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. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening and enjoy the podcast. Today we have Peter
Speaker 1: Simms on the show. Peter Simms is the best selling author,
Speaker 1: co founder of the Silicon Guild, and founder of b
Speaker 1: l K SHP Enterprises, Inc. His latest book is Little
Speaker 1: Bets How breakthrough ideas merge from small discoveries. Thanks for
Speaker 1: being on the show, Peter, It is a pleasure truly.
Speaker 1: And am I right in BLK s HP stand for
Speaker 1: black sheep? It is, Yeah, maybe you could tell me
Speaker 1: a little bit about what in the world that is
Speaker 1: black sheep started because it Pixar. They call people black
Speaker 1: sheep who challenge the status quo. And it was inspiring
Speaker 1: to me to think that somebody at Pixar challenging the
Speaker 1: status quo was a pretty unique kind of an individual,
Speaker 1: of a unique sort of idea, this notion of a
Speaker 1: black sheep, because you know, having taken the author's path
Speaker 1: and the creative path in life, along with people who
Speaker 1: are friends who are social entrepreneurs or writers or other artists.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a sense that, hey, you know, taking
Speaker 1: that path of less travel by is kind of like
Speaker 1: being a black sheep. But you can't do it alone.
Speaker 1: And so we we just created kind of some hats
Speaker 1: and t shirts that then turned into a formal collective
Speaker 1: of creative thinkers and doers, and now we have over
Speaker 1: twenty five hundred of these folks all around the country
Speaker 1: and around the world. They range from pianists to executives
Speaker 1: in large organizations who have a really strong creative side
Speaker 1: that they want to have nourished. And we are just
Speaker 1: all about nurturing that creative side, that black sheep side
Speaker 1: of everyone. And we do that through creating community. And
Speaker 1: then we also do that through taking social action what
Speaker 1: we call operations to support social entrepreneurship. That's really exciting.
Speaker 1: How can someone become a black sheep? Is there an
Speaker 1: application process? You know? The way it's worked up until
Speaker 1: now is we have just let it kind of expand organically,
Speaker 1: and so, you know, we have a Facebook page, we
Speaker 1: also have you know in the works right now We're
Speaker 1: going to be taking a bus tour around America this
Speaker 1: latest spring, and we're going to be visiting a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of different places that typically aren't seen in the
Speaker 1: traditional media, that typically may not be known for people
Speaker 1: living on the coast or living in cities where they're thriving.
Speaker 1: And we're going to be going to Detroit, We're going
Speaker 1: to be going to Tulsa, We're going to be going
Speaker 1: to the Mississippi Delta, Alabama, And the whole goal of
Speaker 1: the trip is to a bridge the the the empathy
Speaker 1: deficit that exists I think right now in America, and
Speaker 1: to also try to do some storytelling around where people
Speaker 1: are reinventing themselves in their organizations and maybe even some
Speaker 1: of their communities in the case of Detroit or Pittsburgh,
Speaker 1: and to try to share new find new narratives for
Speaker 1: what the American dream is today and what it can be.
Speaker 1: And then also takes some social actions. So we're going
Speaker 1: to be we hope funding fellowships, fuse Core Fellowships and
Speaker 1: some mayors off is around the country and these fellows
Speaker 1: work with mayors for a year trained in design thinking
Speaker 1: to help catalyze across sectors social action. So through that
Speaker 1: we'll be touching a lot of people and finding more
Speaker 1: ways to bring people into Black Sheep through a new
Speaker 1: website and digital platform. So that's really amazing. In what
Speaker 1: ways are you going to be helping with the empathy deficit? Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I think a lot of it is going
Speaker 1: to be through storytelling. So you know, I'll give you
Speaker 1: an example of what I mean by this in my
Speaker 1: own personal case. I grew up in a small town
Speaker 1: in northern California and my my my parents were very
Speaker 1: well educated. My my uncle is a logger, my you know,
Speaker 1: my aunt runs a campground, and you know, I think
Speaker 1: just to put myself an Uncle Joe's shoes through the
Speaker 1: years has been a really valuable exercise to understand America
Speaker 1: a little bit better. And you know, for people who
Speaker 1: have Uncle Joe and antles we all kind of have
Speaker 1: those folks, you know, we're much better off for it.
Speaker 1: And I think for those who don't interact with the
Speaker 1: Uncle Joe's and the antles Is as much. You know,
Speaker 1: we want to go to places like I say, Detroit,
Speaker 1: where there are people like Alan Conyerts, who's working in
Speaker 1: the middle of the Russell Industrial Center, which used to
Speaker 1: be inhabited by industrial printing presses and publishers that had
Speaker 1: been cleared out after globalization, and where Alan, a craftsman
Speaker 1: of the highest order, has had to reinvent himself in
Speaker 1: his business, going from redesigning kitchens in Detroit to creating
Speaker 1: beautiful chairs that he has designed and created and now
Speaker 1: sells online, and has had to kind of figure out
Speaker 1: how to be an entrepreneur in a whole new way
Speaker 1: in this new economy and now has a small staff
Speaker 1: and more than that, he's one of two people who've
Speaker 1: been at the Russell Industrial Center the longest. And if
Speaker 1: you go into this building and walk through the hallways
Speaker 1: and hear the artists and the entrepreneurs stirring, it's a
Speaker 1: it's it's it's an it's an uplifting feeling of there
Speaker 1: being a chance for reinvention and renewal in America. I
Speaker 1: feel like Detroit can be the womb of reinvention and renewal.
Speaker 1: So we want to tell those stories to try to
Speaker 1: have bridges between the worlds. That is so exciting, and
Speaker 1: you're bridging lots of different worlds, you know, entrepreneurship, art,
Speaker 1: you're you're you're fundamentally interested in entrepreneurship. Not everyone is right,
Speaker 1: so you know, you have lots of interest. That seems
Speaker 1: like I am a core. I feel like I always
Speaker 1: feel like I'm a core. I think of myself as
Speaker 1: an entrepreneur, even though I've accidentally been an author, uh
Speaker 1: and you know, it's it's an honor to be able
Speaker 1: to write, uh for for publications that I always feel
Speaker 1: myself more as an entrepreneur social entrepreneur. Is it because
Speaker 1: you like innovation, you like at a large scale, like
Speaker 1: you like like like creative products that make a big
Speaker 1: impact in a big way. Is that part of it?
Speaker 1: That's part of it. I mean, what the Silicon Guild
Speaker 1: is is a is a company that is looking at
Speaker 1: the publishing industry and how we can organize the authors
Speaker 1: uh and the audience a little bit better to be
Speaker 1: able to service those needs than the current systems. So
Speaker 1: there's there's certainly a passion that comes for wanting to
Speaker 1: see change in an industry in that case. And I
Speaker 1: think also it's just uh the feeling that working with
Speaker 1: a group of people in collaboration. I try to be
Speaker 1: very you know, very collaborative in the way I work
Speaker 1: it's it's a very rewarding uh, it's fun, you know.
Speaker 1: And and by the way, you can make a decent living.
Speaker 1: I've never been motivated by money more than to want
Speaker 1: to send my kids to good schools. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: entrepreneurship has just been a chance to work with people
Speaker 1: I really enjoy working with every day on interesting problems
Speaker 1: following that curiosity and uh and and to be able
Speaker 1: to you know, to actually affect change, I mean to
Speaker 1: be to be a part of I always love the
Speaker 1: Alan Kay quote the best way to predict the future
Speaker 1: is to invent it, and I feel like entrepreneurship is
Speaker 1: a vehicle for that. Oh I really like that. Oh well,
Speaker 1: I want I want that quote to sink in my
Speaker 1: head for a second. There, You're not really predicting anything
Speaker 1: if you invent it, You're just like I think, I
Speaker 1: feel like we can go further with that analogy in
Speaker 1: some way if I think about it a little bit further. Anyway, Well,
Speaker 1: maybe we'll return to that in our interview. So I
Speaker 1: was wondering, you know, just just randomly just woke up
Speaker 1: in the middle night wondering what do Apple CEO Steve Jobs.
Speaker 1: Comedian Chris Rock prize winning architect Frank's Geary and the
Speaker 1: story developers that picks our films all have them come
Speaker 1: and do you have any idea? Well, I mean when
Speaker 1: it comes to the creative process, I think, having studied
Speaker 1: the creative process for this book that you mentioned Little Bets,
Speaker 1: the common element that stands out to me that I
Speaker 1: didn't know about before was just how experimental like anyone,
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs used design as the mindset to drive product
Speaker 1: development at Apple, and and design is inherently experimental and
Speaker 1: driven by prototypes and driven by the rapid prototyping process
Speaker 1: of trying a lot of things in order to identify opportunities,
Speaker 1: and then once you have narrow in on those, to
Speaker 1: delve deeper into what will be more of a completed idea.
Speaker 1: So he may have started with I'm just throwing this
Speaker 1: out there. I've heard this number roughly for around one
Speaker 1: hundred ideas to get to three, to get to one, right,
Speaker 1: So you know, that's sort of the scuttle butt from
Speaker 1: the Apple community that I've heard. Now, Chris Rock or
Speaker 1: all comedians for that matter, must must take their material
Speaker 1: to small clubs to try it before it's anywhere near
Speaker 1: ready for the big show. And so he Chris goes
Speaker 1: to a place right near where he lives in New Jersey,
Speaker 1: and he will show up unannounced and with scribbled ideas
Speaker 1: on piece of paper and try one after the other
Speaker 1: after the other until he starts to hone in on
Speaker 1: ideas that could be a joke that could lead to,
Speaker 1: you know, one piece of a sixty minute act. And
Speaker 1: he will do that for six months to a year
Speaker 1: before he's got sixty minutes of materials. So there's an
Speaker 1: enormous amount of experimentation, most of which doesn't work. We
Speaker 1: can debate whether that's failure or not, but that's the
Speaker 1: process of creating comedy. And Frank Gary or an architect
Speaker 1: like that will often work through dozens and dozens of
Speaker 1: models in order to refine and determine the problems that
Speaker 1: he's really trying to solve with a piece of architecture.
Speaker 1: So this realization for me, and through the research that
Speaker 1: Scott you're way more familiar with than i am, is
Speaker 1: that the reality of a creators or inventors is often
Speaker 1: that they have to try, you know, ninety five percent
Speaker 1: ideas that don't work for every five percent to become great.
Speaker 1: Roughly that you know, Hewlett Packard, they would say ninety five,
Speaker 1: you know, something like ninety four small bets to come
Speaker 1: up with six breaks. You know, you would have you know,
Speaker 1: at at Apple, we said one hundred to three to one,
Speaker 1: one hundred ideas to get down to three good possibilities
Speaker 1: to get down to one final idea. You know, at
Speaker 1: the Onion they keep track of statistics at the Onion,
Speaker 1: they have to come up with something like they come
Speaker 1: up with something like, you know, several hundred I'm forgetting
Speaker 1: the exact number, several hundred headlines every week to get
Speaker 1: to eighteen that finally make the cut. So it's like
Speaker 1: a three or four percent success rate, right, And so
Speaker 1: here we are school to be coming up with the
Speaker 1: answers all through our lives. And then the reality of
Speaker 1: creativity in all these different fields is that you have
Speaker 1: to be using a learn by doing mindset, and we
Speaker 1: just don't have that. So that's that was my goal
Speaker 1: with Little Bets, is to give people, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of a story driven, research based book to help them
Speaker 1: develop that mindset. Yeah. No, I really like that aspect,
Speaker 1: and it really it's very much related to this idea
Speaker 1: of taking risks and you're saying, take. I mean, what
Speaker 1: is innovative about what you're saying is you're saying lots
Speaker 1: of small risks add up because they provide good feedback. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I think it's really it really isn't risk, right
Speaker 1: if you're taking a small bet. The definition of a
Speaker 1: small bet is that it's it's an affordable loss. And
Speaker 1: this is a really important point. You've determined up front,
Speaker 1: which you can what you're willing to lose, whether it's
Speaker 1: time or money. You know, you've actually done that analytically
Speaker 1: so that you you have nothing to lose, you're just
Speaker 1: trying them. So yeah, I love this and I think
Speaker 1: can apply to lots of areas of life. So what
Speaker 1: about guys with social anxiety that are terrified of approaching
Speaker 1: women that you find it that they find adorable? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Do you think that this applies to them as well?
Speaker 1: I mean, a small bet would be literally just smiling
Speaker 1: at the person. Well, you know, I'm not an expert
Speaker 1: in a non creepy way in the scientific research on this,
Speaker 1: as your but but I would I would suggest that
Speaker 1: dating having got married, but when I was dating, I
Speaker 1: was I was terrible at it at first. I was
Speaker 1: a late bloomer. I struggled through trying to figure out
Speaker 1: who I was or oh absolutely, I mean everybody has
Speaker 1: to do right, You're pretty smooth. Everybody has to write.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is life. This is so from a
Speaker 1: dating standpoint for me. You know, I've probably gone out
Speaker 1: on more dates in San Francisco than anybody I know
Speaker 1: after business school. Did you find them online? Did you
Speaker 1: do like, okay, keep it or something I tried? I
Speaker 1: tried that, I did. I went out with a few
Speaker 1: people through online. I tried. I tried a lot of
Speaker 1: different things because you know, I really was trying to
Speaker 1: figure out what would be the right who I would
Speaker 1: be right for, what the right fit would be. And
Speaker 1: the San Francisco it's kind of a tricky market. So
Speaker 1: that's a longer conversation. But uh, but yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: little bets. It is little bets, And it wasn't I
Speaker 1: wasn't thinking about that when I wrote the book, but
Speaker 1: a lot of people have mentioned it to me as
Speaker 1: a as a potential application. But the point is is
Speaker 1: that is that anything we do that's new, that's that's
Speaker 1: developing it, whether it's a new comedy act or a
Speaker 1: new skill set, or a new fluency and comfort in
Speaker 1: an area that we're not strong. And you know, it's
Speaker 1: deliberate practice. And so where I hope to see the
Speaker 1: parallels with the psychology research with Little Bets is where
Speaker 1: Carol Dweck talks about developing a growth mindset. You know,
Speaker 1: you can develop a growth mindset by by being willing
Speaker 1: to try things and by being willing to learn from
Speaker 1: small setbacks. And it gets easier, right, It gets easier
Speaker 1: for Jerry Seinfeld the more he gets into developing a
Speaker 1: comedy act, just as it gets easier to go about dating,
Speaker 1: just as it gets easier to do all these things.
Speaker 1: If you're willing to just get out there and start,
Speaker 1: you've got to try and you've got to work at it.
Speaker 1: It's not easy for anyone. And that's the myth I'm
Speaker 1: hoping that we can start to break apart. I really
Speaker 1: like this. And so what is what is talent? Then? Well?
Speaker 1: How what? What? What would you say that's just a
Speaker 1: concept that doesn't exist. Well, everybody has their talents, everybody
Speaker 1: has their various really strong strengths, and everybody has things
Speaker 1: that their weaknesses are. And I'm not suggesting that there's
Speaker 1: not an important recognition of the role of talent. Like,
Speaker 1: for example, Tom Rath, my colleague with the Silicon Guild,
Speaker 1: has written books called Strengths Finder Books of Strengths Finder
Speaker 1: two point zero, and I'm a big believer we all
Speaker 1: asho played our strengths. I mean, that's pretty empirical, and
Speaker 1: Tom's really kind of been, you know, leading the way
Speaker 1: on popularizing that. So we should try to have enough
Speaker 1: self awareness to understand our strengths. One of the things
Speaker 1: I've been struck by and doing my research with different
Speaker 1: leaders or different people though, is how many weaknesses they
Speaker 1: all have. Steve Jobs filled many many times. He could
Speaker 1: not have predicted too many times over what Pisar would become.
Speaker 1: He had no idea. He just bet on the right
Speaker 1: people with Ed Capmow and John Lassiter, you know, Howard Schultz.
Speaker 1: Plenty of weaknesses, the cops, same thing, but they all
Speaker 1: understand how to surround themselves with people who compliment those weaknesses.
Speaker 1: So I think all of us have some really superb
Speaker 1: talents and we just have to identify those and and
Speaker 1: and recognize we don't have to have it all. We don't.
Speaker 1: Nobody does. If you be truthful and honest people. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of smoke and mirrors. I think No,
Speaker 1: I definitely agree. I tend to be a bit cheeky Petersim.
Speaker 1: So thanks you just going with me. I'm wondering one
Speaker 1: one if you could describe one story that you have
Speaker 1: in your book that my students, we both we found
Speaker 1: it just absolutely compelling, the story of how Pixar Films
Speaker 1: had such amazing success through their storyboarding process. Could you
Speaker 1: just briefly talk talk about that. Yeah, So Pixar will
Speaker 1: take about five years to make a new film, and
Speaker 1: when they're beginning of film, the first two years of
Speaker 1: dedicated to understanding the story and the you know, the
Speaker 1: Pixar stories are done literally by taking you know, small
Speaker 1: note cards, drawing pictures on them, and putting them on
Speaker 1: the board. So the story artists come up with these
Speaker 1: really rough ideas for characters and for potential scenes, potential storylines,
Speaker 1: and they put those up and then they literally act
Speaker 1: those out in front of their colleagues and you know,
Speaker 1: some of these ideas will make it, but most don't.
Speaker 1: And so it's this process of constant revision and the
Speaker 1: story team is working in an environment where they only
Speaker 1: use this technique that they call plussing, and plussing is
Speaker 1: where you know, they take ideas. They see the ideas
Speaker 1: as the story artists are presenting them, and as the
Speaker 1: colleagues reflect on the ideas. They don't use harsh or
Speaker 1: judgmental language. They say they use two techniques from improv
Speaker 1: using yes and taking the idea and saying yes and
Speaker 1: what if we did this? Yes? And what if we
Speaker 1: did And that's plussing, And they just constantly plus ideas
Speaker 1: right through to the end of the film. At Pixar,
Speaker 1: this is the culture of the improvisation is at the
Speaker 1: core of the culture of Pixar, and the person who
Speaker 1: makes the decision on the ideas ultimately is the director,
Speaker 1: and the ideas have to be perfect in the minded
Speaker 1: director before they get green lighted, and the director as
Speaker 1: the story is maturing and as there's enough characters and storylines,
Speaker 1: they will put it into a comic book version of
Speaker 1: the movie. These are called reels, and they show those
Speaker 1: versions with very rough dialogue to larger groups and then
Speaker 1: they solicit feedback from everyone in the room, including the
Speaker 1: janitor of people who work in the cafeteria Pixar and
Speaker 1: they say that the director then reads all those comments
Speaker 1: and decides what to integrate into the next iteration. So
Speaker 1: literally thousands, millions, really tens of thousands of storyboards fifty
Speaker 1: sixty seventy thousand storyboards per movie. Millions of little bets
Speaker 1: go into each Pixar film, and the great ideas can
Speaker 1: come from anyone. And so the culture of Pixar is
Speaker 1: very strong in the sense that John Laster, who's the
Speaker 1: chief creative officer, doesn't have all the ideas, nor does
Speaker 1: Ed Capbell who's the president. And he Ed Campbell, who
Speaker 1: I've come to know personally, will always say I don't Peter,
Speaker 1: I don't know all the ideas. If you have ideas
Speaker 1: on writing a book that I can learn from, I
Speaker 1: really want to learn from those. And that's the curiosity
Speaker 1: and humility of the Pixar culture that is very unique
Speaker 1: in the corporate world. That's so great, and in Dolf
Speaker 1: tells nicely with psychological theories such as the Darwinian model
Speaker 1: of creativity that Dean Simon tin and has been a
Speaker 1: big proponent of, in which the creative process of credit
Speaker 1: process mirrors the evolutionary process in which you have blind variation,
Speaker 1: you produce lots and lots of variance ideas without knowing
Speaker 1: which ones are necessarily going to be the ones that
Speaker 1: are the winners. And then you have selective retention, where
Speaker 1: you choose the most promising ones. But that initial stage
Speaker 1: is very has been shown to be very important to
Speaker 1: the created process. Are you familiar with Thean Simonton's theory
Speaker 1: very much? So? Yeah, absolutely, And he's Adie Davis, isn't
Speaker 1: he yea serious? Yeah? Absolutely, He's done some superb research,
Speaker 1: so yeah, very consistent. And but but your selective, not
Speaker 1: your sective, your blind variation aspect includes lots and lots
Speaker 1: of small bets or absolute little bets. And I think
Speaker 1: that's a really unique contribution to the field of this
Speaker 1: idea you have. Wow, I mean it's I'm just synthesizing.
Speaker 1: It's not a it's you know, it's not original research.
Speaker 1: It's just really what I what I hope it can
Speaker 1: help with is just a translation for people. Well, I really,
Speaker 1: I mean I appreciate that modesty, but I think synthesis
Speaker 1: is you're still creating something new, right. It's like saying,
Speaker 1: like human consciousness is it's just you know, it's just
Speaker 1: the combination of the emergence of different brain regions, but
Speaker 1: what emerges is freaking original. Don't be like you know
Speaker 1: what you Yeah, I think of things on the spot
Speaker 1: that what's going to come out of my mouth. So
Speaker 1: there's just so many things we get. You called me
Speaker 1: a black sheep at one point? Did you ever retract
Speaker 1: that statement? Am I still okay? Good? I still count good?
Speaker 1: What do you say? Yeah, well, we got to get
Speaker 1: you the swat. Well, my mom always said, Scott you
Speaker 1: when I was really young, she said, you you always
Speaker 1: dance to the tune of a different drummer, And in
Speaker 1: that context, I think she was trying to make me
Speaker 1: feel good for the fact that I literally would dance
Speaker 1: to a tum of a different drummer. Wall, all the
Speaker 1: kids are supposed to be reading a book, I'd be
Speaker 1: like running around with my Superman cape or something, and
Speaker 1: people like that's weird. But but I guess as an
Speaker 1: adult it's called creativity. It's been human right, and and
Speaker 1: it's uh, we need to empower that in young kids.
Speaker 1: I mean, it all goes back to education and if
Speaker 1: we can, in some way small way be role models
Speaker 1: to those coming up and say it's okay to be
Speaker 1: different and to be unique and not be fit in
Speaker 1: with the you know, all the the you know, some
Speaker 1: perfectionist ideal. Then that's pretty empowering it. You know, the
Speaker 1: secret is I think the real secret is it all
Speaker 1: those people who you know, we all go to high
Speaker 1: school and we're cool kids or not. You know, I
Speaker 1: like you I was. I was definitely you know, an outsider.
Speaker 1: But you know, when you get to the point and
Speaker 1: you know where we are in our lives now, all
Speaker 1: my friends from high school who are the cool kids
Speaker 1: are actually they're all black sheep too. You know. They
Speaker 1: want to be doing you know, unique creative things in
Speaker 1: the world as well, and they felt enormous pressure for conformity.
Speaker 1: So you know, this is a cult. This is a
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's endemic to all cultures, but
Speaker 1: there's certainly an enormous amount of conformist pressure and modern
Speaker 1: industrial life. You know, Well, this is interesting. I want
Speaker 1: to talk about this because on the one hand, there
Speaker 1: is a any drive to belong and often we compete
Speaker 1: with our any drive for uniqueness. But clearly there's individual differences.
Speaker 1: Some people are clearly weighted more to the other. You know,
Speaker 1: they're clear there are people who have very very high
Speaker 1: you need for uniquaus and actually don't care as much
Speaker 1: about belonging, whereas those who are obsessed with belonging, and
Speaker 1: those people don't tend to be as creative. I don't
Speaker 1: think if you're if you're too much in that direction,
Speaker 1: because then you're just you're never going to take risks well,
Speaker 1: and you know, it's it's it's it's difficult for people
Speaker 1: who feel the pressure to conform because they never get
Speaker 1: to access that part of them that is great. So
Speaker 1: I start with the problem with the belief that everybody
Speaker 1: has an inherent creative side everybody, you know, for me,
Speaker 1: I didn't know. I never was called creative until my thirties.
Speaker 1: I mean really, I mean I got c in my
Speaker 1: art class, and you know, I never thought of myself
Speaker 1: as creative. And then I got into design thinking and
Speaker 1: George Kempball taught me all about design at the d
Speaker 1: School at Stanford, and all of a sudden, well, I
Speaker 1: feel like I'm a totally creative But now I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know, that's sort of what I do is creativity,
Speaker 1: but sort of, and so what you do And so
Speaker 1: that was all there waiting to be unlocked, and it
Speaker 1: had to be unlocked through a lot of cultural pressures
Speaker 1: and you know, should you be a venture capital investor
Speaker 1: and should you do the safe things in life? You know,
Speaker 1: I have a lot of stories to share about that.
Speaker 1: But it's hard. It's hard because you know, we're we're
Speaker 1: all you know, in this post, in this industrial post
Speaker 1: industrial world. We're all taught to be focused on a
Speaker 1: particular function from a pretty early age. And you know,
Speaker 1: there's a there is a very real sense of fear
Speaker 1: that people can get lost on that you know machine
Speaker 1: that's chugging along, and so there's there's very real reasons why,
Speaker 1: you know, conformity from early stages makes sense from a
Speaker 1: security standpoint. What I'm saying with black Sheep is like, hey,
Speaker 1: be the outsider, be different. The only way you can
Speaker 1: do that is in community with other black sheep across disciplines.
Speaker 1: Let's empower each other. And then if we can do that,
Speaker 1: then we can really start, you know, hopefully to ripple
Speaker 1: into the conformity puzzle. Yeah, it's a really good point.
Speaker 1: It really is about finding your your clan, so to speak.
Speaker 1: Everybody needs everybody needs that. We all need that, right
Speaker 1: If everyone, I mean, if if everyone tomorrow decided they're
Speaker 1: going to become Peter Sims black sheeps, then they would
Speaker 1: all conform technically, right, that's right. It would be borant,
Speaker 1: it be the black sheeps would be really boring. So
Speaker 1: we need society needs a certain amount to be black sheep,
Speaker 1: a certain amount. Two what what what? What are the
Speaker 1: white the white sheep doing? They're they're just following the
Speaker 1: societal script in a way, or expectations to me, to me,
Speaker 1: you know, like I say, I think most humans have
Speaker 1: a great black sheep in them. I think that the
Speaker 1: people I think of as white sheep or people who
Speaker 1: are cowards who use to manipulate humanity and who are evil,
Speaker 1: you know, just you can think of people throughout history
Speaker 1: who fit that mantra, who are who are just uh,
Speaker 1: you know, we're just evil. I want to make queer.
Speaker 1: You're not telling about the animal, because I don't want
Speaker 1: to offend any white sheep who are listening to this podcast.
Speaker 1: You're talking about humans as a metaphor. I just want
Speaker 1: to make that clear because I have a very large
Speaker 1: portion of my podcast audience. Are sheep the actual sheep
Speaker 1: the animal? So I want to just make that clear.
Speaker 1: That's good that you mentioned this to me. Now, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I thought I should mention that before this goes any further,
Speaker 1: before we think you're being racist or anything, or animalist
Speaker 1: or anything. Yeah, yeah, very good. So this is interesting.
Speaker 1: So it's almost like you're saying, like, narcissists are white sheep.
Speaker 1: It's like, it's very interesting, like you or manipulative like
Speaker 1: dark triad people, you know, you wear the dark triad
Speaker 1: people who are you know, Macavelian and narcissistic and psychopathic.
Speaker 1: What are these people you're saying that you're saying in
Speaker 1: a way they're actually white sheep. God, I'd have to
Speaker 1: think about that type. I'm not an expert on all
Speaker 1: these typologies. It's it's really it's really more an emphasis
Speaker 1: on the positive, you know, it's a it's an emphasis
Speaker 1: on you know, if one time, I'll give you an example.
Speaker 1: My my my friend Andy, who has been a great
Speaker 1: peer mentor to me, is Richard Tate who was the
Speaker 1: who's the founder of Cranium, and I had interviewed him
Speaker 1: for True North, the first book I did. Accidentally did
Speaker 1: this book and it was just a wonderful opportunity that
Speaker 1: fell into my lap to go out and learn from
Speaker 1: all these interesting people. And I met with Richard and
Speaker 1: Howard Schultz in Seattle the same day, Howard Starbucks and
Speaker 1: Richard and Craney and they're they're both close friends, and
Speaker 1: I just felt like, wow, these are my this is
Speaker 1: this is my tribe. These are like I'm feeling something
Speaker 1: I didn't know. You know, this is inside calling to me.
Speaker 1: What was it? What? What what? What was it? What
Speaker 1: was the commonality between you and them? Well? I think, uh,
Speaker 1: at the at the core of what Richard is all
Speaker 1: about and which one I was going to tell you
Speaker 1: about Black Sheep. You know. So Richard loves his Black
Speaker 1: Sheep and he's been very supportive. He's got a whole
Speaker 1: t shirt line that he's developing before us, and he says,
Speaker 1: you know, it makes me feel like I can be me,
Speaker 1: I can be human. And you know that to me,
Speaker 1: to be able to hear that from somebody who's been
Speaker 1: who's given that gift to me, I mean, it's it's
Speaker 1: like it brings emotion. I mean it's like there's there's
Speaker 1: that humanity that is really hard to find. But if
Speaker 1: you're you know, there's so many people striving every day
Speaker 1: courageously to get to that and just be themselves and
Speaker 1: be able to you know, make a living in this world.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's a heroic undertaking. So you know
Speaker 1: that that, to me is really what we focus on,
Speaker 1: is the positive with black sheep. I don't spend a
Speaker 1: lot of time thinking about white sheep, to be honest
Speaker 1: with you, No, I understand. It's just so interesting because
Speaker 1: it's it's so much in line with humanistic psychology, positive psychology,
Speaker 1: things that I you know, personally interested in research and
Speaker 1: this idea of self actualization. Yeah, and I'm I've been
Speaker 1: a fascinated student, you know, kind of a layman student
Speaker 1: of the field of positive psychology and as it's gotten
Speaker 1: into the you know, into neuroscience, and as that's been
Speaker 1: more validated as a as a line of research and thinking,
Speaker 1: and how it's influenced business, how it's influenced government planners,
Speaker 1: how it's influenced people at the very individual level thinking
Speaker 1: through how to find meaning in their life without you know,
Speaker 1: religion necessarily being the centerpiece. So I think it's a
Speaker 1: it's a movement, huge movement that is changing the world.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I would say, you know, Richard and and
Speaker 1: Howard humanists as best I can tell, And so yeah,
Speaker 1: that would be a common threat of values. And I
Speaker 1: think the other thing is that there are different types
Speaker 1: of entrepreneurs. And I know from working a venture capital
Speaker 1: there are certain entrepreneurs who are very pragmatic. I just
Speaker 1: want to they could they could be working in a
Speaker 1: in a in a mattress business, or they could be
Speaker 1: working in a poster business, or they could be working
Speaker 1: They don't really care. They just want to turn into
Speaker 1: a good business. And I went to business school with
Speaker 1: a lot of people like that. And then there are
Speaker 1: entrepreneurs who have to really be passionate about their idea
Speaker 1: and really create it. And I call these entrepreneurs more
Speaker 1: artistic entrepreneurs. And I would say Howard and Richard are
Speaker 1: both those types. And I feel like that's more the
Speaker 1: camp that I would fall in personally. So I think
Speaker 1: that's those are two. Yeah. Yeah, I'm just trying to
Speaker 1: think about I keep thinking, I'm sorry, I keep thinking
Speaker 1: about with the white sheep, So what if there's a
Speaker 1: bunch of white sheep who if self actualization is a
Speaker 1: fundamental human drive of human nature, and you have lots
Speaker 1: and lots of white sheep who in their hearts really
Speaker 1: want to express their unique self more. But there's an
Speaker 1: individual differences variable there, maybe shyness or maybe anxiety, fear,
Speaker 1: things that are holding them back. I mean, shouldn't we
Speaker 1: empower them too? Absolutely? I mean so they could be
Speaker 1: kind of converts, right, I mean, you'll accept the white
Speaker 1: sheep who want to be black sheep. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't, like I say, I don't. It's hard for
Speaker 1: me to go around labeling people as white sheep because
Speaker 1: I just don't think in those terms, really there's sheep
Speaker 1: inside of them. Basically. Yeah, I feel that way. I
Speaker 1: feel like there are certain people where you know, it's
Speaker 1: just like I mean, like I've been I've been working
Speaker 1: on an assignment with on violent extremism with the White House,
Speaker 1: and it's been a pretty pretty interesting assignment. It came
Speaker 1: to through through other members of soil Can Guild, and
Speaker 1: I sort of look at these some of these people,
Speaker 1: I say, it's pure evil. You know, it's just like
Speaker 1: that's white sheep to me. But you know, for people
Speaker 1: who are just wanting to take their own path and
Speaker 1: and and and wanting to you know, start taking the
Speaker 1: first steps towards it, I think the best thing you
Speaker 1: can do is hang out with people who are creative.
Speaker 1: So when I came out of business school, I wanted
Speaker 1: to do something more more, more entrepreneurial. And it was
Speaker 1: very hard to get to that. It took years of
Speaker 1: you know, some very dark years, but I just I
Speaker 1: hung out with entrepreneurs and with artists and and then
Speaker 1: it became very natural for me to take that path.
Speaker 1: It was it was like, it was very validating. And
Speaker 1: so for those for those types of people, I hope
Speaker 1: that Black Sheep in different cities, we can have outposts,
Speaker 1: for example, in different cities to help people who are
Speaker 1: kind of wanting to be more creative, to kind of
Speaker 1: bridge more into those circles. I wrote like that, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's that you're starting a movement. Yeah, you know, it's
Speaker 1: just it's very organic. So it's it's fun. We have
Speaker 1: a lot of fun, and you know, who knows where
Speaker 1: it will lead, but we're just setting it up so
Speaker 1: that it has a strong mission and culture and let
Speaker 1: it go from there. It's great. So part of being
Speaker 1: a Black Sheep is, would you say, play is a
Speaker 1: central component of that Black Sheep have. So we definitely
Speaker 1: we play a lot, and there's there's a huge sense
Speaker 1: of humor, I think, to the whole culture. But you know,
Speaker 1: we have five values, we sort of said, and Richard
Speaker 1: Tate helped to create these values. It was like the
Speaker 1: five seeds of curiosity. Curiosity and collaboration and having conviction
Speaker 1: for ideas and be willing to chase after those. You're
Speaker 1: willing to make a contribution a positive countriation, basic creative values. Right,
Speaker 1: we can just say five seeds. And then we said,
Speaker 1: there's only one rule. You have to spend five percent
Speaker 1: of your time. Five percent rule, five percent of your
Speaker 1: time towards social good causes time at least five percent.
Speaker 1: You can spend more if you want, right, yeah, at
Speaker 1: least And that's those are the rules. And you know,
Speaker 1: no assholes. So those basic guidelines and we're not political,
Speaker 1: we're social entrepreneurs. Were focused on using creativity to solve
Speaker 1: problems new ways, and we take we do these operations
Speaker 1: that we channel our energies. Pretty incredible. You also talk
Speaker 1: about so we talked about play. You also talk about
Speaker 1: openness to experience, which I mean you may know is
Speaker 1: my that's my favorite. Yes, that's my favorite. If I
Speaker 1: had to pick one, Yeah, because it's true that this
Speaker 1: creativity is just connecting things. Well, that's that goes us
Speaker 1: back to our synthesis conversation we had earlier. But you're like,
Speaker 1: all I'm doing is integrating. Well, you're also connect that
Speaker 1: you're connecting, Yeah, connecting. Yeah, absolutely, Yeah, that's sort of how.
Speaker 1: That's how my mind is wired, right, Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: intuitively connecting different whether it's people or ideas or problems
Speaker 1: to people, to whatever. I mean, that's sort of how. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's sort of how I'm wired. Yeah, me too, Now
Speaker 1: I totally understand. Uh, and I think that this all
Speaker 1: in terms of connecting things, right, so we can connect
Speaker 1: the idea of some of little bets. The more little
Speaker 1: bets you make and you see before you all, you know,
Speaker 1: the more risk for the mill, so to speak. You
Speaker 1: have to connect the dots, right, because you have we
Speaker 1: can just view everything as just christ for the mill. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I I personally, I don't. I don't necessarily
Speaker 1: frame it that way personally. I mean, and I you know,
Speaker 1: I think it is a great way to frame it,
Speaker 1: But yeah, how do you think about it? I'm just
Speaker 1: really curious. I mean, I just you know, I'm a
Speaker 1: I'm a peer learner. So whenever I'm talking with someone,
Speaker 1: I'm always thinking about, you know, what can I what
Speaker 1: can what can I learn? What can I give? You know? Here,
Speaker 1: It's just it makes life interesting to be able to
Speaker 1: do that, and then and then things start to and
Speaker 1: then the insights pop up later in conversations. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, today I was at a company. I was
Speaker 1: by them on something that they're wrestling with. It's a
Speaker 1: really interesting company. It's a really interesting set of problems.
Speaker 1: And if I think on that whiteboard on the ideas
Speaker 1: that I shared with them from my view on what
Speaker 1: they can do, it's spanning many, many experiences and chapters
Speaker 1: in my life. People, concepts, blah blah blah. And the
Speaker 1: company was really thirsty for this, I mean, just like
Speaker 1: they needed this, and so yeah, it just kind of
Speaker 1: all comes together. But I love the way John Donahoe
Speaker 1: put it when I interviewed him for True to Dorothy said,
Speaker 1: just learn a little bit from a lot of people.
Speaker 1: And you know, don't think of anyone person as a mentor,
Speaker 1: but everyone can be a mentor, you know. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: you do. You talk in your book about the importance
Speaker 1: of networking with people from different backgrounds, all these things
Speaker 1: to me is to seem like it's all connected to
Speaker 1: connecting dots. Right, you can connect dots through ideas, through
Speaker 1: people through To me, it comes down open is to
Speaker 1: experience and curiosity. Yeah right, I'm curious when I see
Speaker 1: open is to experience. By the way, I curiosity is
Speaker 1: the central aspect exploration and curiosity that that's what holds
Speaker 1: openess to experience together. So I'm you know, on that note,
Speaker 1: I think it's really important that I make this one point,
Speaker 1: and that is sure by virtue of this strange job
Speaker 1: that I've had. I've met all these leaders throughout you know,
Speaker 1: my work in venture capital and as an author, and
Speaker 1: I'm always struck by how the best leaders, the best entrepreneurs,
Speaker 1: whether it's Howard Schultz or chef Pipkin who started Balkan,
Speaker 1: or Wendy Cobb, the best of the best that I
Speaker 1: think of as the best leaders, they're all or ed
Speaker 1: Capbell is one of my favorites of Pixar. They're so
Speaker 1: curious and you know, they don't there's no ego. You know,
Speaker 1: they well they have egos, but they don't present that
Speaker 1: in front of the interaction that we're having. You know,
Speaker 1: like Howard Howard. If I send Howard an email, as
Speaker 1: I've had a few times on the topic, he will
Speaker 1: you know, he's he's called me up and said I
Speaker 1: want to talk with you about this, and he will
Speaker 1: go through the details. And you know, Ed Capbell had
Speaker 1: to learn how to do book publishing from scratch, and
Speaker 1: he just like literally turned to me, somebody who's you know,
Speaker 1: nobody compared to Ed Capbell, and he said, you know,
Speaker 1: how do I figure all this out? And and I
Speaker 1: just feel like there's that humility to be able to
Speaker 1: listen that and ask the right questions and to listen
Speaker 1: that you know, you can probably get away with like
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs probably wasn't the best listener. I'm sure he
Speaker 1: wasn't at all. So you know, there are few people
Speaker 1: who can get away with that. But most people are
Speaker 1: really shooting themselves in the foot if they aren't taking
Speaker 1: every opportunity to learn, you know, and and and and
Speaker 1: having their ego getting the way of insight that could
Speaker 1: help them do their do their job and lead their
Speaker 1: company much better. So it's a philosophical point, but I
Speaker 1: also feel like there's a whole prat practical. You know,
Speaker 1: there's practicality behind it too. I'm sorry, what do you say?
Speaker 1: I stopped listening? No, don't, I'm joking. I'm joking, joke.
Speaker 1: Who's the audience here? What do you mean? This is? Is?
Speaker 1: This is? Where does this go? Is this whole world?
Speaker 1: The whole world on on? Through iTunes or through are
Speaker 1: you iTunes? Scientific American? Oh my gosh. Why. I know
Speaker 1: you've got a huge following, so I hope that I'm
Speaker 1: not You're killing this. No, isn't he killing this? No,
Speaker 1: You're totally killing this. By the way, you got my
Speaker 1: joke when I said, what do you say? Right? Yeah, okay, okay.
Speaker 1: I want to make it clear I was actually listening.
Speaker 1: I was just waiting for you to stop talking so
Speaker 1: I could make that joke. I was like, give me
Speaker 1: the punch light. Yeah yeah. I was like, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: you you're going to get your I'm going to promote
Speaker 1: this up to Kazoo. It's it's good, it's really good. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I want to talk to you a little about like
Speaker 1: educational implications of all of this, because this is obviously
Speaker 1: something I'm deeply interested in. You know, you have lots
Speaker 1: of black sheep in classroom that we label with all
Speaker 1: sorts of things a d D blah blah, you know,
Speaker 1: dyslexia blah blah blah. I imagine a lot of black
Speaker 1: sheep that are part of your your you know you've identified.
Speaker 1: I bet a lot of them have, you know, struggled
Speaker 1: through certain things. Life hasn't been easy, right, So yeah,
Speaker 1: I'd love to I'd love to talk to you a
Speaker 1: little bit more about what we can do to support
Speaker 1: those those folks. Amen. It all goes back to education,
Speaker 1: as I said earlier, and I think you're right. I
Speaker 1: think the people who have taken you know, the creative
Speaker 1: there are so many challenges to the creative path. When
Speaker 1: I was in the second grade, you know, my teacher
Speaker 1: gave us all these worksheets to do long division multiplication,
Speaker 1: all this worksheet after worksheet after worksheet, and all I
Speaker 1: wanted to do was clout play here. I just wanted
Speaker 1: to be a kid too, and so I eventually got
Speaker 1: kicked out of that class. You know, that was sort
Speaker 1: of the It was like this, you know, the first
Speaker 1: little challenge of my my young life was getting kicked
Speaker 1: out of this class and you know, out of the
Speaker 1: It was a you know kind of a called it
Speaker 1: a gate class an advanced class, and then I was
Speaker 1: you know, after that, I was like, you know, just
Speaker 1: a regular kid, which is fine, but I was wondering, like,
Speaker 1: why why was I no longer with that group of
Speaker 1: people I've been with for a few years, you know.
Speaker 1: So it was like, I think there's just there's a
Speaker 1: lot of there's a lot of that. I've been really
Speaker 1: drawn to what I've learned about Montssori and programs like
Speaker 1: that that encourage young kids to follow their curiosity, uh
Speaker 1: and too, you know, as as as best as possible
Speaker 1: within some guidelines, you know, learn how to be self
Speaker 1: learners at a very early age. And I find that
Speaker 1: I wrote an article about this in the Wall Street
Speaker 1: Journal called the Montessori Mafia, which is probably a thousand
Speaker 1: emails about because every every mother and you know, every
Speaker 1: every wife has sent their you know, husband this article
Speaker 1: and who's interested in this type of creativity and education?
Speaker 1: And so I've learned more about Montessori and you know,
Speaker 1: again I'm not a researcher, obviously, but anecdotally, I have
Speaker 1: not encountered only one or two cases where people say, yeah,
Speaker 1: Montessori was detriment to my education because it was a structure.
Speaker 1: I've heard such good things. Yeah, you know, and so
Speaker 1: why the mafia? Oh, it was an article about how
Speaker 1: the Google founders and Jeff Bezos and like jo a child,
Speaker 1: they're all they're all monasori draps. Actually I didn't come
Speaker 1: up with the title for this piece that the editors
Speaker 1: of the Wall Street Journal did, but it just made
Speaker 1: this case. There's this whole posse of creative people that
Speaker 1: happened to be Montessori grats. So it's a well titled
Speaker 1: article for viral you know, for virality. But yeah, you
Speaker 1: would know about this better than me, Scott, Like, how
Speaker 1: can we how can we get some of those mindsets
Speaker 1: and the growth mindset and you know, the the the
Speaker 1: the the nourishment of creative curiosity. Yeah, empowered from a
Speaker 1: younger age. That's that's a longer term project that I'd
Speaker 1: love to collaborate with you on with the Black Sheet Foundation.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, yes, yes, I mean I'm deeply interested
Speaker 1: in the value of play and holding off and postponing
Speaker 1: the formal instruction, you know, in kindergarten and preschool and
Speaker 1: even first grade, holding it off as much as long
Speaker 1: as possible, and having play and curiosity be the main
Speaker 1: drivers of youth, and then it leads the foundation. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's some really fascinating research coming out showing that when
Speaker 1: you do hold off, you find better learning outcomes on
Speaker 1: reading comprehension. For instance, there's this great study in New
Speaker 1: Zealand that found that to be the case when the
Speaker 1: late the quote label. You know, those who were in
Speaker 1: these environments where they're given more opportunity for discovery and
Speaker 1: play at a younger age. This stuff is it's really important,
Speaker 1: you know, it's not Yeah, it's life. It's life calling
Speaker 1: type of important. Yeah, what kind of what do you say? Life?
Speaker 1: It's a life calling for me. Yes, yes, help address
Speaker 1: this education, you know. Yeah, yeah, I would love to
Speaker 1: discuss potential collaborations. That'd be exciting, and it's and not
Speaker 1: just play, but appreciate, valuing and rewarding creativity is another
Speaker 1: big angle aspect of this. If you change the structures
Speaker 1: of an educational environment, so so instead of like a
Speaker 1: report card where you there's any such thing as failure,
Speaker 1: everything is, you know, revisable. So I'm a big fan
Speaker 1: of making a revisable world, you know, because that's what basic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, all the research we've seen from again, Carol Dwacker,
Speaker 1: deliberate practice would support that, you know, so that the
Speaker 1: little just screaming at us, all saying parent differently and
Speaker 1: teach differently, and the systems are just very slow to change. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they really are. And and we're not. You know, we're
Speaker 1: rewarding learning knowledge as a which is okay to a
Speaker 1: certain degree, but there's hardly any reward for creating new knowledge.
Speaker 1: And yes, I just I'm returning back now in my
Speaker 1: head to an original thing you said in the beginning
Speaker 1: of this whole talk, this whole talk about predicting the future,
Speaker 1: invent the future. And you know, when you invent the future,
Speaker 1: then you have a whole bunch of other people trying
Speaker 1: to predict the implications of it, but letting them be
Speaker 1: like maybe a whole bunch of white sheep are predicting
Speaker 1: the implications, but be the black sheep who invents it. Yeah, yeah, great,
Speaker 1: create the create a safe place for people to be
Speaker 1: human from the early stages of their life, and you know,
Speaker 1: as much as possible, support them to find their you know,
Speaker 1: find their self calling yeah, find them. You know, I
Speaker 1: always thought that when we were doing the research on
Speaker 1: True North, we got into the histories of all these
Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty five people we interviewed, and there
Speaker 1: were some people who came out of high school with
Speaker 1: a pretty high degree of self awareness. And I thought,
Speaker 1: that's pretty interesting that person from a young age had
Speaker 1: a high degree of self awareness and that helped them
Speaker 1: in everything they didn't like. And I thought, you know,
Speaker 1: when I came to of high school, I had no
Speaker 1: self awareness, very little. And so yeah, I mean, we
Speaker 1: just we need to create everything from safe spaces to
Speaker 1: cultures to systems that help, you know, nourish, nourish that
Speaker 1: human potential. I think everything everything you're doing, Scott is
Speaker 1: pulling the ore in that direction. And so from a
Speaker 1: research standpoint, there's just now a huge movement that I
Speaker 1: think is inevitably trickling over into educators, policymakers, business leaders,
Speaker 1: and it's maybe, you know, maybe our job to try
Speaker 1: to help amplify that. Yeah. I think that's a a
Speaker 1: worthy job. That's great. Yeah, it takes team effort. Basil,
Speaker 1: do you want to have any question? Do you have
Speaker 1: any questions? This is your neque opportunity for you to
Speaker 1: ask Peter anything is on your mind. Yeah, sure, I
Speaker 1: mean by the way. We're bringing in one of my
Speaker 1: students here on the podcast. First time I've ever done
Speaker 1: this on my podcast where I've had another voice here.
Speaker 1: This is Basil Jackson. Yeah, so I guess one of
Speaker 1: the questions going through your book. You know this this
Speaker 1: might be kind of out there, but I know you
Speaker 1: look at different types of I guess creativity. But I'm wondering,
Speaker 1: you know, is there is there any way that you
Speaker 1: think that you can compare, you know, a group or
Speaker 1: an individual's creativity to that of another person's. You know,
Speaker 1: is there any way to rank creativity? You know, do
Speaker 1: you believe that it is possible? If you know, or
Speaker 1: it is really there's no measure of you know, objective
Speaker 1: measure of someone's creativity versus another groups. That's a good question. Well,
Speaker 1: I think yes, it's possible for sure, because as individuals,
Speaker 1: we all say that's creative, and that's coming from some
Speaker 1: definition of creativity, and you know it's my definition is
Speaker 1: you're putting new ideas together in a way that's fresh.
Speaker 1: I mean, for example, I just got an email right
Speaker 1: before this call from my co founder, so he can
Speaker 1: guilt Ory Broflin, who's just a he's just a font
Speaker 1: of ideas and he's got a batting average of about
Speaker 1: two hundred, we joke, but he comes up with a
Speaker 1: couple of great ideas everything. And it's like he said,
Speaker 1: this thing silicon GILB is by the authors for the readers.
Speaker 1: I thought, you know, god damn it, that is so good.
Speaker 1: That is a fresh new idea, and who knows if
Speaker 1: it'll end up making it onto our website, but it
Speaker 1: could just be our tagline for a very long time.
Speaker 1: That's creativity. The psychologists, you know, the researchers, have their
Speaker 1: ways of measuring creativity, and you know, I think you
Speaker 1: know it takes into account generativity and you know, number
Speaker 1: of ideas that you know, kind of consider a number
Speaker 1: of problems we consider. We know that you have to
Speaker 1: come up with a lot of possibilities before you even
Speaker 1: know what problems to be solved. You have to do
Speaker 1: the problem finding before you can do the problem solving.
Speaker 1: And so by definition, you know you have to, you know,
Speaker 1: try a lot of routes because you're you're in new
Speaker 1: territory before you you hone in on board. So I'd
Speaker 1: say I'm pretty in favor of that definition of measuring
Speaker 1: creativity as well. Now that you ask, and I guess,
Speaker 1: leading off of that, just in your opinion, you know,
Speaker 1: you're entrepreneur, would you say, in any specific industry, is
Speaker 1: it harder or easier to you know, let that creativity
Speaker 1: flourish throughout that industry in terms of you know, with
Speaker 1: starting a new business or even enhancing a business or
Speaker 1: you know, a product and offering. Now, that's a great question,
Speaker 1: and I think the answer to that is one hundred percent. Yes.
Speaker 1: There are certain creative, creative industries where people who you know,
Speaker 1: like this, you know, the process of generating ideas and
Speaker 1: developing ideas go. So it used to be the advertising world.
Speaker 1: Now that world is kind of melt melting down. So
Speaker 1: those types of people tend to gravitate more towards product
Speaker 1: roles where they can use the product development ideas from
Speaker 1: design in their job or they go to you know,
Speaker 1: of course, we think of music and you know, the
Speaker 1: storytellers of the world, whether they're movie makers or writers
Speaker 1: or what have you. There storytellers. And on the other hand,
Speaker 1: you have industries where people are doing you know, I
Speaker 1: have a friend from business school who runs a business
Speaker 1: that does HR management and it's like, you know, there's
Speaker 1: just it's it's not a creative it's not a place
Speaker 1: where there's a lot of yeah, you know, it's just
Speaker 1: he's yeah, he's pretty creative, but there's not a lot
Speaker 1: of creative but a lot of opportunities. Yeah. That said,
Speaker 1: the places where some of the some of the most
Speaker 1: creativity is needed, where you know, Black Sheep are kind
Speaker 1: of needed the most, is to go into places like
Speaker 1: you know, large financial associations and help people rethink their
Speaker 1: mindset for the way they go about their job because
Speaker 1: they're terrified at failure and they want that's like the
Speaker 1: biggest challenge. They want to get out of that mindset
Speaker 1: because it's inhibiting them from doing their jobs. Well, so
Speaker 1: that sounds good. Well, thanks a lot, Peter. We really
Speaker 1: appreciate this chat and the really incredible work that you're
Speaker 1: doing for you're really truly changing the world. So thank you.
Speaker 1: You are right, it's an honor to be with you guys,
Speaker 1: and thank you for having me. I'm sorry I have
Speaker 1: a muffled voice, but I really enjoyed it and I
Speaker 1: can't I can't wait to follow the series. So thanks
Speaker 1: for all you're doing. Go Black Sheep. Thanks for listening
Speaker 1: to the Psychology Podcast with doctor Scott Barry Kaufman. I
Speaker 1: hope you found this episode just as performing thought product
Speaker 1: as I did. Read the show for this episode. For
Speaker 1: your past episodes, if you go to the Psychology Podcast
Speaker 1: dot com, h