Nicholas Woodman, founder of GoPro, gave birth to his star product while playing and living his passion riding the waves on his surfboard. Play is when great breakthroughs can happen, because you are no longer thinking with your rational mind but rather listening to your inners feelings and instinct.
The Mad Billionaire Behind GoPro: The World’s Hottest Camera Company
Category Archives: Creativity
Disruptive Thinking is Really the Way We Are Reinventing the Future
Disruptive thinking often meets with resistance from those who encounter it; nevertheless it is this way we are reinventing the future and shaping our path to new breakthroughs and discoveries. Elon Musk is someone who epitomizes transformation. From his first of a kind space company, SpaceX, his trailblazing electric car company, Tesla Motors, to his proposed solar-powered Hyperloop intercity transporter, Musk’s ideas are intended not merely to challenge convention but to shatter it.
SpaceX Just Unveiled Its Brand-New Capsule For Taking Astronauts To Space
Play Leads to Breakthroughs
Very often, scientific breakthrough turns out to be an accident. Here is another example of how play and fun mood can lead you to great discoveries.
In fact breakthroughs must disrupt the logic of what we know; because they bring new knowledge, breakthroughs can come only from parts unknown to the conscious mind and therefore unknown to reason. So breakthrough — even the most intellectual and sophisticated ones – can manifest only at times when we disengage from what we know and from what we understand logically. This is why play is so crucial: it disconnects us from reason and logic and opens us up to new and different thoughts we wouldn’t otherwise have access to.
Why a Relaxed Brain is More Likely to be Creative
Sleeping relaxes our brain and allows it to make new connections and neural pathways. Creativity happens when those alternative networks process information in new way. The same dynamic is at work when we are playing. Because playing puts aside our rational mind it opens up the door to our deeper creative potential. Play is therefore a factor of creativity and opens us up to the possibility of breakthroughs because it disconnects us from the exclusive and dominant nature of logic, Play is necessary for the survival of an organization because it unleashes and strengthens our problem-solving abilities and resilience as nothing else can.
Do These 3 Things Before Bed to Hack Your Creativity While You Sleep
Harnessing the Power of Ritual for Business Innovation
How often do you engage in rituals? Probably more often than you think. From daily routines like the first cup of coffee in the morning or the story you read your child at bedtime to the most culturally significant celebrations, including weddings and bar mitzvahs, rituals are almost certainly a part of your personal life. But are they a part of your professional life? If not, you are missing out on an extremely powerful management tool, especially if what you are seeking from your team is creative innovation and out of the box thinking in the context of a rapidly evolving marketplace.
Research done by neuroscientists shows that 80% of our brain’s grey matter is dedicated to non-conscious thought and that imaginative play is one of the most direct means of activating our creativity and problem-solving abilities. Read More
Learning About the New Business Paradigm from Generation Y
In March of 2010 I took a Virgin Air flight from Los Angeles to New York and mid-flight (thanks to Virgin’s on-board Internet access) I sent an email to my friend Max to get some feedback on a couple of projects I was working on. Max emailed me right back and said I really should get in touch with Jeff Rosenthal, whom he helpfully copied on the return email. Jeff is one of the co-founders of Summit Series, a community of millennial entrepreneurs that is redefining the relationship between business, politics, and philanthropy in a way that illustrates the dynamics of a new business paradigm. By the time I landed in New York Jeff and I had traded several emails sharing what we each do and are passionate about and he had put me in touch with the woman who would soon become the literary agent for my upcoming book, The Intuitive Compass (Jossey Bass, Oct 2011) . This experience made me curious to learn more about Summit Series, their goals, beliefs, and achievements, and what lessons they can offer to today’s business leaders. Read More
What Kind of Intelligence Do You Need to Succeed Today?
In my upcoming book, The Intuitive Compass (Jossey, Bass Oct 2011), I write extensively about the need for business leaders to use what I call Intuitive Intelligence to tap into their ability to effectively manage their employees and generate innovative business strategies and solutions in a complex global marketplace. Before I give you a preview of what Intuitive Intelligence is, it is worthwhile to look at how culture, society, and science have tried to understand and measure intelligence. Read More
BP crisis: our shared responsibilities toward a new path to success
BP oil spill nearshore trajectory june18 2010
The tragedy in the Gulf continues. By now we’ve all seen the horrendous images of seabirds, fish, dolphins, and other forms of aquatic life – dead or dying, helpless as they slither about covered in oil, an agonizing sight for all the world to see. We’ve seen the Cajun shrimpers bemoan the loss of their lifestyle, and we are witnessing a slow, lingering devastation – as the sea itself seems to be gasping for breath. Read More
Michael Schrage and the Intuition Fallacy
There’s a post on the HBR blog – Tell Your Gut to Please Shut Up – by Michael Schrage, a research fellow at MIT Sloan School’s Center for Digital Business, in which he denounces the current trend about intuition as the key to quick, effective, successful decision-making.
Although Schrage’s argument seems to make perfect sense, and his ideas are well articulated, I think this is just another false debate about intuition. Read More
The Future of Magazines & Newspapers: A Conversation
Not long ago, at the airport, I had a conversation with John – a business man in his early 40s.
Since I consult in the highly-challenged paper media industry I asked him how he feels about reading magazines and papers.
I assist a major firm identify the fundamentals of the media of the future, facilitate a culture of innovation and accelerate the reinvention of their business model. For those of you less familiar with the challenges of this industry in the US let me tell you what they are in this digital age: Read More