Your Next Big Thing. Matthew Mockridge

and mobiles) and was faster and more productive than with a mobile phone. Lose your phone and suddenly your actions become more purposeful: You don’t simply react to external stimuli (your cellphone’s ringtone tearing you away from everything else). You become more committed to the present and you think ahead much better. You are more likely to arrive on time for meetings and you are more aware of the relevance of each conversation. Try it!

      Let yourself be surprised! You don’t always need to know what will happen next; you don’t always need to be fully prepared and qualified. Let your brain work with more imagination, commitment and creativity.

      Not everyone is born creative, but every person you encounter, every setting or situation you experience, can set in motion creative thinking. Expose yourself to unfamiliar situations—the crazier, newer, sharper, and more drastic the experience, the more innovative the ideas will result in being. Don’t be afraid to astound yourself and everyone around you. Watch what happens!

4. Must You Always Be An Expert?

      Repetition creates experience, and over many years, becomes the basis of true expertise. But expertise comes with a price: a potentially rigid understanding. Could it be that a high expertise correlates with decreased flexibility and imagination? When do experience, knowledge, and biased perception begin to hinder truly innovative approaches?

      In his book, The Myths of Creativity, David Burkus tells the story of prosthesis manufacturer Martin Bionics. Its founder, Jay Martin, fired an entire staff of the most experienced, best-paid doctors and physicians because they declared that a real time responsive ankle prosthesis was technically impossible. In their place, he created a research team of mere students—students who were already experienced enough to understand complex relationships, but fresh enough not to rule out the seemingly impossible. He expected these students to see his vision through to the end. And after just a few months, Jay Martin and his team of students successfully completed the project and developed the unthinkable: an ankle replacement that revolutionized the prosthetic market.

      Creativity does not result from an expert performing a miracle, but from a design “ecosystem” based on the right team and on a mix of perspectives, new and old. Not knowing that something is impossible makes it once again possible!

5. The Flash of Genius—Does It Actually Exist?

      Suddenly, out of nowhere, a winning idea! Stories about the “flash of genius”—of accidental inspiration and sudden ingenuity—are widespread. Everybody is familiar with the cartoon symbolism of the light bulb, flashing above a person’s head like lightning. The idea seemingly arrives at the speed of light. Apparently a million-dollar moment—but what is missing? All the considerations that led to the “aha!” moment.

      The efforts that preceded the insight are often overlooked. Why? Because they are often invisible—nobody sees, hears, feels, or understands the toils and the subconscious incubation of an idea. The subconscious part of our mind processes thoughts millions of times faster than the conscious part, and the subconscious creation of ideas occurs in a sphere that is completely different than the one used for everyday actions. It functions while sleeping, showering, and when going for a walk. People do not notice the internal mental interplay of impressions and inspirations that allows the idea to take shape. They only see what emerges: the success story, or well-formed idea.

      Even though the “flash of inspiration” concept has long been scientifically refuted, people still love the story and want to believe in it. Why? Because it’s a wonderful excuse for anyone who believes that they are not creative and don’t have good ideas. It makes it easy to avoid trying. Unfortunately, if capable people don’t at least pretend to believe in the “flash of inspiration,” really good ideas may actually fail to materialize.

      The recipe for brainstorming winning ideas requires not only working directly on the main idea, but also subconscious processing, conviction, patience, serenity, distance, and being open to new impressions. The greatest artists and thinkers (da Vinci, Michelangelo, and similar people) have always had many projects and gigs going on at the same time, even while focusing on the project of the moment. What might seem at first glance to be excessive or lacking in structure, is likely being further processed, incubated, and driven on the subconscious level. Sooner or later, the moment comes when the idea is mature—many people incorrectly interpret that moment as a “flash of genius.” The actual idea, however, arrived via an incubation process. A new impetus has emerged, a new path is being taken, and additional new ideas and approaches will naturally follow.

6. Who Are Your Five?

      Ideas are products of our environment; we’ve already established that. Our direct environment and the people who are closest to us are another variable that has an effect on the emergence of our ideas because these people inspire us, shape our views, and determine our way of thinking. Everything we think possible, our beliefs and imagination, our understanding about possibilities and potential, are the result of our social interactions. The careful and cautious selection of “The Five,” the members of your inner circle, your closest allies, your team of companions, sets the needed foundation for your creativity.

      What are the criteria for joining this team? Who can play with you? Are there different team positions, or are all five going to be forwards? Before you start placing players on the field, consider the overall mindset. What does this team believe in, what does it want to achieve, and why? Your five closest advisors will create an ecosystem. The culture within this ecosystem will set the mood in the locker room before the big game, and determine how engaged they get in the huddle, and how loud they chant.

      The Five will always act with conviction.

      And with conviction comes will—the will of each individual to become the best at what inspires their participation on the team. Wanting to be the best helps prevent limited vision and conflict.

      The Five expect each other to become world-class achievers in what they’re passionate about and intend to always help each other. This conviction creates a force that everyone can feel. There’s no jealousy, only a real desire for each of your friends to have more.

      With conviction also comes a pure truth—as clean, as clear, and as refreshing as an icy mountain lake. A kind of truth that is so sudden and so immediate that it often hurts. There are no more doubts because they have each other’s word. They interact with blind trust and with unspoken understanding when it’s game time. The ideas and the favorable situations they create may look like magic to the outsiders sitting at the stadium. But for these five, it’s just a game played with passion and real drive, a game that focuses effort toward the same cause with a passion toward the team as a whole, and a game played with enthusiasm for each of its players. The world watches in amazement as these five outplay their opponents. The strength of these five comrades really lies in the heart of each player and in the group hug shared in the locker room after the winning point. But only the members of this innermost circle will see and understand that point.

      The Five of Your Five

      Each of your “five” also deserves their own team of allies. (And who are the other five of each of your five?) Your indirect environment has an influence on you. You immediately sense when one of your five is happy—it also makes you happy and affects your well-being. You can now pass this new energy on to other people in your direct environment. If we follow these connections, it becomes clear that your energy, your well-being, your productivity, and your success, are also affected by all indirect environments—the five of your five, and of each of their respective fives, etc. Human happiness is never only the result of a one-dimensional interaction, but also the product of the dynamics of all social contacts, across multiple levels. The entire social network influences your decisions. If a friend of a friend smokes, it could increase the chance that you could become a smoker.

      So, choose these five carefully, and encourage them to choose their five well, and encourage their five…Well, you