Jordan Harbinger avatar

Dexa/Jordan Harbinger

Learn more
Published Sep 16, 2021

561: Charles Duhigg | The Secrets of Being Smarter Faster Better

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Charles Duhigg delves into enhancing productivity and creativity, sharing strategies for effective teamwork, motivation through choice, and the power of structured routines to innovate by blending existing ideas.
Episode Highlights
The Jordan Harbinger Show logo

Topics covered

Popular Clips

Questions from this episode

Episode Highlights

  • Boosting Creativity

    Boosting creativity involves more than just waiting for inspiration to strike. explains that creativity is often the result of a structured process rather than spontaneous genius. He cites the example of Disney's "Frozen," which was nearly a failure until the team adopted a systematic approach to idea generation. This involved taking clichéd concepts and combining them in novel ways to spark new ideas 1.

    The breakthroughs that in retrospect, people end up saying are the most creative, they tend to be the product, not of a particularly creative individual, but rather a particularly creative process.

    ---

    Duhigg emphasizes that anyone can be creative if they commit to a process that encourages the juxtaposition of personal experiences and ideas 2.

       

    Creative Juxtaposition

    Creative juxtaposition is a powerful tool for innovation, as demonstrated by examples like "West Side Story" and "Hamilton." explains that these works combine familiar elements in unexpected ways, such as merging hip-hop with the story of the founding fathers in "Hamilton" 3. This method, known as innovation brokerage, involves collecting existing ideas and finding new ways to fit them together.

    None of these on their own are creative ideas, but they become creative when these two old ideas are pushed together.

    ---

    By encouraging people to explore and combine ideas that are meaningful to them, new and creative outcomes can emerge 2.

       

    Innovation Stories

    Real-world innovation stories highlight the importance of process in creativity. shares how the Disney team transformed "Frozen" from a potential flop into a blockbuster by rethinking their approach to storytelling. They focused on blending the familiar themes of princesses and sisterhood in a fresh way, which opened up new creative possibilities 2.

    What the process ought to be is a process that forces you to think about your own experiences and to juxtapose your own experiences in new and original ways.

    ---

    This approach underscores the idea that innovation often comes from reimagining existing concepts rather than inventing entirely new ones 1.

Related Episodes