Let the muse guide you

I recently watched an epic interview between David Perell and Dean Koontz.

In the interview, Koontz mentioned that he used to outline everything early in his career. Publishers required it. They’d buy based on the outline, pay half upfront.

Then creative ideas emerged during execution that were better than the outline. The book improved beyond the plan.

But when he delivered? Publishers were disappointed. “This isn’t what we bought.”

“Yes, but it’s better than what you bought.”

Didn’t matter. They wanted the outline, not the improvement.

So Koontz stopped outlining entirely. Started letting characters drive the story. Gave them free will.

“If you give characters free will as we have free will—which I believe they have—the characters go places you don’t anticipate.”

This applies everywhere. Your product roadmap. Your business strategy. Your AI implementation plan.

The problem with extensive planning isn’t that plans are bad. It’s that plans prevent you from discovering what’s actually better than the plan.

Plan enough to start. Then trust the process to reveal what you couldn’t see from the starting line.