Creative Superpowers summary

School is all about learning facts. Know them by heart, the thinking seems to go, and you’ll be set for life.

But there’s a much better approach you can use: listening carefully to the people around you, taking note of the things that resonate most with you and trusting your creative instincts.

Creativity isn’t about amassing knowledge. Lots of information doesn’t make you more creative – in fact, it might end up making you less creative!

Why? Well, the more you know about something, the more limits there are to how you think about it.

Consider the taxi industry.

Taxi companies have long pondered how to renew their industry. But the most innovative shake-up came from outside the sector. It was Uber, a new company intent on opening up the taxi market to car owners and commuters, that really pushed the envelope.

That’s partly because Uber’s ideas were fresh. Its strategies weren’t limited by tried and tested ideas about how to run a taxi business, which freed them up to think creatively. The result? A brand new service.

The second path to creativity is to find someone to bounce your ideas off.

Think of it this way: whatever it is that you’re planning, two people will always have more ideas than one. And that means it’s important to think carefully about who you’d like to work with.

Say you need a video for your new website. If you know a brilliant video artist, start a collaboration! Once you’ve figured out who can help you achieve success, give them a call and start convincing them to join you.

There are exceptions, of course, but they’re generally rare. In most cases, you’ll find that you’re much more creative when you’re working together with others. This is called the sandbox model of creativity.

Think of children interacting in a sandbox.

Innovations come thick and fast. If one toddler starts burrowing into one side of a mound of sand, one of his playmates is likely to start digging from the other side. Voilà – suddenly there’s a tunnel!

That’s a great example of the way creativity works in a team.