Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Psychology Podcast with doctor Scott
Speaker 1: Barry Kaufman, where we give you insights into the mind, brain, behavior,
Speaker 1: and creativity. Each episode will feature a new guest who
Speaker 1: will stimulate your mind and give you a greater understanding
Speaker 1: of yourself, others, and the world we live in. Hopefully
Speaker 1: we'll also provide a glimpse into human possibility. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening and enjoy the podcast. Today. I'm really excited to
Speaker 1: have Tina Selig on the show. Tina is a Professor
Speaker 1: of the Practice and the Department of Management Science and Engineering,
Speaker 1: faculty director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program, and a
Speaker 1: member at the Hasso Platner Institute of Design at Stanford
Speaker 1: School of Engineering. Her latest books are What I Wish
Speaker 1: I Knew When I was twenty, Ingenius, A Crash Course
Speaker 1: in Creativity, and Insight Out. Thanks Tina for being on
Speaker 1: the show. It's my pleasure. Thank you so much. Oh.
Speaker 1: I love that title. That's why I repeated it. You
Speaker 1: came over with that title before you saw the movie
Speaker 1: Inside Out right. You know, it's really funny. They came
Speaker 1: at at about the same time, so I thought that's
Speaker 1: pretty interesting. We're both thinking the same way, but this
Speaker 1: sort of taking a different spin on it. Insight out, yeah,
Speaker 1: side out. Yeah, it's not all about emotions, right, It's
Speaker 1: about lots of different cognitive process and emotions and motivations
Speaker 1: and everything that helps us increase our imagination, creativity, innovation.
Speaker 1: In fact, maybe that would be a good place to start.
Speaker 1: Is helping me to untangle all these different words. So
Speaker 1: you know, what is the difference between imagination, creativity, innovation,
Speaker 1: and entrepreneurism? Right? In fact, that's absolutely the core of
Speaker 1: that book. Inside Out. It's about trying to understand the
Speaker 1: process of going from the seeds of inspiration all the
Speaker 1: way through implementation. And I realized that there was actually
Speaker 1: a big problem that a lot of people have, and
Speaker 1: that is that they don't have a clear vocabulary for
Speaker 1: these terms. And so I decided to put a stake
Speaker 1: in the ground and come up with a set of
Speaker 1: terms and relationships and they're pretty simple and hopefully really
Speaker 1: easy to remember as well. So imagination is envisioning things
Speaker 1: that don't exist. I mean, we do this all day long, right,
Speaker 1: I envision what I'm going to have for lunch. Okay.
Speaker 1: It allows us to function in the world. Is being
Speaker 1: able to imagine what's going to happen in the future.
Speaker 1: Creativity is applying your imagination to solve a problem. So
Speaker 1: for example, I'm hungry, I open my refrigerator and I
Speaker 1: use my ability to envision things that don't exist to
Speaker 1: make us myself a sandwich. Innovation pushes further because that
Speaker 1: is applying my creativity to come up with a unique solution.
Speaker 1: So creative ideas are new to me or to you,
Speaker 1: but they're not new to the world. Innovative ideas are
Speaker 1: breakthrough ideas that are near the world, and then entrepreneurship
Speaker 1: that is essentially applying the innovation and scaling it and
Speaker 1: bringing it to the world. Cool. Yeah, it's a little
Speaker 1: bit different than you know. In the scientific literature, they
Speaker 1: say over and over and over again, creativity is novelty
Speaker 1: and usefulness. Right, But let me just say something. It's
Speaker 1: actually the same. It's novel, but it's novel to you
Speaker 1: and it's useful and then it solves a problem. So
Speaker 1: I think it's actually not inconsistent. But what I really
Speaker 1: did try to do is create a framework that allowed
Speaker 1: us to show the relationship between all these stages as
Speaker 1: opposed to just having a bunch of definitions that are
Speaker 1: completely standalone. Yeah, totally. This is what the field needs.
Speaker 1: Well the world that means is a better differentiation of
Speaker 1: this stuff. You know, like Dean Simonton's model. He argued
Speaker 1: that we should apply the same criteria we apply to
Speaker 1: the patents, like whether or not we accept patents, and
Speaker 1: that's novel, usefulness and surprise like that. For something to
Speaker 1: be creative, it has to be surprising to others. But
Speaker 1: you're saying that not necessarily at the creativity stage, as
Speaker 1: long as it's to yourself personally, and that's good enough. Well,
Speaker 1: I think this is you brought up a very very
Speaker 1: interesting point here. People conflate the words creative and innovative,
Speaker 1: and I think it's incredibly useful to differentiate the two
Speaker 1: and basically say creative ideas those are sort of everyday
Speaker 1: creativity is solving problems in your everyday life, and innovation
Speaker 1: is something that's new to the world. So what you're
Speaker 1: saying is that the patent office is looking at things
Speaker 1: that are surprising because those are things that are actually
Speaker 1: truly innovative that they will They're not going to patent
Speaker 1: something that's creative, They're going to patent something that's innovative. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's exactly right. Good. Good. So let's go through each
Speaker 1: of these kinds of things, and you know, let's not
Speaker 1: give it all away. People should read your book, but
Speaker 1: let's go through and talk a little bit about some
Speaker 1: of these specific things that are tied to each of
Speaker 1: these constructs we just talked about. So let's start with imagination.
Speaker 1: You talk in your book about the role of engagement.
Speaker 1: I love that, and you talk about how sort of passion,
Speaker 1: what a lot of ways engagement precedes vision or imagination.
Speaker 1: Is that right? Well? What I realized that each of
Speaker 1: these stages there are attitudes and actions that are required,
Speaker 1: and I distilled it down to one representative attitude and
Speaker 1: one representative action. And in the imagination stage, it requires
Speaker 1: engaging with the world and then envisioning what might be different.
Speaker 1: People often think of doing it the other way around.
Speaker 1: They think, I'm going to envision what I want to
Speaker 1: do in the world, and then I'll engage in making
Speaker 1: it happen. But actually, in real life, if you talk
Speaker 1: to real innovators, it starts the other way around. It
Speaker 1: starts with engagement. And one of the most important insights
Speaker 1: I had was the idea that before something is your passion,
Speaker 1: it's something you likely know nothing about, and therefore it
Speaker 1: all starts with engagement. Engagement is the master key that
Speaker 1: opens up all of these doors. An example I give
Speaker 1: in the book, and it's a very moundane example, but
Speaker 1: it's something that hopefully everyone can relate to, is that
Speaker 1: you could be a waiter at a restaurant and every
Speaker 1: day you could just with blinders on, serve everybody their coffee.
Speaker 1: Or you could really be engaged and really paying attention,
Speaker 1: and with that acute observation, you're going to start seeing things.
Speaker 1: You're going to see opportunities that are right in front
Speaker 1: of you. You can become an expert on customer service
Speaker 1: by exploring what days you get bigger tips than others.
Speaker 1: You could become an expert on culinary trends by looking
Speaker 1: at what types of things people are ordering and what
Speaker 1: they're not. You can look at the demographics of people
Speaker 1: at different times of the day in the restaurant. Each
Speaker 1: of these can open up the door to really interesting possibilities.
Speaker 1: You could become a world expert in customer service, open
Speaker 1: up your own restaurant, become a consultant, write a book,
Speaker 1: make a movie all that starting with just being a
Speaker 1: waiter at a restaurant. Yeah, and you talk a lot
Speaker 1: about the interconnectingness of curiosity and engagement, right, you bet
Speaker 1: it all starts with curiosity. And one of those things
Speaker 1: that is so sad that curiosity gets beaten out of
Speaker 1: people just going through the world, you know, asking questions
Speaker 1: that start with why you know, just like a two
Speaker 1: year old, really opens up your mind to all sorts
Speaker 1: of possibility. You have some like great quotes about curiosity
Speaker 1: in there and in your book, and you talk a
Speaker 1: lot about the importance of questioning everything. I'm really interesting.
Speaker 1: This is toggling between being curious and exploring but also
Speaker 1: like trying things out, like you call it experimenting in
Speaker 1: your book. And you use a word in your book
Speaker 1: that I haven't come across before preto type, not prototype,
Speaker 1: but preto type. Maybe you could talk a little about
Speaker 1: what that is. Yeah. So this term was coined by
Speaker 1: a colleague of mine, Alberto Savoya, who's quite brilliant. He
Speaker 1: has had a lot of entrepreneur experience. One he's been
Speaker 1: involved with starting companies that have been extraordinarily successful as
Speaker 1: well as those that have failed very dramatically. And he
Speaker 1: decided that he really needed to explore what was the
Speaker 1: difference between the two and realize that you can make
Speaker 1: something that's really fabulous and works really well, but it's
Speaker 1: not the right thing. The market doesn't want it, And
Speaker 1: so he came up with the idea of prototypes. The
Speaker 1: idea is that a prototype tests whether you're doing the
Speaker 1: right thing before you test and do a prototype to
Speaker 1: see if it actually will work. So an example that
Speaker 1: he might give would be, let's say McDonald's wanted to
Speaker 1: sell max spaghetti. Well, they could go have their test kitchens,
Speaker 1: put together tons of recipes and have all sorts of
Speaker 1: people tasted and ask if they buy it. But the
Speaker 1: simplest thing they could do is just put it on
Speaker 1: the menu in a few stores and see if people
Speaker 1: actually buy it. And so they would quickly see whether
Speaker 1: the concept would even work. That's called the false door
Speaker 1: or the facade approach to preto typing. There are lots
Speaker 1: of other tools and ways that you can do quick
Speaker 1: and dirty experiments to see if your idea has any legs.
Speaker 1: I like that, and you talk about how we can
Speaker 1: each decide the stage in which we will play out
Speaker 1: our lives. So when we talked about prototyping or experimenting.
Speaker 1: We're not just blindly experimenting. I mean that's tied. What
Speaker 1: we choose to experiment with does in a large degree
Speaker 1: under our control and associated with our identity and our passions.
Speaker 1: Is that right? Is that? Yeah? This is really important.
Speaker 1: I've always been fascinated by the question of at what
Speaker 1: point in your life do you decide? You know, does
Speaker 1: every individual decide what stage they're going to play out
Speaker 1: their life? Because it's the same skills that are required
Speaker 1: if you're going to be the president of your PTA
Speaker 1: or the president of the United States, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: leadership is leadership, and they're really similar skills used in
Speaker 1: different venues, different environments. So the question is who decides
Speaker 1: that they're going to act in their local community theater
Speaker 1: or who's going to decide I want to go to
Speaker 1: Broadway And a lot of it has to do with
Speaker 1: how we identify our role in the universe, and it's
Speaker 1: something that we get to choose, and I think it's
Speaker 1: something that should be an active process where people actually
Speaker 1: think about it and decide what stage in the world
Speaker 1: they want to play out their life. I love that,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm really a big fan of like the
Speaker 1: humanistic approaches from like the fifties and sixties and seventies,
Speaker 1: and getting in touch with your identity in a very
Speaker 1: deep way that's not influenced by external environment and everything.
Speaker 1: Do you think today like workers, because you do a
Speaker 1: lot of work in business contexts, so you know so
Speaker 1: much about that. Do you see a lot of workers
Speaker 1: kind of losing their identity in their workplace. One of
Speaker 1: the things that I tell people all the time is
Speaker 1: that when you get a job, you are not getting
Speaker 1: that job, you're getting the keys to the building. But
Speaker 1: it's really really true, and people make a mistake of
Speaker 1: thinking that the job they have is just the things
Speaker 1: that have been assigned to them. And I notice with
Speaker 1: the people who work for me or with me, that
Speaker 1: there are those people who define themselves very clearly by
Speaker 1: the job they've been given, and other by the possibilities
Speaker 1: that exist. And the people who define themselves by the
Speaker 1: possibilities that exist in that environment are the ones who
Speaker 1: keep growing and being given more responsibilities, the ones who
Speaker 1: get promoted. And so it's really important when you go
Speaker 1: into any new environment to imagine where it could take you.
Speaker 1: I tell a story the book about my current job
Speaker 1: at Stanford. As you mentioned, I run the Technology Ventures program.
Speaker 1: Many hats as well, though I do, but it's really
Speaker 1: interesting when I first I've been there at Stanford now
Speaker 1: sixteen years, and when I first was looking for a
Speaker 1: job and I printed out the job description for the
Speaker 1: job I ended up taking, I initially crumbled it up
Speaker 1: and put in the garbage because it was much too junior.
Speaker 1: You know, I had a PhD, I lot a work experience.
Speaker 1: This was a very junior job, sort of an junior administrator.
Speaker 1: But the day after I took it out of the
Speaker 1: garbage and I flattened it out, and I said, you know,
Speaker 1: there's something in here. So I decided to apply, even
Speaker 1: though it didn't seem like it was exactly right level
Speaker 1: for me. But I met all these people. I had
Speaker 1: eleven interviews, and I met all the people who were
Speaker 1: related to this organization, and I said, Wow, there's something
Speaker 1: in here. I want to work with these people on
Speaker 1: this problem of teaching entrepreneurship to engineers. And I took
Speaker 1: the job, and within one year I became the executive director.
Speaker 1: The next year I became the director, and several years
Speaker 1: later they made me a real professor, And the fact
Speaker 1: is this never would have happened had I not taken
Speaker 1: that job and basically put my foot in the door,
Speaker 1: you know, and seeing the possibilities, and I really encourage
Speaker 1: other people to do the same, to think of the
Speaker 1: possibilities as opposed to the limitations of the role they're in.
Speaker 1: Love that, I mean, that's very much tied to all
Speaker 1: these other kinds of constructs that we study in psychologic
Speaker 1: inspiration and all and kind of all these things which
Speaker 1: really have to do kind of transcending your present possibilities
Speaker 1: right in a way, absolutely, And you know, we create
Speaker 1: our future every single day, right. I mean I remember
Speaker 1: growing up and father used to always say, I don't
Speaker 1: know if you remember this expression that was used all
Speaker 1: the time, was you know, today's the first day of
Speaker 1: the rest of your life. And you know, I don't
Speaker 1: know if you remember that. I used to used to
Speaker 1: be people said all the time, today is the first
Speaker 1: day of the rest of your life, and that you
Speaker 1: have to remember that that you know, imagine you're starting today,
Speaker 1: what are the possibilities in front of you? And a
Speaker 1: lot of people just get anchored by their past as
Speaker 1: opposed to really drawn towards the future. Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 1: My colleague Martin Selgen and here at Penn talks about
Speaker 1: being called into the future a lot, you know, and
Speaker 1: how great creative geniuses kind of report that they feel
Speaker 1: like they're being called into the future in some way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love that. And you talk about hauling in your book,
Speaker 1: so you do talk about and a purpose and these
Speaker 1: things kind of being different than just taking a job
Speaker 1: just for these external reasons. Well, you know, it's interesting
Speaker 1: in can I just can I go down on that
Speaker 1: anything you want to talk about? Okay, great, So you
Speaker 1: know I talk about this extensively in my book What
Speaker 1: I Wish I knew when I was twenty about the
Speaker 1: fact that people often draw a then diagram of you know,
Speaker 1: your career, your passions, and your interests. I think it's
Speaker 1: not a then diagram where there are three sort of
Speaker 1: overlapping circles. I think it's actually more like a bullseye.
Speaker 1: And so you have an outer circle your passions, the
Speaker 1: next one in is your skills, and the next one
Speaker 1: in is the market, and so things that are in
Speaker 1: the outside. Your goal is to get something in the
Speaker 1: middle of the bill's eye. That's the bulls eye. That
Speaker 1: is the market your skills and your passions. But a
Speaker 1: lot of people get confused. They think, well, I'm passionate
Speaker 1: and interested, there's no market for that for what I'm doing.
Speaker 1: And you go, well, great, that's a wonderful hobby. It's
Speaker 1: great to have hobbies. And there are other people who
Speaker 1: live in the world where they put aside their passions
Speaker 1: and they focus on their skills in the market. Well,
Speaker 1: that's just a job. So but you really want to
Speaker 1: figure out the place where the three of them intersect,
Speaker 1: where it's something you're really excited about, you're really good at,
Speaker 1: and there's actually a market for it, and that's you know,
Speaker 1: that's really your callity. I like that. So you talk
Speaker 1: about something called reframing and why that's important for creativity.
Speaker 1: Can you talk a little bit more about what we
Speaker 1: bring back how people can actually reframe themselves. You're right,
Speaker 1: framing and reframing is one of the most powerful skills
Speaker 1: that you can have in your life. We so often
Speaker 1: look at the world through a very specific frame and
Speaker 1: don't see the possibilities outside. I'll give you an example.
Speaker 1: Every single problem you solve when you ask the question,
Speaker 1: the answer is actually baked into the question. For example,
Speaker 1: I could say, we're going to plan a birthday party
Speaker 1: for you, and we're going to brainstorm about a birthday party.
Speaker 1: But if we change one word in that prompt to
Speaker 1: planning a birthday celebration, all of a sudden, we've opened
Speaker 1: up the frame of possibilities. And let's say instead of
Speaker 1: that question we asked what's the best way to mark
Speaker 1: your birthday? We've opened it up even further, and we
Speaker 1: don't often question the questions we ask. One of my
Speaker 1: favorite quotes on this subject comes from Albert Einstein, who said,
Speaker 1: if I had a daunting problem to solve, and I
Speaker 1: have one hour to solve it, and my life ended
Speaker 1: upon the solution, I'd spend the first fifty five minutes
Speaker 1: framing the problem, because once I determine the right question
Speaker 1: to ask, the answer would become obvious. And this is
Speaker 1: true in all aspects of our life. I mean, think
Speaker 1: about it. I'm looking at my window here, looking at
Speaker 1: the bay bridge. You know, someone could say, hey, Tina,
Speaker 1: will you go redesign a new bridge? We need a
Speaker 1: new bridge to go across the bay. Well, you could
Speaker 1: run off and do that, or you could come back
Speaker 1: and say, why do you need a bridge in the
Speaker 1: first place. You know, if my goal is to get
Speaker 1: to the other side of the bay, how many ways
Speaker 1: are there to do that? You know, there's so many
Speaker 1: other ways to get across, and so you could also say, well,
Speaker 1: why do you need to get across? So each of
Speaker 1: these questions opens up the frame and gives you lots
Speaker 1: of other really interesting ways to look at the problems
Speaker 1: you're solving. Great, and you can also reframe your own existence,
Speaker 1: right Like if you used to think yourself is just
Speaker 1: a total loser, for instance, you know kind of and
Speaker 1: then in every situation that there's kind of failure, you say, oh,
Speaker 1: it's because I'm a loser. You can also reframe your
Speaker 1: You can do cognitive reframing, right you bet. In fact,
Speaker 1: I think that's one of the most critical things you
Speaker 1: can do. You know, I do this myself, and I'm
Speaker 1: hesitating because it's somewhat personal. Is that, you know, I
Speaker 1: get fearful of things. I'm afraid of things like getting
Speaker 1: sick when I'm traveling, and I try to then reframe it,
Speaker 1: figure out, Okay, how do I look at this more
Speaker 1: as an adventure as opposed to something that's scary. You know,
Speaker 1: that would be sort of an example. But if you
Speaker 1: to any person, any person, you know there are things
Speaker 1: that hold them back, and you're absolutely right. You can
Speaker 1: use the framing and reframing tool to even look at
Speaker 1: your own life from very different perspectives. In tact, you
Speaker 1: can say, you know, you were talking about someone says
Speaker 1: they're a loser. Well maybe they go, you know what,
Speaker 1: I'm going to be someone who's overcome great obstacles. I
Speaker 1: want my story, but one of the what's the story
Speaker 1: I want to tell? And in fact, in my book
Speaker 1: inside Out there exercizes at the end of every chapter
Speaker 1: and it starts out of the book where you're asked
Speaker 1: to write a letter to yourself and then you keep
Speaker 1: revisiting the letter throughout the book at various stages. And
Speaker 1: with the new tools that you get, have new ways
Speaker 1: of framing the way you see yourself and how you
Speaker 1: want to engage with the world. Yeah, I found that
Speaker 1: really helpful. And you talked about you have also little
Speaker 1: tiny things that you could anyone could just do to
Speaker 1: like warn to write, or brush your teeth with your
Speaker 1: non dominant hand, you know, And it's cool, there's like,
Speaker 1: you know, there's a lot of this research coming out
Speaker 1: showing that any new and unusual experience can really increase
Speaker 1: your cognitive flexibility, like buttering your toast in a different way,
Speaker 1: or I like to moon walk on the way to
Speaker 1: work or something like that. Do you do you? I
Speaker 1: bet you get lots of interesting looks. I get interesting
Speaker 1: looks no matter what I do. I don't know why.
Speaker 1: I think your point is a good one. Getting out
Speaker 1: of your comfort zone doing things that you haven't done before.
Speaker 1: You know, it could be as simple as, you know,
Speaker 1: brushing your teeth when your non dominant hand, or taking
Speaker 1: a new route to work. These might seem mundane, but
Speaker 1: the fact is if it forces you to pay attention
Speaker 1: and to be very mindful, and it awakens your brain
Speaker 1: every single day, yep, absolutely awakens and as you say,
Speaker 1: retrains right. Yep. So what can managers do to motivate
Speaker 1: their employees? Yeah, there are tons of things that people
Speaker 1: can do in a work setting. I spend a lot
Speaker 1: of time in my book in Genius talking about this,
Speaker 1: talking about habitat and the levers that people have in
Speaker 1: organizations to unlock the creativity of the people they work with.
Speaker 1: The rules there rewards, they're incentives, they're the team dynamics,
Speaker 1: there's physical space. All of these things have a very
Speaker 1: dramatic effect on how we behave You know, when you
Speaker 1: walk into any setting, you just look into the room.
Speaker 1: You look in and you know what type of behavior
Speaker 1: is expected there. Right when you go into an auditorium
Speaker 1: and take your seat, you know what you're expected to do.
Speaker 1: You're supposed to sit there quietly. When you walk into
Speaker 1: a playground, you know what you're supposed to do there.
Speaker 1: So the physical space in an office is a great
Speaker 1: messaging and it really is your responsibility as a manager
Speaker 1: to create a space that communicates the type of behavior
Speaker 1: you want people to have. Yeah, and you've worked with
Speaker 1: a lot of so you've seen this stuff and it's
Speaker 1: not just theory. You know, you've gone and you've consulted
Speaker 1: with companies, right, Yes, And it's fascinating to me to
Speaker 1: see how different different companies are in terms of the
Speaker 1: types of environments that they create. One is, of course,
Speaker 1: the physical space, but the rules, the rewards, the incentives.
Speaker 1: What happens if someone is a big idea and it
Speaker 1: doesn't work. You know, if you're in an environment where
Speaker 1: if you have a big idea and you try it
Speaker 1: and doesn't work and you get punished. Everybody else sees
Speaker 1: that and they go, WHOA, I'm not going to try
Speaker 1: anything new. I'm just going to you know, I'm just
Speaker 1: going to color within the lines. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: go outside because I don't want that to happen to me.
Speaker 1: But if you see that people have big ideas and
Speaker 1: it didn't work out and they are celebrated for trying
Speaker 1: something bold, then you're more willing to do it yourself
Speaker 1: as well. Absolutely. Yeah. So why aren't things like that,
Speaker 1: you know, why are there structures and managers and things
Speaker 1: that really don't support creativity? Well, I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people don't think about it that way. They are
Speaker 1: more worried about protecting themselves from failure than looking at
Speaker 1: the upside of trying something new. And the thing that
Speaker 1: I've found, and I'm going to guess that you agree
Speaker 1: with me on this, is that most people are hungry
Speaker 1: for opportunities to be created. It is something that is
Speaker 1: so part of who we are. It's fascinating me. I
Speaker 1: do teach at the Design Institute, the Stanford d School,
Speaker 1: and the space, the physical space there is quite interesting
Speaker 1: and inviting, and it's very clear that this is a
Speaker 1: place where creativity is welcome. And people come into the
Speaker 1: space and they go, oh, my gosh, I would love
Speaker 1: to take a class here. Haven't met a professor, they
Speaker 1: haven't taken a class, they haven't looked looked at the
Speaker 1: courses that are offered. They just walk into the space
Speaker 1: and they say, wow, this feels so comfortable. But you
Speaker 1: know what, it feels like a kindergarten classroom. It feels
Speaker 1: very very much like a place that you're going to
Speaker 1: be invited to do things that are very creative. So
Speaker 1: you talk a lot about how you do think creativity
Speaker 1: is a skill that we can all learn. It's obviously
Speaker 1: not a skill. I mean, your book is about multiple skills,
Speaker 1: and you think any of these things we can learn
Speaker 1: mostly probably by applying them in their own life on
Speaker 1: a daily basis, like building it up as a habit. Right.
Speaker 1: It's such a fascinating question is that nobody asks can
Speaker 1: you teach math? Nobody asks can you teach history, No
Speaker 1: one asks can you teach science. No one even asks
Speaker 1: if you can teach music, And yet people always ask
Speaker 1: can you teach creativity or can you teach innovation or
Speaker 1: can you teach entrepreneurship? And I truly believe it's because
Speaker 1: we haven't had a clear framework and clear set of definitions.
Speaker 1: And that's what I've been trying to address, is trying
Speaker 1: to put together a clear framework that we can all share,
Speaker 1: we can all learn, we can master, and we can
Speaker 1: teach to others. Certainly done that. Yeah, so you worked
Speaker 1: with some of the some businesses, best and brightest. Do
Speaker 1: you feel comfortable giving me some examples of some people
Speaker 1: you think are the most imagined people that you've had
Speaker 1: the opportunity to work with and what made them so imagining.
Speaker 1: The thing that is fascinating to me is that the
Speaker 1: people who are the most imaginative I work with are
Speaker 1: the students at Stanford. They are so hungry to learn
Speaker 1: these skills and really bring their best work to these classes.
Speaker 1: In addition, I've been working with a very unusual group
Speaker 1: of people recently who has totally blown my socks up.
Speaker 1: I've been working not with corporate executives, but with prisoners
Speaker 1: at sam Quentin State Prison. I'm working on with a
Speaker 1: program called the Last Mile that teaches entrepreneurship to a
Speaker 1: select group of men who are in the prison. And
Speaker 1: these are guys, many of them who've been in prison
Speaker 1: for over twenty years, and the goal is to teach
Speaker 1: them entrepreneurial skills so that when they do get out,
Speaker 1: they're prepared to essentially, you know, take care of themselves,
Speaker 1: because it's going to be very difficult for them to
Speaker 1: find a job with someone else. And I have never
Speaker 1: worked with a group of people who are more hungry
Speaker 1: to learn, more dedicated and inspiring. In fact, I worked
Speaker 1: on a project this last quarter with my students where
Speaker 1: the students did a project on redesigning the experience of
Speaker 1: going from prison to freedom. And this was one of
Speaker 1: the most meaningful projects they have ever worked on. They
Speaker 1: essentially took the things we learned in our class on
Speaker 1: creativity and they went up to San Quentin and taught
Speaker 1: it themselves. They taught it to the men, and they
Speaker 1: got a chance to meet with other all to people
Speaker 1: in the ecosystem, you know, the men who are in prison,
Speaker 1: people who have been released, parole officers, mentors in the
Speaker 1: Last Mile program, and they came up with really remark
Speaker 1: warkly interesting insights on how to redesign that experience. So
Speaker 1: what they had to do is they had to spend
Speaker 1: a bunch of time framing the problem they were going
Speaker 1: to solve. Remember we started this discussion about reframing. They
Speaker 1: spent a bunch of time framing the problem that they
Speaker 1: really wanted to solve. For some of them, that was
Speaker 1: finding a job. For others, it was how do you
Speaker 1: integrate into society when you've been gone so long you
Speaker 1: know everything has changed in twenty years, or how to
Speaker 1: connect with your family again when you've been gone. And
Speaker 1: then they have to generate at least one hundred solutions.
Speaker 1: Now why one hundred solutions? They've leave one hundred? Yes,
Speaker 1: I know first they think it's a typo, but I
Speaker 1: say no, because the first solutions are going to be incremental.
Speaker 1: Those are going to be the creative solutions, not the
Speaker 1: innovative ones, not the ones that are really breakthrough. And
Speaker 1: then once they come up with solutions, they have to
Speaker 1: do the preto types. Remember we talked about the quick examples.
Speaker 1: They had to do prototypes to test their concepts, and
Speaker 1: then they had to share them in a compelling story.
Speaker 1: And I spend a lot of time in the class
Speaker 1: teaching storytelling skills, because once you have a great idea,
Speaker 1: you're not going to get other people to become excited
Speaker 1: about it unless you can tell a really compelling story
Speaker 1: that really brings it to life. And they make videos,
Speaker 1: they make sure videos they capture their ideas. So I
Speaker 1: have to tell you know that this was meaningful not
Speaker 1: just for the students, but of course also for the
Speaker 1: men and zan Quentin of course. Yeah, so what a
Speaker 1: great exam practical example of how imagination can help people
Speaker 1: of all different varieties in the life's circumstances. That's wonderful.
Speaker 1: So right, So that was a great example of how
Speaker 1: in your book to talk about how making things happen,
Speaker 1: it begins by imagining what you hope to accomplish. You
Speaker 1: also mentioning really interesting about how looking at something briefly
Speaker 1: doesn't mean you're really seeing it. Can you just explain
Speaker 1: a little what it means to really see something? Right,
Speaker 1: So that goes back to the beginning to engagement. We
Speaker 1: so often go through life with blinders on and we're
Speaker 1: not really paying attention. Paying attention is a very very
Speaker 1: active process, and by paying attention to everything in our
Speaker 1: midst you open up the possibility of seeing problems that
Speaker 1: need to get solved, solutions that are right in front
Speaker 1: of you, and it's the great way to start and
Speaker 1: also to end the invention cycle. You get to the end,
Speaker 1: and the end leads you back to the beginning. You know,
Speaker 1: once you've inspired other people, you have to now pay
Speaker 1: attention to how your ideas have reached the world, and
Speaker 1: that observation leads you to more insights, more ideas, and
Speaker 1: certainly more Entrepreneurship Easier said than done right, Well, it
Speaker 1: takes practice, you know, just like anything else right. I mean,
Speaker 1: playing the piano is easier said than done right. You know,
Speaker 1: building a rocket is easier said than done. That. This
Speaker 1: is not easy stuff, but you know what, it's so
Speaker 1: worth it because entrepreneurship is enormous power in our community.
Speaker 1: It allows us to identify problems, to leverage limited resources,
Speaker 1: and to make things happen. And with these skills, the
Speaker 1: world becomes a place that is opportunity rich, full of possibilities,
Speaker 1: and people who learn these skills have the confidence to
Speaker 1: solve the problems in their everyday life and the big
Speaker 1: problems at face the world. Oh thanks for inspiring me
Speaker 1: and everyone listening to this. I encourage people to for
Speaker 1: sure buy your book and buy all your books, but
Speaker 1: particularly Insight Out, which is relevant to what you're just
Speaker 1: talking about, because you do give a lot more tips
Speaker 1: and strategies for enhancing this important aspect of humanity. So
Speaker 1: thank you for all the great work you do, Tina,
Speaker 1: and for being on the show. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for including me, it was my pleasure. Thanks for listening
Speaker 1: to The Psychology Podcast with doctor Scott Barry Kaufman. I
Speaker 1: hope you found this episode just as thought for booking
Speaker 1: and interesting as I did. If you'd like to read
Speaker 1: the show notes for this episode or hear past episodes,
Speaker 1: you can visit the Psychology Podcast dot com. Don't