Out of all the things to not look forward to in life: loved ones passing away, failing health, and broken relationships, etc… visiting the dentist has to be very near the top of the list.

I’m amazed going to the dentist is such an awful experience. So much of an experience is the expectations you have going into it. The expectations between walking into an ice cream parlor and the dentist are completely different. The dentist arguably has the lowest standards possible. There is nothing but fear inside the head of someone visiting the dentist. Fear of a cavity, of not flossing enough, of having bad breath, of having to make conversation about the weather while someone has their hands in your mouth. Delivering an experience other than awful isn’t that hard for a dentist office to do with the bar so low.

I’m making an assumption here, but when you open your own practice, I assume you have some control over the environment you create. Therefore, if you chose to hang a picture on the wall that looks like the type of stock picture the frame came with, you’re deliberately choosing to have a bad environment.

Cue the music:

The worst sound in the world is the dentist drill. The only other time you hear that noise in another context is when a screw is going through a wall or piece of wood. By association it’s a terrible sound to have in your ear. Is it only my dentist that doesn’t offer noise canceling headphones? Why not give people noise canceling headphones and some Sigur Ros to listen to?

Where are you supposed to look when you’re in the dentist chair? You can’t look straight up because there is a light beaming into your eyes. Why not put a riddle on the wall? How about a sudoku or crossword puzzle? Or just take 2 minutes to go to Google.com, type in “funny cat pictures” and print off the first 3 you find. All better options than admiring the blinds.

Why is the dentist such an awful experience? Again, I’m sure many are better than the one I go to, but they’re the exception. Part of the reason is that no one sees it as their “job” to improve the customer experience. They clean teeth, fix cavities, schedule appointments, and feed the fish. They don’t see it as their job to improve the experience, even though you can make a boring idea into a billion dollar company that way.

If you write down enough ideas, it’s like some invisible magnet in the sky pulls you into doing something with some of them. Below is a video I put together last Sunday afternoon. In total, it probably took around 5 hours to make and gave me an excuse to perpetuate my cupcake addiction.

I’m only half-kidding with that last sentence. While transferring photos from my phone to computer, as well as organizing all of my photos, I came across a disturbingly high number of cupcake photos. Even the other night, I found myself ruminating on why cake is generally awful, yet cupcakes are amazing. I didn’t reach a conclusive answer before drifting off to sleep, but I have to believe it has something to do with the frosting. Anyway, enjoy my latest video creation.

I have ideas. Lots of them. I don’t want to say “too many” ideas even though it sometimes feels like it.

I blame having an abundance of ideas on James Altucher. He wrote a blog post about building his idea muscle that motivated me to start writing down 10 ideas a day. It took more than a year after reading that blog post for the idea habit to stick, but for the last 4 months or so, I’ve been able to write down 10 ideas a day. They’re mostly mediocre ideas, but a few good ones slip in occasionally. The belief is that quantity trumps quality.

While it’s great to come up with ideas, eventually just coming up with ideas feels like a burden, especially when you think some of them are good. If you don’t start testing some of the ideas in the real world, it weighs on you mentally. You start to feel no better than a joker who just dreams all day in the clouds.

What do I do with the ideas?

Most of the time – nothing. They sit. They marinate. Sometimes I’ll think of a twist on an old mediocre idea and it turns out to be something pretty good. But the vast majority of the time, I won’t do anything with an idea I come up with. Then occasionally I get an idea that I have to do something with.

Breakdown of my ideas:

1. Awful.
2. Bad but could be good if worked on or combined with another idea.
3. Unsure of idea.
4. Has potential. Could do well with the right execution.
5. Must do something with this idea.

An example of an idea with potential:

It’s whiter than a Norwegian parade outside. #snowmageddon

— Ben Nesvig (@BenNesvig) December 11, 2010

That tweet is more so a thought, but it validated the idea I had for my book, which it was included in. With the validation, I altered the execution to include it in a better format.

An example of an idea I had to something with:

I recently went to a cupcake place that I love. That night I decided to brainstorm 10 ideas for them and noticed they had a Unicorn Poop cupcake for April Fools Day. One of my ideas that day was to create a short/weird video for the cupcake to promote it. That night I emailed the owner and got a response the next day that she was interested.

The video took me less than an evening to film and edit. Shipping this out the door reduced the burden of ideas and worked as an experiment in video creation/promotion.

So far the video has been effective in promoting the Unicorn Poop cupcake. My Mom is quite proud.

The point of all of this is that it isn’t that hard to test ideas. You can test an entire book with a blog post and see the reaction. You can test ideas with a tweet, a video, a conversation, or a simple website. There are a thousand ways to test something before fully committing ( a positive test doesn’t mean the final product will be loved, but it’s at least a positive indicator). The catch is sometimes people won’t love something until they’re holding the final product in their hand. Some people might not be excited by the idea, but love the product.

If you have too many ideas that “might work” or things you want to do, there’s only one thing you need to do: pick. If it doesn’t work, then alter the product/idea or move on to the next one. If you don’t find an outlet and test some of your ideas, it’s going to weigh you down mentally.

Below are a few of the daily observations I’ve been collecting this year. Some might end up in a book, others remaining in Evernote.

What kind of psychopath eats at Subway at 7am?

Companies can stop spelling out their phone numbers now. Once it’s in the phone, it’s out of the memory. It takes more work to figure out where the letters are than it does to type in any random numbers.

Americans would have stronger antipathy toward increasing national debt if it was called tofu-barrel spending.

It’s weird that pharmacists go to school for 8 years to work in the back of a grocery store not far from deli.

Adding “breakfast” before anything makes it better. Example: “burritos” “served all day” “wrap” “sandwich” “buffet”…

I don’t trust people who wear shorts year round.

I was about to buy something and then saw the reduced guilt version. I didn’t realize the thing I was going to buy had guilt in it.

Half of the enjoyment from reading a book comes from reading it at the right time in your life.

Feelings trump numbers. If you say beef is 75% lean, people will have a more favorable opinion than to say it’s 25% fat (Can’t remember which book I heard this in).

When you get a used dog it’s called a rescue. Doesn’t happen when you buy a used car. I didn’t “rescue” my Kia.

Microwaves should have a vibrate option or at least a mute button.

Time to rally together as a nation and figure out a way to pass the growing debt onto the next generation without them noticing.

I live in fear someone at Whole Foods watches how many samples I eat.

Saw a poster about fighting hunger and couldn’t tell if it was for fighting starvation or obesity. Only in America.

Watching people jog is a lot more entertaining if you pretend they just robbed a bank.

Trader Joe’s in an exercise in willpower. It’s slowly becoming a candy store.