Award-winning author Peter Sims shares some heartening research on how people like Steve Jobs, Chris Rock and Frank Gehry use small experiments to lay the groundwork for big creative successes. It’s an encouraging episode for all the creative types out there thinking they have to have it all figured it out from the get go. Also, Scott and Peter banter across a wide spectrum of topics including improving education, the empathy deficit in America, deliberate practice and the importance of marching to the beat of your own drummer.
In this episode you will hear about:
- How big name creatives use small scale experiments to find and improve ideas
- The many benefits of being a black sheep
- The philosophical frameworks big companies use to innovate
- The vital importance of deliberate practice and forming a growth mindset
- How creative success requires the ability to persist through failure
- Developing healthy life expectations: you don’t have to have it all!
- Pixar’s “Plusing” technique to craft their beloved film plots
- The Darwinian model of creativity
- The drive to be unique vs. the drive to belong
- Crafting a social group that cultivates your desired attributes
- A most heroic undertaking: to be yourself in a homogenized world
- The practical ability to teach yourself new skills
- Peter’s thoughts on measuring creativity and creativity in different fields
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Resources:
- Peter’s book: Little Bets
- Peter’s book: True North
- Peter’s website
- An explanation of Montessori education
- Ted talk – Carol Dweck on growth mindsets
- Blkshp inc.
- Silicon_Guild’s Facebook page
- Simonton’s book on Darwinian creativity: Origins of Genius
“Peter Sims is a best-selling author, co-founder of The Silicon Guild, and founder of The BLK SHP (“black sheep”) Foundation. His latest book is Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries, which grew out of a long collaboration with faculty at Stanford’s Institute of Design (the d.school), as well as his previous work in venture capital. He was also the coauthor with Bill George of the best-seller True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership, a member of General Electric’s Innovation Advisory Panel, an Innosight Fellow, and the co-founder of Fuse Corps, a social venture that places entrepreneurial leaders on year-long grassroots projects with mayors to tackle some of America’s most pressing problems.” –Blurb taken from Amazon.com