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Back in the 1950’s – Dr. Seuss was on a heater. 

He wrote Cat in the Hat and How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Bang! BANG!! (*mike breen voice*)

He started to get a reputation for his style of short, silly words. Cat in the Hat only used ~236 total words.

His publisher, Bennett Cerf, decided to up the ante - he challenged Dr Suess to a bet:

Write a children’s book using only 50 unique words. 

Challenge accepted.

Not only did Dr. Seuss win the bet, but the book (Green Eggs & Ham) became his best-selling book of all time. (8M+ copies sold)

Sometimes The Constraints Pick YOU

When Steven Spielberg was filming "Jaws” - he ran into a massive constraint.

Attempt #1 – use real sharks (production team said NO) 

Attempt #2 - build a mechanical shark ($250,000 … and it broke 3 times bc of the water)

So they were screwed. How do you film a shark movie without the killer shark?

They were about to pause production, when Speilberg had an idea: Embrace the constraint.

How can I make a terrifying shark..without ever showing it on camera? 

Answer: 

• Triple down on the music and lighting
• Shoot the movie from the shark’s POV - so you never see the shark 
• Only show the shark fin (a swimmer’s nightmare)

The result? Smash hit. ~$500M box office sales on a $7M budget.

As Spielberg later admitted: "If the mechanical sharks had worked, Jaws probably would've been a worse movie."

‍The takeaway

If you listen to david goggins or Jocko, you learn a counter-intuitive insight: self discipline is what unlocks personal freedom. 

Similarly - Constraints are what unleash creativity. 

‍"Creativity starts when you cut a zero from your budget." — Jaime Lerner 

‍"The enemy of art is the absence of limitation." — Orson Wells

Even the blog you’re reading right now  uses this principle. 

I call this series the “One Minute Blog” - as a constraint. Can I write something insightful that only takes the reader 1min 59sec max to read? (today’s read time: 1min 34 sec)

My “One Minute” posts are far more popular than my no-limit posts. 

“Think outside the box” was wrong. What great creators do is put themselves into a tight box to do their best work. 

-Uncle Shaan