Special Edition: How to think Big Thoughts

There are big thoughts and then there are Big Thoughts. The kind of Big Thought that makes you sit up straight with an electric sizzle of excitement. You levitate. You've seen beyond the clouds.

Unsurprisingly, I live for these moments. That click as things fit into place, with the understated resonance of a luxury car door. I've learned a lot about what this state of mind is, how to cultivate it, how to invite inspiration. The formula is actually quite simple. Where curiosity meets imagination, creativity is born.

There's a surprisingly blurry line between seeing the future and creating the future.

It is a busy conference season with lots of new information and thoughts thinking their way into being. You can't rush the process. So instead of our usual programming, this week I'll share a few of my secrets with you. This is how I've learned to see the future:

• The more information you consume, the better, but this takes on a different dimension when you reconsider what constitutes information. You might hear this and think "if only I had the time!" Information includes ideas, observed interactions, stories, and more. Every moment you are living is full of limitless information. Imagine how much you could observe simply by being more fully present in a moment. Information about yourself is just as important and relevant to creativity as outside stimulus might be. It can help to spend some quiet time grounded in your body. I like yoga, but a journey outdoors or even just sitting and breathing can do the trick. This helps build your awareness and openness to new thoughts and ideas. Seeing the future is really just about understanding how diverse and various things relate to one another.
• Create moments of serendipity in your information gathering. Pick up whatever sounds interesting, even if it seems totally random or unrelated to your work. Shake up your routine and switch to a different medium or outlet from time to time.
• Think about the difference between browsing around, like at a library or scanning a newspaper, versus a more algorithmic, curated type of information gathering. Neither is better or worse, you should take advantage of both. There's actually a crude, human algorithm in things like television and radio, where programming and content choices are made based on listener or viewer preference. The bigger point is more about micro-targeting and macro-targeting - the former is narrow but efficient and high-value, while the latter is less predictable but more diverse, with the potential to spark new levels of insight.
• I tend to favor podcasts as a medium for maximizing efficiency because I can listen while I'm doing different things. There's an art to this - listening has the most impact when your body is otherwise occupied by something relatively mindless, like driving, washing dishes, or folding laundry. That said, I think varying the style of inputs is just as important as mixing up the content. Read a book, leaf through a magazine, skim a newsletter. Time is a valuable resource and I realize that I have a lot more of it available for these practices than many others, especially parents and caregivers. I recognize that this is a luxury not everyone has. Whether you have a lot of free time or a little, make the best use of what you can spare and never think of self-care or relationship-care as a waste of time.

Here's a snapshot of what I've loved listening to this past week. Check back next week for some post-conference synthesis!

The Field Trip series from the Washington Post - a lush soundscape for bedtime

Apple News Today - a particularly convenient time hack. I liked this episode about the three big threats facing the US economy (spoiler alert: strikes, a government shutdown, and student loan repayment are the big 3 - one of which we now know has been temporarily averted.)

This specific episode of The AI Breakdown provocatively titled "Could AI end up being good for democracy?" - so much to unpack in this one I can see myself listening to it 2-3 more times. I have a lot of thoughts about the role of AI in the future and this episode brings several of them together.

The Creative Confidence podcast - I love IDEO U's content. Lots of great thought leadership about systems thinking, design thinking, and how to leverage them to build better strategies. This recent episode about strategy was particularly good.

Quite a few recent episodes in my listening history with a manufacturing theme - The Indicator's Beigie awards and EV battery episodes and Energy Exchange's episode on America's Industrial Strategy for the Energy Transition are all great listening.