Latest / On Point With Jaclyn Jeffrey / On Point With Bryan Mattimore

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On Point With Bryan Mattimore · On Point With Jaclyn Jeffrey

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: Brian, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: I'm really excited.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, a few things.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: One, I know you from a very, very long time ago.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: A company I worked with hired you to help us with product naming.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but big picture, you do way more than that, and you've built a career on creativity and innovation in a very unique and and compelling way.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: So we'll we're gonna talk about that, and I'll leave that to you to talk about.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: But by way of a very brief intro, and I typically try to memorize this so I don't look at my notes, but that did not work this time.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: So uh to start, you are the co-founder and as you call yourself, the chief idea guy at the Growth Engine Company.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: And you've written lots of books, uh, most notably uh 21 Days to a Big Idea, creating breakthrough business concepts.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: And that was the one I believe that was selected by Four Minute Books as one of the best, the top 60 business books of all time.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Idea Stormers, How to Lead and Inspire Creative Breakthroughs, 99% Inspiration, Tips, Tales, and Techniques for Liberating Your Business Creativity.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: And most recently, the book you just published in March, which is Trump's Playbook, his 50 Brand and Influence Strategies and How to Use Them Ethically.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: And you teach executive education workshops on how to combine AI with other creative ideation techniques to come up with really creative ideas at Caltech, City of New York, etc.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I use my notes for that.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's brief, so I'm gonna leave it to you.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, how do you describe what you do?
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, in cocktail parties, I say, well, I help companies come up with new stuff.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's one thing.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so that could be obvious things like new products and social media campaigns, et cetera.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: But it's it's a lot more than that.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's creative problem solving.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, if we have a logistics problem or a strategy challenge, or we we need to write a strategic plan for our business.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, we recently did some work for for TCU.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, part of the reason we got an award from GMAC or something is because we added creativity to the strategic planning.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's not just looking at the at the rear at the mirror and rear view.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's saying, let's be creative about what we could create and build a strategic plan based on that.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I mean, you know, uh I guess I guess the sh the short answer, there's no long answer, is that it's it's is coming up with creative ways of looking at the world and solving problems is what I do.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: Well, actually, and I was just that leads into what I was going to ask you is I mean, you clearly either developed or always have had a just a rather different way of looking at the world.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's a kind way of saying that you're very odd.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, no, no, no.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, no, no.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: Just a different way of looking at the world, at business, at problems.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: And do you think that's fair?
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's a fair, that's fair, I think, but it's it's it's not, it doesn't have to be unique because I think it's good what I what I do, you know.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: But but and and and I think anyone could learn it now, you know, we're we have different proclivities for creativity, we have different inherent uh skills for creativity, but you know, I'm sometimes asked, and I know it was on your list of questions, you know, can you teach people to be creative, right?
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: And and what I always say to that is, well, we learned how not to be creative, so yes, we can relearn how to be creative.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, obviously, anybody with kids, if you're really, if you're watching them, I mean, my gosh, they they are um creative geniuses.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, there was a study done, uh longitudinal study done by George Land and and his team, and they tested, you know, five-year-olds up for eight years, up to 13-year-olds, and they discovered, you know, and this they used a version of the NASA creativity test or engine.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: And and what they find was found was the kids at five, there were like 98% of them tested at kind of the genius level for creativity, you know, pink rocket ships with wheels and stuff.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: Uh by the time they were 13, by the time they were 13 or 14, they would it was down to about 12 percent.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: And and that's a an indictment, I think, of our society and and also our educational system, to be honest.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know, um, you know, there's certain schools like Montessori and and others that try to keep it going.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: But there's a there's a wonderful quote, I I've forgotten who said it, but you know, kids enter school as question marks and they come out as periods.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they they lose their interest in um and and and and and part of that is because that you have to build the you know, teach them analytical skills, that's important.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: But in the process where you're trying to get the right answer, uh you lose the imagination and creativity that we're all born with.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: I was gonna ask you a little bit more about that later, but you know, actually, since you brought it up, let me ask you now.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: You talked about just society and how we are and the school system.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think there are things that perhaps we all do as parents that stands in the way or stifles that creativity over time?
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I hate to say it, but yes.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I remember I was with somebody and her son uh wanted to go up the escalator, up and down, up and we were talking, you know, and an and a normal parent would have said, you know, John, get off the elevator, come on, come over here.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: But um I think we must have together while we were talking, we must have gone up the up and down that escalator.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: It was an escalator, um, 15 or 20 times because she allowed her son to to be with us while we were talking, but we had to follow him, you know.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so we've got, you know, as parents, we got things to do.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: We got to take them places, we want them to get, you know, A's on their tests.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so, yeah, we um unfortunately, and it's it's not, you know, we love our kids, but we sometimes stifle their creativity.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when they're throwing uh flour on the wall, yeah, you kind of bum out, right?
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: And you have to teach them things that they shouldn't be doing, right?
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, it's cute when they're three, but not when they're 10, right?
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: So let me ask, you have led, I mean, I think probably it's fair to say thousands of brainstorming sessions over the years.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, what do you think?
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I mean, what's all that taught you about how people or groups really come up with great innovative and creative ideas?
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: And also what are the top one or two things you see that get in the way of coming up with those ideas?
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, thank you for that question.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I thought I'll I'll get at this in several ways, but you know, I thought that um the key to a successful, quote, team ideation, right?
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: If you had asked me 20 years ago, I would have said, you know, it's cross-functionality.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: You need people from different, you know, levels, different sources, people who actually have to go innovate the thing that's being done.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: You want them to be part of the creation process.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: So not only are we talking about idea generation, but innovation, bringing those ideas to market.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: And the diversity of thinking, that's what you're after.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: And that's one of the two critical components when you design and facilitate ideation sessions.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: The other is stimuli, which we we which we can talk about if you want.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, there was a famous study done by Google, it was Project Aristotle, it was about 10 years ago, that said, what makes for high-performing teams?
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I th I for sure thought I knew the answer.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: They'd say cross-functionality.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: And what and that was like number two.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: But number one was actually trust.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: And and that's after they did a major study of this, they said the teams, the individuals in there have to trust because you want to propose things that you know may sound crazy or stupid or ridiculous.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the that's one of the keys to creativity.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: And when I mod when I facilitate these sessions, I try to model that.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I I I don't make fun of myself, but I'm self-effacing.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: I take the pressure off.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and and and and so though, I mean, that's that's the key to to successful ideation.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: That is so interesting, Brian.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: So but by trust, do you mean trust that they won't get smacked over the head if it's not a great idea or if people don't immediately see it?
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: Is that what you're in part?
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's also, you know, you have these intuitional predispositions, right?
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: And and and normally in business you say, well, I think we should do this.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: And here are the five reasons why we should do that.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: In my, you know, an ideation session, you say, hey, listen, we're buying everything.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to sell us on anything.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: Just tell us what you think.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: But the key part of trust there is the willingness to share incomplete ideas or fragments of things, or even silly things.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: Or, you know, if I hear in a group, people say, you know, this may be crazy, but, or I don't even know what I'm saying here, but that kind of language, I know we're home-free because it says people are in that state where they don't have to sell their co-workers or or rationalize it or justify what they're thinking, because frankly, it's those fragments that you're looking for, and that's why you get together as a group, so people can build on each other's ideas.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: And and and that takes trust not to not to know the answer.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: You don't know the answer.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: You you can be through throwing out pieces of things, and that's you know, I I would give out stars for people that said something like, you know, I don't know what I'm saying here.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that's that's really great.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's that reflects trust.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't want to go up on a whole tangent here about corporate culture and vision and you know, and all of that.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: But is that no, I mean, is that something though that's built by an individual manager or a team or or a company?
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, when you've seen that trust that's there, what's been unique about the environment?
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think that's different?
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, part of it is you don't have killers, right?
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have, you know, especially on an innovation team, if you have somebody that is trying to justify everything analytically, you know, you're that you're dead.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: You because, you know, a lot of the best ideas um start out crazy, right?
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so um, but to answer your question, um, you know, it's it's it's really the leaders that that have to reflect that.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: And that could be, you know, a group leader, a team leader, the the guy on the shop floor, the vice president, the CEO, whatever team you're on or whatever group you're part of, the you know, it has to it has the the trust in some ways has to be reflected from the top for it to work.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: Same with innovation, right?
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: So So I mean, I know that your thing is obviously in the in the business world and working with companies, but would you say that that's also true when you're talking about a relationship or a family unit or with children in terms of having the trust that your leader, your parent or partner, whatever isn't going to dismiss you because it's a half-baked idea?
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, I could bring my wife in here if you want.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: She could take it.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, um, absolutely.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, this I I said teams, but you know, in relationships and, you know, people you love.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, for the kids to be able to share, you know, intimate, difficult things at whatever age it is, I mean, you know, and some they're gonna share with the mom and some they're gonna share with the dad, but absolutely.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: And um so interesting, Brian, about trust.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: It really is.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: I'd never really considered that.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um so what do you think in in the work that you've done is the biggest um misunderstanding or misconception that people have about innovation or creativity?
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I I've got my first JFK ver kind of quote here.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it sounds like a JFK quote.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: And the quote is Um, you don't innovate by changing the culture, you change the culture by innovating.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: And what that means is, you know, you can hire some of the big consulting firms and they'll come in and say, Oh gosh, you guys need a new innovation process, right?
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's, you know, and and the bill is a million and a half for us to figure that out for you.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: In our work, we really start from the bottom.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: And and the a guy, one of our clients said, Yeah, we I want to build an innovative culture.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Well, let's either give us your worst performing group or your best performing group or some real challenge.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: Let's work with them.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: We'll figure out some new stuff that they can go do, hopefully successfully.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: And when that happens, this is a really bad analog, uh, but you know, it is like a benevolent virus in that it starts to spread.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: People see the energy and the creativity and they want to be a part of that.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, people love to be part of creating new things.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so um, so that's how we transform the culture.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the other thing that happens is as we do that work, we really understand where the log jams are, what processes they do need, um, because each industry is different, each company is different.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: And every, in my opinion, every situation innovation program should be tailored to the unique culture needs of that particular organization.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why we do it inductively.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: We start from the bottom and work to the top.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: And what role would you say curiosity or just being curious has to do with all of this?
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, thank you.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I we do the I do this podcast for Caltech.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's called Curious and Quirky.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, and um and both of those are important.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, without curiosity, you're you're dead.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you you because things like you know, we'll do focus groups uh and and uh there'll be situations where they're contradictory statements, you know, and the client maybe in the back totally freaked out.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: The the ambiguity is is hard for some people to deal with.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: And yet for us, wow, this is an opportunity to find out more, right?
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: What is what is go really going on here?
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, the ability to ask questions uh continually, um, to say, well, why did what happened there?
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so all these sort of things that seem, you know, like they're they're anomalies can be real sources of great creativity and great learning and and great fun, you know.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: And and and and for some of the listeners in in their businesses, or it doesn't matter.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: Societal listening, you'll find out, for instance, interesting ways that people are using your products, and you say, Oh, I wonder if we could do something with that.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I it's a long answer.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, without curiosity, you got nothing.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you gotta start with curiosity, right?
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: So let me ask you, this might not be a a fair question, but how do you distinguish between, now that we're talking about curiosity and asking questions and unfinished ideas, how do you distinguish between an idea that may just be a bad idea versus uh something that's just uh ahead of its time?
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, a great question, because timing is is important in in the work we do in an innovation.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, people don't, I I should set this up by saying, you know, people don't understand when we do our ideation session, probably 15% of the ideas are any good.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I mean, you know, batting 150, batting 120.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's uh really well.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: So if you, you know, if you do, if you get 150 ideas in a day, if you get 15 that are really worthy of further interest and development, I mean you're doing really well.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a numbers game, right?
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: So there are a lot of quote bad ideas first.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, we're big believers in the quality, you know.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: I've always said it's amazing what you can learn by talking to people, right?
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so you you show them, and by the way, in new products, I'm going off a little bit here, but in in new products, for instance, um, we don't test finished prototypes.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: We test what we'll call them ugly prototypes because we want if you if the product is too finished, people say things, yeah.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I I like that color blue and I like that color red.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: No, that's not what we're after.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: But if it's an ugly, we were working with Dr.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: Scholes, I can mention it, and we had these inserts that aerated and all kinds of really cool benefits.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: But uh they said, Oh, we can 3D print these for you.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: Said, no, no, no, we're gonna get duct tape and and cut these out by hand and show those.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because when people see those, they say, Oh my gosh, this is not very sophisticated.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: And they say, Well, are you is that gonna fit right in or will it get stuck?
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: Or and so you can learn so much more interesting when you do that.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: And and um, and of course, that's that's by talking to people.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so we do a lot of qualitative work.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and if you do that, before you do quantitative work and and invest in big ways in these products, uh, you know, if you're building a line for five million dollars, you really want to know you have a winner.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: And and you get there by talking it to consumers and they will tell you, right?
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: And and and it and and people don't understand focus groups, you know, they're not for validation, they're for learning.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: And anybody who's doing a focus group or qualitative work to validate something is missing the boat.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: So I wanted to make sure we had time to talk about the new book that you just published in March, uh, Trump's Playbook, his 50 Brand and Influence Strategies and How to Use Them Ethnically.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: So uh, what was the genesis of the book?
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, I was writing another book.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: This is a leadership book on questioning and and curiosity and creativity, and I was kind of I didn't feel well that day.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I started playing.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I I, you know, it's hard not to think about Trump at times, right?
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I and I realized, you know, the Eureka moment came when I realized that, you know, yes, this guy's an entertainer entertainer.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: We know that, you know, he's dancing around at, you know, he's a WWF.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: But the real insight came when I said, you know, this guy is a master marketer, because I couldn't understand.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, you know, and I have friends who are pro-Trumpers, and you know, it wasn't the purpose to say, you know, this this guy's a bad guy, but I really wanted to understand how he has been so successful.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: And as soon as I put the lens of marketing on it, then it all became clear, you know, and and so that's how I was able to generate these these 50 principles.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: And and you know, our work is all not only about coming up with ideas, but it's also about influencing people to go do those ideas.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so this was the second half of the equation.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a bit of a departure from some of my other books, were all which were really heavy ideation and innovation process, but this is all about how you um get noticed in this attention economy we're in and add society.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: And um, so in that sense, it was both a struggle, but but it was it was really interesting.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, anybody who who's researched this world, you know, Robert Cialdini wrote the book Influence, it sold five million copies.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well, there are only quotes seven major principles there.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: Well, now we got 50 principles, right?
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and and don't tell anyone, but if if they just copied my table of contents and put it into AI, they it'll generate 50 ideas for whatever challenge you have.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: I won't tell anybody.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: No, not as well, other than all the people that are.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: I want people to use it to generate ideas for their business.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: So, Brian, let me ask, can you just give a couple of examples that are really top of mind for you of one, the principles, but whether it's Trump or any of the other people that you talked about in the book that have used those to really come up with a successful uh product or media or venture?
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: Can you give just a couple of examples?
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, one of the Eureka moments I've recently or I wrote about in the book was, you know, the the guy started out by building his brand, right?
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's that was his key.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then from that, everything came came.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: So um one of, I mean, one of the principles it's uh which is surprising, is create spectacle on a shoestring, right?
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: And you say, well, you know, here's a billionaire, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: But if you look at his his rallies, I mean, they're very inexpensive.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: You got the music, you got him dancing around, and you got this very inexpensive hat that people are wearing.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, in history, I mean, one of the best examples obviously was Gandhi in 1930, the salt march, right?
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it was uh over 24, 28 days, march to the sea to protest the the British taxation of salt.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: How much did that cost?
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, nothing, right?
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so the and I think the takeaway for the listener is to say, you know, to get notice, you don't necessarily have to spend a lot of money, you have to be creative.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, another example of that was uh, which I love was you know, Cassius Clay, Muhammad Ali.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Wife magazine wanted to do a story on him, and so they came down and he said, uh, hey, do you want to see my training uh regimen?
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so he brought him to the local pool and had hit him shoot uh uh photographs of him from underneath as he's boxing in the water, you know.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: And if you go into Life magazine and just Google that, you'll see it.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: There, these are gorgeous, gorgeous photos of him, you know, uh quote, practicing underwater with white coming in.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, he didn't exercise, he didn't train that way.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: He knew it would be a brilliant uh pictorial for Life magazine, so he just he made it up.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: So um that that's a good example of one of those principles, you know, uh spectacle on a sto on a shoestring, if you will.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: But again, they're 50.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, one of the important lessons is, you know, there's sort of a binary thinking to his approach, you know, you are this or you're that.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, George Bush, when we had 9 11, he said, well, you're either for us or you're for the terrorists.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: And and what that does in our attention society, right?
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: Our attention deficit society, it it takes all the nuance out.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's you're either this or you're that.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it makes it easier to explain, it makes her better.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Headlines, you can meme that stuff, you know, and puss it in that as create an enemy.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I could go on and on and on.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: But but but but I I've just written a piece.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's to promote the book, and it's about, you know, why corporations and and and other organizations don't understand how different you have to communicate in an attention economy, right?
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so it has to be symbols, it has to be uh phrases.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: It has um the the one other thing I would say that's I think really maybe an interesting idea is that by having these taglines, um he he is he has done narrative shortcuts.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: And what what I mean by that, and there are two elements to that.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: One, you know, make America great again.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so part of this is people can fill in the meaning for themselves, you know, whether it's a job or healthcare, whatever.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay, yeah.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so part of it is getting your audience to fill in the meaning of what that might be, right?
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: And the other part of it is, you know, it's it's a it's a story within it.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the big beautiful Bill, he doesn't say anything about what's in there.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: And and so, but you know it's a story about you know, better economics or whatever, you know, or you know, labeling as almost like a an elementary school bully, you know, um, crooked hillary, whatever.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't tell the whole story, he just creates that label, and then you can fill in all that's behind that.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: But the reason you're doing that is because we don't have the time these days to tell a full story.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, wow, so those are a few, but you know, there are a lot more.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, I could talk to you for a long time, and I know there's a lot in the book.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: Uh just a few uh last questions.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: So I know we've talked a lot, just very big picture about creativity and innovation.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: But if somebody's listening, whoever's listening, someone who's listening who really wants to create better ideas in their own life, in their business, what would be something you would suggest they could do like now or tomorrow, as opposed to just sort of waiting around for lightning to strike and inspiration to come out of nowhere?
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, that book I wrote, that 21 Days to a Big Idea, was a challenge by uh Bob Dorf, who was since passed, but he was teaching entrepreneurship at Columbia.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Well, my students are great, but they're what their ideas are lousy, frankly, for new ventures.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: Can you help them come up with new ventures?
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so that was part of that.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: It was like the the key here is to come up with a lot of ideas, right?
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: And from that you'll get some good ones.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: So that book I gave myself the challenge of using different processes to come up with a different idea every day.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: And from that you'll get some good ones.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: But specifically, um, in these times, there are some of the we have dozens and dozens of ideation techniques we use.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: But for instance, one of them is TRIS.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's called T-R-I-Z.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's a Russian acronym for theory of inventive problem solving.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, and I wrote about this in Success Magazine 20 years ago, um, and I'm surprised the world hasn't noticed.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: But he and his team of researchers, they analyzed 200,000 patents and from that identified 40 creative principles, right, on how you get really truly unique inventions.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the wonderful thing now is AI knows what TRIS is.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: So you can just go on to AI and say, hey, I'm trying to promote my new business, or I'm thinking of hiring this person, or I need a new strategy, or I need a new social media campaign, whatever it is.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: And you can say, okay, I would like you to use the TRIS methodology.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: This is your prompt for AI, to do fill in the blank, right?
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: And and by the way, I talk about this in the Trump's playbook by combining it with the 50 Trump strategies.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, so and you you plug that in, and all of a sudden, you know, five seconds later, you have literally 40 ideas.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: And and not that these are necessarily the answers, but boy, they will definitely get you thinking.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: And there are a lot of different techniques to do, you know, St.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: Gallon's business model, et cetera, et cetera.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: Those are all in the Trump book and my other books.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: But but the point here is that if you're looking to get an idea, you want to use stimuli to trigger your own brain, and you get all this stuff that comes out of AI, for instance, and AI is a great stimuli creator.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: And from that, you can use that to as a brainstorming or ideation partner to help you get new ideas.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: And on that note, just a couple of quick last questions.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: So, where do you get your ideas from?
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: Or did you just explain that?
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: No, I I I do I do sometimes use AI.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um I, you know, part of I think being a creative principle is is sort of principle finding and principle transfer, right?
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: So whenever I'm when I'm watching a TV show, I'm looking for the creative principles about what that person did and studying.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there's a I don't know if you ever heard it, but there's a uh story methodology called Save the Cat.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you ever heard of that.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: But what is that?
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's a wonderful methodology.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, this guy um had hit he was a screenwriter and he analyzed what sucks what successful screenplays have, and he came up with 15 beats, right?
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so, for instance, you could go onto AI and say, and it knows save the cat.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: So you say, use the save the cat methodology to create a story for my grandkids about vampires and bubblegum, and they're coming this weekend.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: Give me that story and put their names in the story.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: So the point here is is because you said, How do I get my ideas?
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: I use I can use AI a lot as stimuli.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, or you know, if I don't feel well and I'm fantasizing, like in the Trump case, uh, that's where I did the idea came.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: But but a big part of it is sort of identifying um creative principles and having them always available to me.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: And and the key to creativity is pretty simple.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's just combining this thing with that thing to get a new thing.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: The one other thing I would say, uh, Jacqueline, is that you know, you can create a success footprint and you can describe what the perfect idea is, the characteristics of that idea without knowing what the idea is.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: And then your brain will work on that over time and and will often come up with an idea that will meet those criteria that you set.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's a wonderful trick you can use.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: No, that is excellent.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so last question for you before I wrap up.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: So, what what are you most curious about right now?
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my, I'm curious.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: I've got, and this sounds ridiculous, but I there are at least a dozen books I'm I I have in the hopper, right?
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm curious which one I will do next.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think the next one I will do is is it's it's something I've been working on for maybe 10 years now.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's sort of a he says humbly, you know, I see it as a sequel to Dr.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: Seuss's Oh, the places you'll go.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's about the creative process.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and so uh, but I have to do I'm curious as to which one I'm gonna do next, which book I'm gonna do next.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's part of what I'm curious about.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: And then I'm also curious about how I can use these creative principles that I know so well to to try to turn this Trump's playbook into a success.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, I don't know if you would call it a big success or best bestseller, but that'll be I'll be really curious to see how well I do at that, you know, because it's one thing to write a book, it's another thing, as any as many of your authors, I'm sure know, it's one thing to write, it's it's another to have become a bestseller.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what I'm curious if if I can pull that off.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I have no doubt that you can.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you are just so smart and such a delight.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I've enjoyed this.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_01: I enjoyed working with you long, long, long time ago.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: So, where can people find you if they want to learn more about uh Growth Engine uh Company or your books, etc.?
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: I you you know, I used to live in Stanford.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: We moved to Chickapeee, but you know, we're the growth-engine.com is still our website.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then people, you know, if they have questions, I'm happy to respond to them.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm you know, I'm this lonely guy up in Chicopee.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, my my email is uh B Mattimore, B is in Brian Mattimore, M-A-T-T-I-M-R-E, at growth, you know, G R O W T H then a hyphen, and then engine.com.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: So b Matamore at growth-engine.com.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: And people are free to reach out to me if they have any questions or you know, if they say, well, what's the best book you'd recommend?
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever it is, I'm I'm happy to, I'm happy to because it, you know, this is my wife's work.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: My great passion is to share the the frankly the the structure of creativity and how people can use that to their benefit for the world.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: So this is I mean, you can probably tell I'm pretty passionate about it.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm I'm happy to help anyone that has that kind of question.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you so much, Brian.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's been such a joy talking to you and your work and reading your books.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so I really appreciate the time and I wish you the best of luck.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: And uh can I wish you best of luck too?
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely, sure.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: Why not?
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: Best of luck to you, too.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much, Brian.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me on.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate it.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely our pleasure.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for being here.