Transcript

Why Fewer Options Make Better Ideas

0:00 Uh Hi there, welcome along to another episode of High Performance, which once again we've compiled to try and give you the greatest possible value from our show. You're about to hear from guests as diverse as Productivity Expert, Shane Parish, Lioness's manager, Serena Viehman, to Gymshark co-founder, Louis Morgan, and plenty more besides. And today's theme for myself and my co host Damien. Hey Damien. Hey Jake, how are you? Very well, thank you. Our theme today is creativity, how to encourage it and how to harness it. And it is a really fascinating element, right, around creativity. Cause we tend to think, right, that creativity begins when all the obstacles in life disappear. And it makes perfect sense in our heads, you know, give me more time, give me a bigger budget, give me more people, give me

0:43 a blank page and suddenly we can do anything. Now That sounds like freedom, right? But actually that Often. Rather surprisingly

0:53 just produces familiar results. And you've learned about this over years, Damien, and heard it quite often, haven't you? Yeah, I have Jake. And I've recently been reading uh a brilliant book by David Epstein. The title of it is called Inside the Box, Why Constraints Actually Make Us Better. And The point that we

1:10 David makes in his book is this very idea that When we have complete freedom, the brain will take the path of least resistance. So it ends up doing what we already know works or what we already have seen. um is really effective. So We actually sty me. our own creativity, our own ability to connect.

1:30 uh disparate dots. by giving people complete freedom. A couple of psychologists called Drew Boyd and Jacob Goldenberg, who called their their approach the same title of the book, inside the box. And Their challenge to the old instructions, I think, outside the box is dead simple. Innovation often begins when

1:49 by working more intelligently with the components and limitations that you already have in front of you. So a useful constraint removes the obvious escape route and it forces you beyond that default first answer that your brain will reach for. 'Cause that's often the safest and the most boring one. And it puts you into territory that you would never necessarily have searched for vol uh voluntarily. I remember reading years ago about uh Jack White from the White Stripes and one of the things that he would do when he was writing

2:16 And try to produce music was he'd set constraints for himself where he could only play certain chords or he was only allow certain instruments on records. And the idea behind it was just to find more creative ways of uh of making music than just doing the default over and over again. I love this. So If you're struggling with creativity. If you're wondering why you keep getting the same results despite the fact that you want to do different work, maybe this is the conversation for you. I think what we're saying here is. Freedom gives you options, but constraints Give you direction.

2:48 So what we're gonna do, we're gonna dive straight into a clip from one of our favorite ever guests. This is a guy called Shane Parrish, the creator of the Fine on street blogs, uh just an incredible thinker, someone who helped Damien and I to see the world. In a very different way when he joined us. He spoke to us about a key question. That we should all

3:07 Be asking. Before you send this out, I wanna know if this is your best work or not. And of course he didn't want to admit that was his best work because it wasn't his best work. And then so he went back, he went away for a couple of days, he did the exact same thing. And then he came back. Then he submitted it again, just to me this time, not to the team. And I was like, Is this your best work? And he said, No.

3:30 And he went back for another couple of days, he did it again. presentation polish almost perfect by the end of it. And I was like, great, this is what I expect from you going forward. And that story I learned from Henry Kissinger. I remember reading a story about Kissinger in the seventies where a staffer gave him a memo. And he's like, Is this your he didn't even read the memo, he's like, Is this your best work? And the staffer was like, No. He's like, Well, go do your best work. So this is interesting, right, Damien, let's talk about this. So the brain

3:58 Experience is fluency is truth. Okay. So if an idea arrives quickly and by the way, I spend my life in this place. If I get an idea quickly and it feels like the right thing,'cause it's arrived without friction. I latch onto it and often I say, Well I I trust my gut. This is my gut feeling, so I'm gonna go with it. And I really think it's interesting that Shane is encouraging us all to add this very small but quite deliberate constraint here, which is You cannot submit the first acceptable answer. Without examining it.

4:25 One more time. So th this kind of sense that the second look might be the thing that changes everything completely. Um you know, improving just one single sentence, removing one tiny unnecessary element. Those things often can expose all of your work to not necessarily being the very best. So the first idea, I guess

4:44 We need to say. The first thing that we think of proves that we can answer the question. The second pass really challenges us to ask whether we Have human thought. Whether we have creativity, whether we can really take it to the next level, whether we can

4:58 prove that we offer a point of difference to other people. Otherwise we get AI to do everything, right? This is a an AI conversation really, because it's a reminder that as human beings we possess something that computers don't, right? We'll be right back after a quick word from our partners. So I guess the question is then What are the tools that we could put in our tool kit?

5:21 What shade offers us there, Jake, is the bridge into three really useful tools that anyone can adopt. Each too removes a different kind of easy exit that your brain will naturally seek, which are unlimited time, unlimited methods. an unlimited scope. So let me just run through the three of them very quickly. So two one is creating a fake deadline for ourselves and

5:42 deciding when searching stops and we actually start getting on with the work. So a deadline is often treated as if it's a threat that hangs over the work, but If we use it intelligently, it can become a creative device. 'Cause it stops us making endless comparisons and cuts off the fantasy of having a perfect option. And it forces the mind to commit. To a workable one.

6:03 So the fake deadline means deliberately giving yourself less time than a task appears to deserve. And that's not to create careless final work, but it's to create a real first version before doubt and overanalysis take control. Goal two. Is the one rule. This is where you remove the method you use automatically. So the one rule means choosing a single artificial restriction for the task and then holding true to it.

6:26 the bull should take away a habit and force a different pathway or give the work a distinctive shape. The rule might be that if you're presenting no slides, no jargon, you've only allowed one sentence per I day. Only questions. One audience, one location. One camera, one ingredient, or one touch.

6:45 The point's not to have aesthetic purity. The point is to make autopilot. Unavailable. And then tool number three is to put it in a small box. Well you shrink the canvas, so every choice has got to earn its place.

6:59 So the small box idea reduces the number of variables before the work even begins. So you might have fewer slides or fewer words or fewer ingredients. If you're working on a project, you might have a smaller budget. Or think of just one customer. A large canvas encourages us to postpone because no individual choice ever appears to be decisive, but a small canvas makes every choice clear. You can't hide a weak idea behind

7:25 Down than it in volume. Mm. So why don't we look at how A number of our guests have taken these tools. And adopted them. In their own high performance.

7:34 World. Brilliant. Well can I take tool number one then? The fake deadline. I want to take us to uh Rene Mulenstein doing exactly this at Manchester United. Here's the clip and then We'll talk about it in just a moment.

7:50 I had uh five clips of Federer. Uh in games. Uh on five different tournaments and I asked the players, you need to tell me Which tournament it is. Um

8:03 What point what um What point it is, what game it is and what set. They started all laughing. The only thing you could figure out was this. You know, what tournament you say, yeah, oh it's well and go, or this is wimbling. The other three they couldn't.

8:17 And basically what I wanted to share with them was is that Uh. that Federer was always focused on the execution and the performance rather than whatever what's around them, what happened before or what was was going to happen. push the reset button and make sure that the players look ahead rather than

8:34 You know what's behind. That's where the mind goes to rest will follow. So I really love this idea, right, of René Mullenstein using clips of someone like Roger Federer to show United players how little his emotional state changed from one moment to another. Cause I think the players could identify, right, the tournament But they were unable to know, as he said, whether Federer was facing a routine point or a decisive one. I think this sort of travels nicely for us into this idea of pressure and creativity.

9:04 Like like a game of tennis, like a game of football, like the lives that all of us are living that are listening to this episode. We're not trying to solve the whole thing. We're not trying to solve the final. We're not trying to solve the season. Or the whole project in one thought. So this idea of reducing the horizon So actually the next point which is what all

9:22 That Roger Federer was dealing with the next point is a really small box. You know? It's enough. For us to So this kind of fake deadline I think

9:33 you'd agree it works in the same way. You know, we're not asking people to create the definitive answer. We're asking them to win. the next twenty minutes. So that is the thing that works for me and I and I'm a as you know, I'm a procrastinator. Um And w what really worked for me

9:49 And it definitely improved my creativity. was I said I have to start Within the next five minutes. And what I found, Damien, for me was that I would I would prevaricate and procrastinate for an hour, two hours. I'd find like boring jobs that don't need doing and I would do them purely to delay. And I wouldn't even know why I'm delaying the thing I'm delaying, right? But when I said I have to start in the next five minutes, I wouldn't find that I would only do five minutes of work. I would find that suddenly an hour or two hours of work comes out because

10:18 I think that we start the ball rolling and the kind of the energy starts to build and we remove the fear that we have inside us. So I love I love this idea of creating I suppose, you know, you talked about it as a fake deadline. I talked about it as a kind of a fake full stop. If I don't do it the next five minutes, then something will go wrong.

10:37 Yeah, I I think he's really powerful. I mean I know you're a big fan of Federer as well. I mean, what was that start that when he gave that famous commencement of Justin? Oh, yeah, so that he spoke about. He said he only won fifty four. Percent. of the points that he played for.

10:54 So the really important thing there is that Roger Federer is teaching all of us that the greatest tennis player in the world. Almost half the time it was on the losing end of a point. I think that's fantastic. Like Because we're so scared of failure.

11:08 And we think that every time we get an L It's moving us further away from our goals. This is a reminder for all of us that every time Roger Federer got an L He was strangely making One step closer.

11:20 Yeah, and and and again yet like as you t as you're describing it there, Jake, my my mind's sort of throwing up some of our other guests over the years, like Mel Robbins with a five four three two one rule of you countdown and then you have to get up. out uh out of bare door. Alan Wynne Jones, the Welsh will be great, talking to us about how his one USP was hard work. He would win the moment in training. to believe that he could win it when games were really competitive. That This is this fake deadline is such a powerful uh method for people. I would love anyone listening to this just to try it today.

11:55 And see, because I think not only will it make them more creative 'Cause anything's more creative if you go over it. But I think it will also make them more productive as well. We'll be right back after a quick word from our partners. So Let's talk about the one rule then, this idea, this sense that you spoke about of

12:13 Yeah, choosing a single artificial restriction for the challenge art. Can we play the clip from Serena Wigman and maybe you can talk to us about that? Yeah, one of my favorite coaches. Uh so I'd love to share.

12:25 Her insight into the bomb rule. We were ref we always horrible referees when we referee ourselves, but now we even on purpose were even worse than horrible. So they got really annoyed. And what we saw in the training session, we film all the training session, that they started doing totally different things. I mean one of the things that I've heard Savina speak about is this idea that we have to be better than the worst referee in performance. you know, that we can't ever use that as an excuse. So I like the fact that she would badly referee training games to show that same One rule principle in action. So

13:02 It's not the environment that players would choose, but it's the environment that they have. So complaining about it doesn't improve your next action. So the constraint here is forcing a different skill. It's about staying clear when the conditions feel unfair. So players learn to solve the decision rather than sacrificing their attention or their energy on things that they don't control. So aga again, if there's anyone listening to this, I think of

13:28 how they could apply it for themselves. So for the next ten minutes. You can only control your response to whatever's happening to you. rather than trying to influence the action, think about how we're responding. I remember Reading um a story from Jack Nicholas years ago, how he trained himself

13:46 To be patient. uh when and to slow his thinking down by driving behind slow moving trucks on a motorway. So even though we had the capacity to be able to drive past it really quickly. to see how long he could sit behind it for without getting impatient. He saw it as a way of learning to control his own response rather than his own impulses and reactions. I think it's really interesting this idea of um Forcing ourselves to learn about the world in a new way.

14:13 I mean, I remember when we interviewed you mentioned already Mel Robbins. And I hope you don't mind me telling the story, but off camera, before she joined us because it was done remotely, you went, Oh, I'm not sure about all this high five bollocks. Do you remember? And then when we got her on, and I said, Well, ask her the question. And you said, I'm not I'm a bit of a I'm a bit sceptical about all this. No, you said I'm a cynic w you said I'm a s I'm a cynic when it comes to this stuff. And she goes Damien tell me, how's cynicism working out for you in everyday life? And

14:43 I just think it's so powerful'cause there'll be people listening to this now that go, You want me to artificially change my environment to force me to do something in a different way? You know, like it's almost like going to one of the editors in high performance and going, Hey, guess what? You can now only use half the keys on the keyboard to edit these shows. And they'd be like, Well, what a stupid idea. But actually what that would force is more creativity from them. Hey, guess what? You can edit high performance with no external clips and no music. Doesn't make it a better show necessarily. You wouldn't want to do it all the time. Well, in David Epstein's book, he talks about something like that, where he talks about The Doctor Zeus books, you know, the the green eggs and ham. And that came about because uh a publisher challenged

15:21 Whoever Doctor Zeus was, I don't remember the i his real name. But he could only write a book using fifty words. So the old Doctor Zeus series only uses the 50 words that the publisher gave him and it made him be creative and come up with innovative ways of engaging kids that you know, have ended up selling millions of books. So sometimes that that constraint forces us, as we say in to to look

15:46 for innovative ways that your brain would never seek out if uh if complete freedom was offered to it. So cool. Can I now talk about uh or bringing in a guest who I think perfectly epitomises the final box, which is this idea of You love this one, didn't you? Making something small. Yes. I'll just set the I'll sort of set the scene for this one for people. So Um when we first started high performance

16:09 And this is interesting, right? Because this plays perfectly into what we're talking about here. When we started high performance, it was way smaller than it is now. I reckon when we recorded this interview with Lewis and we got Wheeler Evergreen producer's been with us from day one on the call. Well, when we record this episode with Lewis I reckon we had five or six staff working on high performance, right? Probably.

16:30 Five or six people max. We now have how many? Forty? Uh we produce one show. How many do we do now? Seven, seven different shows? Through all of our programs.

16:41 So We were a way smaller team. We were existing in a world where high Like podcasting itself was a small box. Like you were so restricted, there was no video Um

16:52 Like advertising was totally different. Nobody was kind of linking their podcast to their socials. People weren't creating brands out of podcasts. It basically was, as you remember, Damien, you and I having a conversation, enjoying the conversation and going home. But weirdly Creativity was so central to the business in those early days. And that's how we ended up doing a tour. Where we traveled around the country. And it was like a bit spit and sawdust, wasn't it? Like we were like, Oh, can we get a guest to come and join us? Yeah. And you were like, Yeah, I've spoken to um Steve Clark, the Scotland manager. He'll be with us. for an episode in Glasgow, wherever we were, and then we were like, Oh, who can we get in Birmingham?

17:29 Oh, how about Lewis Morgan, the co founder of Gymshark? And then he turns up on stage and we have a chat with him. Anyway. That's how we ended up where we were. And it's the perfect example of the fact that creating a small box or having restrictions Actually man, it's more creative. How funny that we would be talking about it on today. Um And this is what Lewis told us. It was a great question actually that you came up with, Damien, I believe, which is No, it was yours, this one, Jake. You were this one. Yeah, yeah, I've got giving you the credit. Creativity's also being the giving credit. You came up with this idea, because I remember He said I'm I'm gonna ask him this and

18:02 And Lewis came alive, didn't he? Like people uh in the audience could see his his eyes lit open, the energy as he then went into Delboy Wheeler dealer mode. And I'm saying that. Brilliant. Sweet. Well that's um

18:17 Let's play this for you. This is Lewis Morgan. And we asked him, What would he do? If we gave him a thousand pounds and asked him to turn it into a much larger amount of money. If someone took all of your assets away and then gave you a thousand pounds. What would you do with it? So that's from Liam.

18:35 In P seven where I live. He's gone home. Leyma isto eh? Hello, Liam. Thank you very much for being here this evening.

18:44 Uh I'd probably flip on Facebook if I'm on this marketplace. I'd probably buy loads of different things like Golf clubs. Old furniture and I and I'd I'd sell'em. That's the e that would be the easiest way for me to make money that's guaranteed. I can also say, Yeah, you can put it into crypto w

19:00 All this Whiskier stuff, let's say. Yeah. If I've only got a thousand pounds, I've got nothing else to my name. I'm gonna get a stable job and I'm gonna flip on the sword.

19:08 And do you think you could make genuine money out of a thousand pounds? Oh yeah, easy. Really. Yeah. Definitely. Yeah. There's so many different niches.

19:16 Okay, I'll just use golf clubs or People don't even know. Fast to sell up a golf club, but you can get like a nice title swedge and you can get it for 60 win, you can sell it for 100. There's for you can't do that. I mean, you can't make almost double bubble on most things. See, this is really interesting, right, Damien, because I think you look at that question And you think

19:37 It's a question about not having enough money. But I think actually it's a question about Um needing to be creative, isn't it? It's forcing you to find speed, to observe the world, to be ingenious. To think in a way that other people aren't, to put bravery at the forefront of what you're doing. It's of it's nothing to do with the money actually, isn't it?

19:57 Yeah, definitely. And and and and again, it it's a theme that we've spoken about. Uh for the last seven years is this idea of The um of Taking responsibility for the circumstances you have. And Lewis was at pains to point out he he hadn't done particularly great at school. He wasn't from an affluent background. He didn't have a contact list to die for.

20:19 But he saw himself as being in charge of the opportunities he created for himself. And that was the message he was keen to uh to give us that The We can We can make the best of any situation we find ourselves in, however humble it might first appear to be.

20:35 Yeah, I I I think it's so interesting and I love I love looking back on the conversations we've had over the years. And it's a great reminder for people that scarcity, I think can make these hidden assets. suddenly visible. And I would ask people, I'd challenge you at this point to think what in your world Are the things you have that you haven't seen. You just haven't seen them. They are there, but you just haven't seen them. And they could make a difference to your life. Imagine you have scarcity. You know, you have one day.

21:00 To change. your setup, your life, your situation. What would you do? Um look, I know you've put together a little challenge for our listeners, Damien, which I think's really cool. It'll take them only fifteen minutes, um and I think can really change things for them. So do you wanna talk us through it before the end of the episode? So this is a fifteen minute um challenge for Any listener to choose one piece of work that they've been delaying'cause it might feel that it's too open ended or it's too important and they need to have the perfect moment to start or it might just feel a little bit too difficult to begin.

21:32 So The first minute is define one concrete output. So not something vague like I'm gonna work on the eye there, but One page, one idea, or one message or decision. That you can that you're gonna take.

21:44 The second minute is set a twelve minute fake deadline for yourself. And then the third one is to choose one rule. For example, you're not allowed to research it. It might just think about one person that you want to impress. It might be summarized your challenge in five sentences. And then the next challenge is to work inside that small box without be negotiating it or bargaining for alternatives. Just work with what you've given yourself. And then

22:10 And ask Shane Parish his question. Is that your best work? And then After you've answered that. Improve one thing only, the central idea, the opening, the final sentence, the decision, whatever it is, just work on one aspect of it.

22:25 'Cause the idea's not about creating perfect in fifteen minutes. It's about trying to prove that movement And originality. Don't require perfect conditions. And that Is the very genesis.

22:38 of where all creativity starts. I love that, Damien. I love it. And I love I love having these conversations. I mean You know, we're in the sports category and podcast. I mean, we shouldn't be really,'cause we're so much more than just a sports show. But you know, as we record this, as we have this conversation, we are the Once again the number one sports show in the UK. And I sometimes think it's really interesting just to stop and reflect for a moment and thank people really for their continued support and

23:04 Yeah. Patience with the two of us really, that here we are seven years, seven plus years into the journey. And despite the fact there have been thousands and thousands of new podcasts created, including some behemoths in the podcasting space with people with far higher profile and bigger budgets than us, that we can still sometimes Punch above our weight and turn Turn on our phones and see that we're number one, um In the charts. It does mean a lot, doesn't it?

23:30 Oh, massively. Yeah, yeah. It's uh We've always said this, like I never take anybody's time for granted, you know, in that age of infinite choices, the fact that People allow us to come with them in the commute or the dog walk or in the gym and exercise with them and they and they trust us enough. to listen and to and to allow us to be part of their world. There's

23:51 It's incredible. It's incredibly humbling. So thank you to anybody that um that has allowed us over the Last seven years to be part of your world. Like you've said, Jake, uh When we spoke about Johnny Wilkinson quite early on, it and

24:06 He said that line the You know, sometimes you've got to make sure that the the climb is worth the view at the top. And I think the climb of what we've been through, the amazing people we've been lucky enough to meet and to work with and the opportunities we've had to pick the brains of some of the planet's finest people.

24:23 That's Like that's been Uh the biggest privilege. Yeah. So cool. Well Damien, thank you so much for your time.

24:30 Lovely to chat to you. Um please if you enjoy these conversations, if they mean a lot to you, if they're valuable to you. We don't ask for much. All we ask is that you like and subscribe to the show. Maybe share it with just one person that you think could take value from this conversation that we've had today about creativity and just keep on coming back for more from high performance. Wherever you're listening in the world, we don't take your support for granted. It means a great deal that people right now, right across the world tuning in and listening to our show. So Have a great one.

25:00 Thank you for listening. Remain humble. Curious and empathetic. And we'll see you next time.