Something You Should Know - Street Smarts That Keep You Safe & The Science of Great Ideas

Episode Date: February 16, 2026

When a big storm is on the way, it happens like clockwork: empty shelves, frantic shoppers, and a sudden shortage of eggs, bread, and milk. Why do people panic-buy the same items every time? And how much do you actually need if you’re stuck at home for a few days? This episode begins with the psychology behind panic shopping — and why otherwise rational people behave this way. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/happy-trails/201601/panic-shopping-the-psychology-of-the-bread-milk-eggs-rush Most of us don’t think of ourselves as vulnerable. We assume danger happens to other people — until it doesn’t. In reality, small, everyday behaviors can quietly increase or reduce your personal safety. The way you speak, move, and pay attention sends signals you may not even realize you’re broadcasting. Dannah Eve joins me to explain how street smarts really work and how to protect yourself using simple, practical awareness. She’s a personal safety educator and author of Street Smarts: Trust Your Instincts, Outsmart Danger, and Stay Safe in a World That Isn’t. (https://amzn.to/4roXfs8). Here is the link to her Instagram posts: https://www.instagram.com/dannah_eve/ We love the idea of the sudden “aha” moment — the brilliant flash of inspiration that changes everything. But that’s rarely how great ideas actually happen. Most breakthroughs are the result of borrowing, refining, recombining, and sometimes stumbling onto something unexpected. George Newman explains what science reveals about where ideas come from and how you can increase your odds of having a great one. He’s an associate professor at the Rotman School of Management and author of How Great Ideas Happen: The Hidden Steps Behind Breakthrough Success. (https://amzn.to/4ab4L2J). And finally — kissing may not count as exercise, but it does more than you think. From emotional connection to physical benefits, we wrap up with what science says actually happens when you kiss someone. https://www.healthline.com/health/benefits-of-kissing Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I know you like interesting and thought-provoking conversations and ideas because you listen to something you should know. So let me recommend another podcast I know you will enjoy. It's the Jordan Harbinger Show. Jordan has a real talent for getting his guests to share stories and offer thought-provoking insights. Over the years, I've sent a lot of people to listen, and I get feedback from people who are so glad I introduce them to the Jordan Harbinger Show.

Recently he discussed Scientology and the children who are raised in that organization. It's a fascinating conversation. And he talked with Dr. Rhonda Patrick about how to protect your mind and body from the modern world. And it's tougher than you think. I've gotten to know Jordan pretty well. We talk frequently, and I tell you, he is a very smart, insightful guy who does a hell of a podcast. Check out the Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you listen. listen to podcasts. Today on something you should know, why do people panic by just before a big storm?

Then the things we all do that put our personal safety at risk and how to protect yourself from danger. It's as simple as just being more aware in a society where we're all walking around buried in our cell phones. People don't realize that that alone makes you such an easy target. If you're looking at your phone, you have no idea who and what's around you. Also, how kissing is good for your physical and mental health and where great ideas come from and don't. If you look at the emergence of great ideas throughout history, you know, this idea that the way that we find creative inspiration is kind of locking ourselves away and waiting for that light bulb moment, that actually turns out to be kind of the exact opposite from what works. All this today on something you should know. era, you might know it as the time when Bridgeton takes place, or it's the time when Jane Austen

wrote her books. The Regency era was also an explosive time of social change, sex scandals, and maybe the worst king in British history. Vulgar History's new season is all about the regency era, the balls, the gowns, and all the scandal. Listen to Vulgar History, Regency era, wherever you get podcasts. Something You Should Know. Fascinating Intel. The world's top experts and practical advice you can use in your life. Today, something you should know with Mike Carruthers. So when there's a big storm approaching, it's very common for people to go out and panic by milk and bread and eggs and whatever else, toilet paper. But why? Why do we do that? Well, that's the question we're going to start with today on this episode of something you should know. Hi, I'm Mike

her others. So I've never been a big panic buyer because when there's a storm, maybe you'll be stuck in your house for a day or two at most. And in that day or two, how much milk, bread, and eggs can you possibly consume? Well, according to psychology today, the reason people go out and panic by before a storm is partly that sense of just being prepared and having a full stock of food. It just feels good in the face of an uncertain storm to have a sense of security and control. And in many ways, it is as simple as that. But there's also the ritual of it. The pre-storm grocery run is something we do, we being members of a community.

In this sense, it's not unlike putting up a Christmas tree or having a Labor Day cookout. Everybody does it. So we just do it. It's just a ritual. Storm's approaching. go to the store. And that is something you should know. There's a concept called situational awareness. Yeah, it sounds a little tactical, but it's really just about paying attention, knowing where you are, what's going on around you, and how you're

coming across to people, things like noticing where the exits are, being careful about what personal details you share with whom, and even how you carry yourself and move. through a space. All of this can quietly affect your safety. Now, most people don't think about any of this until something goes wrong, but small choices, like where you stand, what you say, how alert you look, can make a real difference in whether you're seen as an easy target or not. So what should you be paying attention to, and what do most people completely miss? That's what we're going to talk about with Dana Eve. She's a personal safety expert who shares practical real-world safety advice with millions of people on social media.

And she's the author of a book called Street Smarts. Trust your instincts, outsmart danger, and stay safe in a world that isn't. Hi, Dana. Welcome to something you should know. Hi. Thank you so much for having me. So this topic always concerns me a little bit because I don't want to come across as too alarmist and everyone has to be afraid of their own shadow because there's bad people out there and you could be a victim. But on the other hand, there are bad people out there and you could be a victim. So where's the line? How do we stay vigilant without going overboard?

That's actually a great question and something that I get a lot. And honestly, it's a line that you have to walk because you want to move through the world with a level of awareness, but you don't want to become hypervigilant or, you know, some people like to call it paranoid. So the way I look at it and what I teach and what I believe in is that, Knowledge is power. And for me personally, the more aware I am and the more that I know, the more confident I am moving through the world knowing that if God forbid I found myself in a dangerous situation, I will be able to handle it.

And having that knowledge in the back of my mind, it doesn't mean that you live with it in the forefront in every corner you're walking around, you're scanning your surroundings and you're paranoid. But you have a level of awareness to you so that you just feel strong. as you live your life. So you're the perfect person to ask this of. Ever since I was little, my mother used to tell me, be careful.

Be careful. Well, I, what does that mean? I don't, what would I be doing differently if I wasn't careful? And I don't know always like what I'm looking for. I mean, I wouldn't know a serial killer. I don't care how vigilant I am until he tries to kill me. I don't know that he's a serial killer and vigilance isn't going to help. That's where intuition comes into play.

And that's something that I talk about all the time as well. It's because as a society, especially, you know, for women, we're taught to minimize that to question ourselves in the fear of will come off as being dramatic or, you know, we overreact to everything. So I think empowering your intuition and leaning into your gut feeling is one of the most important things that you could do because oftentimes you're in a situation or you meet someone and this doesn't even have to be a dangerous situation. This could just be a person that's a little bit of a snake and somebody you don't want in your life. And if you have that initial gut feeling,

it's a moment to pause and sit with it and think, hmm, I don't necessarily know what was off about that person or a situation, but something didn't feel right. And I'm going to lean into that instead of ignore it or try and rationalize that away. And that moving forward is an important thing to keep in mind. So it's empowering your intuition. It's like, you know, it's like a muscle. The more you, the more you use it, the stronger it's going to become. So in situations, just every day, moving through life, leaning into your intuition is the most important thing that you can do because it's going to, you know, alert you long before anything else will. Well, that I think is so important because if you're walking down the street and you see somebody and it just gives you the creeps that this, there's

something about this person. You don't know anybody in explanation, including yourself. If you feel it, you feel it and take the appropriate action and get on with your life. Absolutely. It's a moment not to wait. Okay, I feel something's off. I don't like the vibe of this. You know, I'm at a party, something changed. I'm on a date. Something changed. My guts telling me something. Go with it. And if it means leave, you leave. Ask questions later. Right. But you wonder how many people go, oh, well, I really shouldn't feel this way. I don't really have any evidence that there's a problem. It's just a feeling I have, but I agree. That's good enough. Absolutely. And you know, I always say you don't need the evidence. You don't want to stick around and find out if you were right. You want to be out of there before you

put yourself in that situation. Give me a sense of the kinds of things that you're talking about that people need to be aware of. We don't have to go too deep into any of them just yet, but just the kinds of things you want people to start thinking about, to be safe. Honestly, it's as simple as just being more aware. In a society where we're all walking around buried in our cell phones, people don't realize that that alone makes you such an easy target. And that's just walking in a parking lot, walking through a store, walking in an alleyway.

If you're looking at your phone, you have no idea who and what's around you and having a level of awareness and the way that you move, which I talk a lot about, you know, your posture, You want to act like you have people to go with things to do, places to be. There was a study that was fascinating. I remember learning about it in college. And they took a group of inmates. And they basically showed them. I don't know if it was like a surveillance video or what type of video.

And they picked the same victim based off of how distracted they were or weren't or they, excuse me, weren't in that moment. And it was just so eye opening because you think like, okay, how can I protect myself in the world? You know, you hear all of the horrible stories on the news. You hear the horrific things and you're like, okay, I don't want that to happen to me. The best thing that you could do is put your phone down. It's just put your phone down.

Just because then you don't look distracted. And that alone can deter crime, which is such a crazy thing that it's that simple sometimes, but it is. But it's not just crime. I mean, you've got to be aware of a lot of things. Like, you know, you could be in a place and there's a fire. How do you get out? And I mean, there's a lot of other things besides that creep that's walking down the street. Oh, absolutely.

You need to be able to see and hear what's around you and who's, you know, who's around you at all times. You see the kids walking around with, you know, the AirPods in both ears or you're out in a run with the same thing and you can't hear what's going on around you. Who was? Somebody was telling me this the other day. They were outrunning errands and they had a teenage son that was home alone playing video games with noise canceling headphones. And something had caught fire in the kitchen. and he had absolutely no idea and couldn't hear the alarm, couldn't hear anything that was going on. And he was upstairs in his room. And his mom was, you know, down the block. And she came running home and was like,

hello. And he was like, what's going on? He had no idea there was a fire in the kitchen. So talk about lying to survive. I love this. It's, okay, so this started when I was a young, young girl. My mom's parents lived about four hours away. So every time we got in the car, you know, we didn't have cell phones or tablets back then. we had to play games. And something that my parents did that made me really aware of my surroundings at a young age was we played games. And one of those games was the lying game. And that tied into the what if game. Both of those are things that we played. So what they did was they made me the main character of a story. And they put me in situations and then allowed me to think through them on my feet with, you know, in a safe environment. And a lot of the times it would be, you know,

let's say you're home alone and somebody rings the doorbell and, you know, it's a man standing there and he's asking for a signature, but you don't want to open the door. Like you know not to open the door. So like, what do you do? What do you say? And I would have to think my way out of it and lie my way out of it. And it's interesting too because a lot of people will say, well, you're what you're teaching, lying. Like, are you kidding me? That's not right. That's not moral. And I'm like, listen, at the end of the day, if you lie yourself out of a situation, I am all for it. Like, I'm not preaching, going around, and lying to your friends or your family or your coworker for no reason.

It's a boundary about purely lying for your safety. And it's such an empowering tool to have because you never want to escalate a situation. And it's the perfect tool to de-escalate and exit safely. So give me two examples. You just did one about when the guy comes to the door and wants a signature. But give me a couple of examples of the situation and how you lie to survive. Let's say you're in an Uber. And the guy's super chatty seems nice.

But again, you do not owe a stranger your truth. At the end of the day, you don't know this person. You don't know what their intentions are. So it could be as simple as like he's dropping you off. Is this home? And then on your feet, you're like, nope, this is actually my brother's house. You know, believe it or not, there's like 30 people hiding inside. there's a surprise party. So I'm going to go in, but thanks for the ride, have a good night.

It's as simple as that because then even if that is your home and you're walking in and no one else is there, now he has the perception that you're not alone and there's 30 people inside and it's not your home. He doesn't know where to find you. Another situation or another example, you're on a date and all of a sudden, you know, something starts to feel wrong. You could make up a lie and say, I really don't feel good. I'm so sorry. I hate to cut this short, but I'm going to call and my dad, I'm going to have him come get me. You know, I'm so sorry. And then that's it.

That's your lie. Then you get out of it safely. And you don't stick around to find out why you had that feeling. It's a very, very empowering tool to have. Well, I would have never, you know, I would have never thought of that. But when a driver drops you off at home and you live alone and he says, is this your home, who wouldn't say, yeah, this is where I live? And yet, look at what you're opening up to.

if you let your imagination run a little wild. Absolutely. And it's, you know, oversharing is a huge issue, especially, you know, with women. And I talk about this with my friends all the time where you start having a conversation with a stranger and you don't mean to. But all of a sudden, you weren't vomit. And now they know where you live, where you work and where you work out. And then you want to take all that back. So having that boundary and making that decision that, you know, I don't know people until I know people, I'm not going to share

my truth. I'm not going to share any information that's going to put me at risk or put my safety at risk. You then start to practice that in all situations of life. And it's something that's very important, especially for women. We're discussing important ways to protect your personal safety. And my guest is Dana Eve. She's author of the book, Street Smarts. Trust your instincts, outsmart danger, and stay safe in a world that isn't. Searchlight Pictures presents in the blink of an eye on Hulu on Disney Plus, a sweeping science fiction drama spanning the Stone Age,

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I mean, what's the concern? What are you so worried about that you wouldn't answer the door and get your package? There are so many scams and so many ploys these days where, you know, these predators will fake an emergency or fake urgency. It's as messed up as, you know, people will play the sound of a baby crying

or a cat meowing to lure women out of their cars or homes, and then you find yourself in a dangerous situation. So just having that rule, I mean, how many times have you seen in the news recently where there will be a home invasion that ends in, you know, a fatality because two men dresses Amazon drivers and knock on a door and they open the door

and it opens them up to a home invasion. So it just, it's an unfortunate reality of the world that we live in, but you can't just blindly try. trust people. My guess is that one of the big dangers when you step out of the house is when you step into your car. That driving is itself quite a dangerous thing to do, perhaps even more so than just walking down the street. So talk about where things can go wrong there. Absolutely. Something that's so simple that you could implement right now is just lock your doors.

I, you know, so many times women, men, I'll see it, you know, young teenagers will get into a car and sit scrolling on social media or texting and I'm like, I bet that door is open. And I had a woman write me probably a month ago and she shared this very eye opening and what would have been a very scary story. Luckily, she was safe, but she was in a parking garage and she felt something was off. She had said that she saw a video of mine, you know, months before about locking your door and just making it second nature, whether it's your home. your car, your dorm, your hotel that you get in that door and you lock it immediately. And she did. She got in her car. She locked it. And within two seconds, there was a man at her passenger door rattling

it trying to open the door. And she's like, and if I wouldn't have hit that lock button, if I would have got in and was distracted, I have no idea what would have happened. And that was very, very eye-opening. So by simply locking your door, you provide a barrier from you and the outside world once you get in your vehicle. And that's one of the most simple driving tips that I could give. Let's talk about travel. And I think people have heard, you know, try not to look like a tourist, try not to stand out and look like a victim. But what else about travel that's maybe a little less obvious, things that people might miss? I mean, it goes back to the whole fake until you make it.

You never want to look like you don't know what you're doing. So, you know, and also something that's so important, I want to say this first before I forget. the case where it was like a stray bullet and they were detained overseas, one of the most simple things that you could do before you go on a trip, and it takes, again, less than a minute, check all of your luggage, check all your purse, your carry on your check bag, and make sure that you do your research where you're going because things that are legal in the States might not be legal elsewhere,

like a stray bullet. Let's say your husband's a hunter. And, you know, you have no idea that there's a stray bullet in the bottom of the duffel bag that you're bringing on a girl's trip. you know, some wedding, God knows where. And that is something. It just, it can save you from a very large headache, let's just say the least. And then while you're traveling, again, just having that level of awareness, another tip, something that I see all the time. So many people display their valuables and their personal information just out in the open. So I, you know,

standing in line for security, a thing that you can implement right now is hold your boarding pass and your ID face down. I've been standing in line so many times where the person in front of me and the person behind me, I could look and I could see their full name and their home address just because they're holding their driver's license. And again, it boils down to the whole thing where odds are that person is a great individual. You're not, you know, you're not at risk for anything happening, but you don't want that information out in the open. And just by simply holding it face down, it just protects your identity, protects your home address. And it's simple things like that. You know, I had, this happened to a friend.

This is just an interesting one that some people might never think of. But I had a girlfriend use a restroom and an airport and she used the hook just to put her purse on in the back of the door. And it was close to the top. And while she was using the restroom, a hand came over and grabbed her bag and ran. And in that bag was her wallet with her ID and her passport and everything that you need when you're traveling. And she never got that back. So something else that I always say is don't use that. hook if it's close to the top. Keep your purse. Keep your bag. Keep it on you. Or, you know,

sometimes there's like a little toilet paper holder next to you. Put it there instead. It's a, it's something that's so simple and a lot of people don't think of. Wow. That's amazing that somebody would have reached over the top of the stall and grabbed her purse. How would they even know it was on the hook? That's a great question. They must have been watching. And that's, you know, sometimes crime is simply opportunistic. And that's where taking those tiny little percolum. cautions, those steps to keep yourself and your belonging safe, you don't know what it will save you from at the end of the day. You know what's a situation where things could go bad really fast and happen to almost

anybody who's driving is road rage. You make a mistake, somebody gets upset, and things escalate really fast. Road rage is a great example. Honestly, I mean, you hear about it all the time, the road rage shooting, and this is just something that you can implement into your life right now. Having a mindset on the road that you don't know what somebody's capable of, you don't know what's going on in somebody's life, you don't know what types of weapons are in that vehicle, and knowing just that you say to yourself, no matter what happens on the road today, I'm going to let it go. And you say that, it's almost like a mantra. Like every time you get in the car, let it go. Just mindfully, let it go. No matter what happens on the road, I'm not going to react.

And you have no idea what that could save you from. And that's just something that, again, is back to the whole awareness of there are horrible things that happen to horrible, or to people, excuse me, to innocent people all the time. And you want to move through the world, not like an ostrich. You don't want to put your head in the sand and think it's not going to happen to me. I think the most dangerous mentality you can have is this won't happen to me ever. It's probably not going to happen to me. I'm going to live my life. I'm going to have fun. I'm going to do what I want to do, but I'm also going to have a street smart head on my shoulders while I do it.

So one more piece of really practical, strategic advice for people, because you clearly know so much about this. What's one thing you want to leave people with? This was taught to me by a former Secret Service agent. He called it the 10-second rule, and it's something that I teach, and it's the easiest safety trick to implement into your life.

And this is whether you're in an unfamiliar or familiar area, where let's say you walk into a coffee shop, You take 10 seconds when you get there and you just scan your surroundings. Okay, I'm clocking. There's an exit in the front. There's an exit back there. And there's an exit on the side. Wherever, you know, whatever it is, wherever you are.

And just take note. Everything seemed fine. Does, you know, is anyone giving me a creepy vibe? And then you move on with your life because then let's say there is a fire. You know, something crazy happens. You know where the exits are and you don't have to scramble in an emergency to try to figure out the best way out. You can get your family out of there safely. Well, I admire your vigil.

and your willingness to share this. Because what I think happens for so many people, myself included, is because things rarely, if ever happen, it's so easy to let your guard down. And I think it's important to hear the things that you're saying so people will ratchet up their vigilance level because it doesn't happen until it happens. And when it happens, you need to know what to do. My guest has been Dana Eve. She's a personal safety expert.

and she's author of a book called Street Smarts. Trust Your Instincts, Outsmart Danger, and Stay Safe in a World That Isn't. There's a link to that book, and I'm also going to put a link to her Instagram account where she has lots of really great videos, and she's got, I think, like, 2.5 million followers or something. It's really good stuff, and there'll be a link to that as well. Thank you, Dana. Well, thank you so much.

This is a really fun conversation. You know, I'm so passionate about what I do. is obviously very new to me in the podcast world, but it's really fun to be able to talk about it. And this was just a great conversation. So thank you so much. When they were young, the five members of an elite commando group nicknamed the Stone Wolves raged against the oppressive rule of the Kradarokian Empire, which occupies and dominates most of the galaxies inhabited planets. The wolves fought for freedom, but they failed, leaving countless corpses in their wake. Defeated and disrespected and disresbyed.

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New episodes weekly. When you think about innovation, you probably imagine some lone genius having a sudden eureka moment. But that's almost never how great ideas actually happen. Breakthroughs rarely come from locking yourself in a room and just trying harder. and they're almost never completely new ideas. Most great ideas are built from existing ones, mixed, tweaked, borrowed,

and sometimes stumbled into by accident. Luck plays a bigger role in innovation than most people want to admit, and timing matters. And progress usually happens in small hidden steps that only look obvious in hindsight. So how does the process really work, and why do we keep getting the story of innovation

wrong. That's what we're digging into with George Newman. He's an associate professor at the Rotman School of Management, a leading expert on creativity, and his research has been featured in the New York Times, Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post. He's also the author of a book called How Great Ideas Happen, The Hidden Steps Behind Breakthrough Success. Hey, George, welcome to something you should know. Hi, Mike. Thanks so much for having me. Well, this is something I think everyone is interested in because who hasn't come up with a great idea? We've all come up with an idea and go, hey, yeah, great idea, that's great. But where to come from?

And my sense is, and my experience is that sitting down and trying to come up with a great idea to just sit down and hammer it out, that almost never works. It seems to come from, I don't know where it comes from. You're going to tell me where it comes from. But the idea of trying to come up with an idea seldom works. Certainly that's how it feels, right, that we kind of have these light bulb moments. A lightning bolt strikes us out of nowhere. But, you know, I'm a cognitive scientist. I spent my career trying to understand creativity and where it comes from.

And these kind of mysteries about how to great ideas happen. And what the research shows and looking at a lot of anecdotes from history as well is that even though it can kind of feel in the moment like this lightning bolt or epiphany, that there actually is a lot of work going on behind the scenes preceding those moments, that it's a lot of trial and error and experimentation and false starts and all of that sort of thing that eventually leads us to a great idea. So there's lots and lots of exploration that is happening behind the scenes. And I talk about kind of the power of thinking about ourselves more like creative explorers rather than creative geniuses. Well, it's I guess because the stories tend to not sound like that. The stories of great ideas of great success are often the stories of magic. And they're not false starts and mistakes and errors and restarts. It's all much more glamorous than that.

And so when you have those difficult times, you think, well, how come I can't be like those other guys? Totally. And, you know, I mean, history has a funny way of kind of smoothing over all of those details. You know, oftentimes there are many collaborators that we don't see behind the scenes. Many people working on the project. oftentimes people are borrowing from ideas and building upon the ideas that have come before them. You know, this idea that the way that we find creative inspiration is kind of locking ourselves away and waiting for that light bulb moment, that actually turns out to be kind of the exact opposite from what works.

But when you look at great ideas, how much of it is the idea and how much of it is the person doing it? That's such a fascinating question. And qualitatively, I think what the research shows us is that it leans much more heavily on the environment that people find themselves in. The ideas that are kind of swirling around at their time, who they're talking to, what they're drawing upon, the effort they put in, how much exploration they do, all of those kinds of things that are much closer to the process and the environment. seem to matter much more than who the person is.

And one very nice data point which supports this is that throughout history, you have this very fascinating phenomenon of what's called multiple discovery, where multiple people arrive at exactly the same idea. And these are big ideas, like the idea for the telescope or the thermometer, or even the theory of evolution, where multiple people arrived at this idea at the exact same time, suggesting that in some way, In some ways, the world was kind of ripe for that idea, and it was a process of navigating towards it rather than one special person unlocking it within themselves.

When you look at great ideas, I'm wondering, like, how often do great ideas come because people are looking for solutions to a problem versus great ideas just kind of generating out of nowhere? Like the story of Velcro, I think, is kind of the great example of that. What's the beginning seed of it all? Great ideas come about in lots of different ways. One thing that's really interesting is that there's some research out of Stanford, which shows that sitting down and trying to do something, quote-unquote, creative, actually can lead people to come up with fewer ideas and less good ideas over. And there's something about the process of when we think, okay, I'm going to do something really

creative or mind-blowing or great, that actually we can kind of psych ourselves out and begin to kind of edit or censor our ideas as we're generating them. And some of my own work, too, I found that when people think about doing something creative, maybe their minds race to something totally original that's never been done before when, in fact, it might be much better to build on what's been done in the past and focus, like, on, well, who's this idea really for? How is it valuable? So it's a mix.

I mean, sometimes those ideas will happen by happenstance, by chance, but then there's also a lot of hard work that goes into it. You mentioned the story of Post-it Notes in Spencer Silver, which I think is a great one. And, you know, when he discovered the adhesive that wound up being Post-it notes, that was actually, he was like pitching that idea internally. of different ways he could use his adhesive for almost eight years. And he tried a lot of different machinations of the same idea of kind of an adhesive bulletin board, and then they had these press and peel bookmarks.

And then finally, with a colleague Art Fry, they wound up for the idea of Post-it notes. But if you think about the different iterations of Post-it notes and the different kind of machinations that that idea took to really actually very similar to one another. It's basically just adhesive plus paper. And so it was finding that great idea was about finding like the right tweak, the right kind of spin or pivot that kind of unlocked something new that was going to be valuable. And that often takes a lot of work and trial and error. And that again is usually not part of the story.

It somehow gets woven into this tale of this aha moment and how exciting. and it doesn't include all those bumps along the way. Absolutely. I mean, we kind of gloss over those details, especially, you know, looking back when things occurred decades ago. I kind of think about an analogy even to our own lives. Maybe if you're telling just the history of your life and the different steps you took along the way,

as we're communicating it to somebody else in hindsight, maybe it seems like this straight, linear path, when really, you know, for many of us, us, there's lots of backtracking and things that we didn't expect and new kinds of windows and opportunities that open up. And much the same with ideas, that there's a lot of trial and error and false starts along the way that, in hindsight, tend to get glossed over when we tell the story later. So you said that the idea of sitting down and trying to come up with ideas is somewhat counterproductive for many people. So what does work? If that's

doesn't work, do you just wait until, I don't know, something happens? Well, I think, you know, and I think there's an important point to clarify, sitting down and trying to generate ideas is probably one of the best things that you can do. But the idea there is to not put too much pressure on yourself and not say, well, this has to be a great idea. In fact, there's some interesting research that shows that sometimes we're our most creative. We make the most unusual connections when we're low on sleep or, you know, maybe cognitively it doesn't feel like we're at our peak. We can actually kind of make new connections that we wouldn't otherwise. So one big thing that I advocate is thinking about creativity as a process

like archaeology. And part of what an archaeologist is doing after they have surveyed the landscape and kind of understand where they are and then they've gritted their terrain to make it their search more systematic so they know where they're finding things and where they haven't the next stage is just try to get as much stuff out of the ground as possible and and really I think that is one of the strongest things that you can do more is more just try to generate as many ideas as possible and then wait to go back later to say well what did I find here what was actually valuable I always find though that when you generate a lot of ideas you've got so many things that now you're too close to it and you can't really see the forest for the trees and now you can't really evaluate them. That's such a fantastic point. You know, we actually ran a study about this same idea. What we did is we had people generate ideas. Sometimes it was for fundraisers, sometimes it was just like for humorous captions to New Yorker cartoons. And so people came up with a bunch of ideas and then we said, okay, we want you to go through and we, and we want you to go through,

and we want you to submit only your very best ideas. Submit only the top ideas, and you could win a monetary bonus if those ideas were, in fact, rated by others as very strong, and you might lose money. There was a monetary penalty if you submitted subpar ideas. So what we found is that people, when they went through their list, well, they pruned some of them, they submitted many good ideas,

but they also submitted many subpar ideas. When we took those same lists of ideas and we handed them off to somebody else, So now they're reviewing somebody else's ideas, and it's the same task. Choose only the gems. Other people are much more accurate. And so one big takeaway for me there is that bringing people into the editing process or sifting process or however you want to think about it can actually be a really valuable way of finding, okay, what's really strong here? Because exactly like you said, we oftentimes have some difficulty accurately evaluating how strong our own. ideas are simply because we're the person who came up with them.

Yeah, that rings truth because doesn't it seem like you're able to, you're able to look at somebody else's ideas or what somebody else wrote or somebody else made or whatever and evaluate it in a much more objective way, as you say, because it's not yours. So you have a distance on it that gives you that ability that you cannot do with your own stuff. Absolutely. There's a famous finding in behavioral economics called the endowment effect. And in short, basically, the stuff we own we think is more valuable. I had a coffee mug. If you just gave it to me, I would demand more money to sell it, then I'd be willing to pay for it. And so that's the endowment effect. And we call our effect, the creative endowment effect, that there's something about the process of generating ideas, the act of coming up with them that we feel an attachment to those.

on ideas, to our own ideas, and that makes us have a bit of difficulty evaluating their quality. Interestingly, we actually followed up with some of the participants in our studies six months later, and we gave them the same list that they had generated earlier, and we found that actually after a long delay, people were much more accurate. Their selections looked like if other people were evaluating their list. So not only are we attached to our own, ideas, but there seems to be something about in the moment generating those ideas that make them especially attractive to us, giving a little bit of space or psychological distance from that act of generating ideas can actually be a really healthy way of getting more accurate about which

ones are the best. One of the things I've always heard about creating ideas, good ideas, is to take two things that are seemingly incongruent and putting them together somehow into something new, and that's a great way to create something new. Is that a theory, or does that really work? Absolutely, that works. I call this process transplanting, that we're kind of borrowing the rules, the logic, the inspiration from a different domain or area of study or field, and importing it to our own expertise. And there's lots of fun examples.

I talk about the Japanese high-speed train, and they had this problem where the train actually moved so fast that when it was exiting tunnels, it created a sonic boom, which was a real problem for people living near the train tracks. And so actually one of the engineers working on the train was an avid birdwatcher, and he was familiar with the kingfisher bird,

which can dive into the water basically seamlessly so it doesn't alert fish. And so they just copied the beak of the kingfisher bird for the front of the Japanese hide-speed train. And this actually wound up being a really effective way of solving that problem, borrowing that idea from nature. So in engineering, in science, in products, even in art, there's all kinds of great examples of people going to other domains and importing that to whatever problem they're trying to work on. That seems so random somehow.

Like, because this guy was a birdwatcher and had this idea, I mean, and if he wasn't a bird watcher, would it have ever happened? Who knows? Yeah, I mean, this kind of question about inevitability, and we talked before about this phenomenon of multiple discovery. And in some sense, you know, evolution found a solution to that problem for the kingfisher bird. And so we could kind of ask this question, well, if not, if not for this engineer being an avid bird watcher, would the nose have looked the same? Would they have solved the same?

Maybe, maybe not. You know, would somebody have else been able to solve the problem borrowing a similar kind of idea? When people think of coming up with ideas, they think about creating something. but I know you talk about subtracting something, and some examples of that might help, but explain what you mean. There's some really fascinating research out of the University of Virginia

showing that if you give people some ideas, it could be a sample of writing, it could be a product design, and you ask them to make it better. Our natural impulse is to always add stuff. We always want to add another sentence or another few sentences to clarify the point, when really maybe what the essay needs is actually to start removing stuff.

And there's something just about subtraction that doesn't naturally occur to us. Subtraction can be actually a super powerful way of also finding what are the best aspects of your idea and refining it. I talk about Paul Simon and his process for writing the album, Grace Land, which was to go to, he went to South Africa. Africa. He became enamored with the street music coming out of South Africa. He went to South Africa and he just started jamming with musicians there and recorded hours and hours of material. And then he came back to the U.S. and started trying to kind of piece those different parts and sections together and find the songs within all of that recorded material, essentially looking

for what he could take away rather than what he could add. What I argue is that, you know, this was a really ingenious way of creating and finding something because instead of looking to just add things or conform to a script, he was looking, well, what can I take away here to find something that's truly great? When you look at great ideas, or maybe you look at the people who come up with great ideas, are you able to identify things they have in common, or it's just so varied that you can't really do that? If you look at the emergence of great ideas throughout history, almost without exception, the folks who are discovering those ideas are, have some expertise in their field. It doesn't need to be kind of formal training, but they've been working on this type of creative problem for a while.

And, you know, I liken this to going back to the archaeology analogy of first surveying the landscape that, you know, imagine you are an archaeologist, you have to have some sense of where you're going to dig, where, you know, you're likely to find if you're paleontologist bones or if you're, you know, an archaeologist where you're going to find historical ruins. You have to be orienting yourself in space if you just start going and digging. in your backyard, you're probably not going to find anything of note. And so there's, I think, a really nice comparison there to creativity, which is you have to know where to dig. And that knowing where to dig comes from some degree of expertise. So even though there is an element of chance or trial by an error, one of the big things that you can do to set yourself up is first trying to learn about Where have successful ideas been found in the past? Where have other people made discoveries or come up with ideas that are similar to the ones that I want to pursue?

And let me try to orient myself towards in that kind of general direction. And so I know what I'm looking for. That can be one of the first really important step to finding a great idea. It's fun to talk about this because we all have ideas. And you know what I love? I love when someone else comes up with something like you see some new product online or something and you go, wow, what a great idea. You know, wish I'd thought of that. Or I wonder how they came up with that.

And it's interesting to hear what the process typically is for people to come up with great ideas. George Newman's been my guest. He's an associate professor at the Rotman School of Management. And he's author of a book called How Great Ideas Happen, The Hidden Steps, Behind Breakthrough Success. And there's a link to his book at Amazon in the show notes. George, it's been a pleasure, thanks. Cool, Mike. Thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

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More than, I think more than I even understand, but ratings and reviews really do help us stay visible so other people can find us. So if you have a moment, please leave a rating and review on whatever podcast platform you listen on. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to something you should know.