The Builder's Hierarchy of Fulfillment

Builder's Hierarchy Pyramid
Note: Every additional layer has a higher degree of difficulty

The Builder’s Hierarchy of Fulfillment ...or how to fully actualize a thing.

Think

You consume information. You read and learn to formulate a hypothesis for a novel idea. It may be nothing, a flash in the pan, or something bigger, a spark of genius. Everyone always has ideas running through their head, but this one sticks with you.


Talk 

You’ve convinced yourself the idea has merit and is worthy of sharing with others. Can it pass social muster and make sense to the peers you respect? This is a big step, after all, most people keep ideas to themselves. Talking through an idea can be exhilarating, especially in a circle of trust, where one can flow with the discussion, provide context where necessary, fill in the gaps, and take in feedback to make the idea better.


Write

Now to the hard part, writing it down. Most people don’t make it this far because they get deterred by the “doubters” and it’s notoriously difficult to write. But writing is one of the best ways to clearly think through an idea and communicate true understanding; it forces you to convert a fluid concept in your mind into a blueprint for reality.


Build

The old adage “easier said than done” couldn’t be more correct. The blueprint needs to pass your reality test, and there’s no faking it. You need to be willing to spend time and energy on this, not something else, because it’s time to do the real work. Where writing is putting your thoughts down on paper, building is bringing your idea to life.

 

Value

For some, it is a labor of love, and building is fulfilling in and of itself. For others, building is proving the concept. Did it work? Does it solve a problem? If it does, scale it. Scaling takes more work, but there’s nothing quite like building something that improves people’s lives. Capitalists refer to this as adding value, and the more value added tends to correlate with higher levels of satisfaction.


Inspire

The rare, upper echelon of invention. There are many incremental innovations that make society better, but very few inventions inspire others to create and move society forward. Many people take “sure-thing” routes to value creation and stop at profit. But it is the rare breed that focuses on a breakthrough, norm-defying technology that changes the world. Think going to the moon, using Google for the first time, and mRNA vaccines. You may not know how to get there, but you’ll know when you’ve reached it because the response is a unanimous wow.

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