How many opinions before you stop trusting your own?

You have an idea you’re excited about. There’s something unusual in it, and you want to find out whether it could work.

So you show someone.

They like it, but suggest making it simpler. The next person thinks it needs something familiar. Another understands what you’re trying to do, but wonders whether people will get it.

Each comment sounds reasonable. You make a few changes.

By the time you’ve worked through everyone’s suggestions, the idea is easier to explain. There’s less to question. You’re also finding it harder to remember why you were excited.

I think that can happen when we ask for approval before an idea has had time to become something.

We’re showing people a beginning and asking them to judge it like a finished thing. They fill in the missing parts using what they already know. Sometimes we haven’t figured out enough ourselves to explain why their suggestion takes it somewhere else.

So we agree.

I don’t think protecting an idea means treating every criticism as a misunderstanding. Someone can see a problem you’ve become too attached to notice. You need room for that.

But I’d want to ask what each change improves, and whether it still serves the thing I wanted to explore.

Otherwise, it’s easy to keep removing whatever makes someone hesitate. An unusual interaction. An uncomfortable image. A choice that needs a little more time to make sense.

Eventually, there’s very little left to disagree with.

That might feel reassuring. I’m less sure it means the idea got better.

If nobody objects to what you made, did you get it right, or did you remove everything worth having an opinion about?