting part of our story isn't just that we imagined impossible things. It's that we figured out how to do them.
You decided. Nothing's happened yet.
That's the part I care about. The belief that gets you started, and then the actual work of making it real: the building, trying, failing, and adjusting you do before anything proves you right. Most good things die somewhere in there. I want to understand why some don't.
An idea worth chewing on.
Something I can't stop thinking about. An observation, an argument, a question I don't have the answer to yet.
The story behind it.
My own, a conversation with someone, or a piece of history that backs the idea up or pokes holes in it.
Something to take with you.
A question, a different way to look at it, or something to try this week.
How do you believe in yourself enough to go after something unlikely, and stay honest enough to see when you're wrong?
I think believing in something before it works is a skill you can get better at. But blind belief isn't the goal. I'm not trying to make you delusional. I'm trying to figure out when a little delusion is exactly what you need, when it gets dangerous, and how to tell the difference. I'm working it out in real time, and I'll show you what I find.
Anyone trying to make something real that doesn't exist yet.
Not just founders and creators, and not just people starting out. Someone who built a $20 million company can still have a dream they haven't figured out yet. If it only exists in your head right now and you're trying to make it real, you'll feel at home here.
I want to know what you were thinking before it worked.
Most success stories get told after the fact, once everyone knows how it turned out. I'm more interested in the before. What you believed, what scared you, what almost made you quit. If you're in the middle of something, or you remember what it felt like, reply to any email or write me here.
Get a little more delusional.
One email every Tuesday. An idea I can't stop thinking about, the story behind it, and something to take with you. It's free, and you can leave whenever you want.