Discovering New Things Leads to Disruptive Ideas

Why are new experiences essential for relevant, high impact ideas?

Firstly the brain is simply too complex for us (humanoids) to understand how it works.  What we do know is that the brain doesn’t work like a dictionary.  For example when thinking of the word ‘apple’  it doesn’t then process a linear list of items starting with ‘A’ or identify other fruits.  Instead it in fact processes all / or any associations with the thought ‘apple’ whether it could be: sweetness, a high school sweet heart, smell, pie or even fear (from the high school bully whom made you swallow it).

The general equation goes a little like this. More Experiences, More Often = Break through thinking!

And if you think its simply a matter of picking up a good book and learning from the experts you’d be grossly mistaken.  A true ‘learned experience’ must be a ‘lived’ one.  Much to my disappointment

If you’re looking to create really disruptive thinking then understand the more diverse knowledge your brain acquires the more connections it can make with fresh inputs of knowledge. It’s this ‘new stuff‘ that leads to novel ideas.

So the next time you’re taking a walk, walk the other way.  Sit in different chairs.  Talk with strangers.  Listen to people not like you and most of all share this blog!

NOTE: Thoughts in this post were inspired by a book titled innovators DNA.