May 24, 2022 • 41 mins
KILLER… perhaps not the most obvious acronym for a constructive process, but Tim Duggan believes the best ideas are exactly that: Kind, Impactful, Loved, Lasting, East and Repeatable.
Having penned the much-heralded & highly awarded ‘Cult Status’, Tim’s follow-up title provides a simple 8-step methodology for turning good ideas into great ones by harnessing the power of creativity.
During his second appearance on That Digital Village Show!, he sits down with Luke and Paul to give invaluable insight into his latest book, why he prefers hippos over gorillas and the need to schedule boredom. It’s an unmissable episode for anybody looking to harness their creativity - a quality he believes all have engrained - to provide fresh thinking for seemingly complex problems. I think we all agree it’s something we could use right now…
Bio:
Tim Duggan is an author, advisor and optimist who firmly believes in the power of business to do good.
He has co-founded several digital media ventures, most notably Junkee Media, the leading digital publisher for young Australians, which was acquired by ASX-listed oOh!media.
His first book, ‘Cult Status: How To Build A Business People Adore’, was named the Best Entrepreneurship and Small Business Book at the 2021 Australian Business Book Awards. His second book on creativity in the workplace, Killer Thinking, is out now.
He’s also currently the Chairman of the Digital Publishers Alliance, a group representing over 100 titles from the leading independent publishers in the country, as well as working with a range of businesses that he’s passionate about.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome back to another episode of the digital
village podcast, the podcast,all about the latest tech
trends, impacting businesspeople and planet.
In this episode, we're touchingon the topic I work closely in,
in my day to day life,specifically, customer
experience switching things upthis week, Luke and Paul from
digital village will be hostingand they will be joined by Tim
Duggan, author of two books.
(00:23):
Now, cult status, and the newlyreleased killer thinking.
They'll be discussing thepractical and mindset of
creativity, how we're allcreative and the processes you
can use to maximize this ineverything you do for yourself.
And in business today's episodeis also sponsored by Macari
financial derivatives marketexchange.
They've helped with a new,incredible space and tech for
(00:44):
this podcast.
So thank you guys.
We appreciate the help.
So sit back and enjoy theepisode.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
So welcome back to the digital village podcast.
Episode nine on, uh, a subjectthat both of us are absolutely
passionate about, which is a newbook, Luke
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Indeed called killer thinking by Tim Duggan.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
So Jason has had enough both of us, apparently.
Yeah.
So he's disappeared off toEurope.
I got off three months.
I can't blame him.
The weather he's been shocking.
70% of the day, since thebeginning of the year have had
rain.
Interest rates are climbing.
The federal election happensnext week.
So by the time you hear this,the country will be run by a
Motley crew of either labor orliberals with a smattering of
(01:29):
till colored independence.
Um, the stock market's crumblingcrypto is in bits after the
lunar crash, Elon Musk is havingdoubts about whether or not he
should get wet to, to Twitter.
And Mike Cannon Brooks hasparked his tanks on the lawn in
front of AGL.
It's all kicking off inAustralia.
I can tell you, and against thismaelstrom of technology driven
(01:51):
catastrophes, our next guest haschosen to launch his second book
to teach us all well, how tounleash the creative beast
within, uh, waiting to createperhaps the next Netflix or keep
up or canvas.
So welcome Tim Duggan.
Lovely to have you back on theshow.
Speaker 4 (02:07):
Thank you very much.
It is wonderful to be back here.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
We've got a lot to talk about in a relatively short
period of time.
So we are not gonna talk anawful lot, but we hope you will.
Um, both Luke and I have haveread killer thinking.
It's an really, really excitingbook and a fantastic follow up
to Colt stasis, which was anaward-winning book.
You wrote two or three years agonow, and we interviewed you on
that one.
(02:30):
Um, so we're looking forward tohearing more about it.
I'd like to start really by justasking you what was the
motivation behind starting towrite that book, having written
col status.
Speaker 4 (02:41):
It's funny that Colt status was my first book and
writing.
The first book is unusualbecause you don't know if
anyone's going to read itI kind of wrote it for myself
and yeah, in my wildest dreams,if one person read it and
thought it was good, that to mewas success.
Um, luckily enough, lots ofpeople read it and enjoyed it.
(03:03):
And it really started methinking about, okay, what would
a follow up look like?
And I wanted to explore the sameworld as cult status.
If that makes sense.
I, I live in a world.
I'm an optimist and I'd live ina world where I believe business
can be used as a force for good.
I believe creativity can solveproblems.
Um, and I wanted to write a bitof a companion book, if that
(03:27):
makes sense, going deep into onearea of running a business,
which is creativity and ideas.
And either coming up with theidea for a business at the start
of a journey, or once you havean established business, how do
you use creativity, creativityto problem solve and to sure,
kind of get some solutions tothings that are pretty hard
(03:50):
there, a new way.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
So the thing that really struck me when I started
reading it was your belief thateveryone is creative.
So, you know, I, I'm an engineerby heart by trade that's where I
sort of learned my, uh, sort ofwent through university and into
, into business.
I never thought of myself asbeing a creative person, but why
do you think everyone iscreative?
Speaker 4 (04:10):
I wholeheartedly believe not just believe no
everyone is creative.
All of us as kids are encouragedto be creative.
We get crayons, we get paint.
Yeah.
We get, you know, told to makethings and break things.
Then teenage years come on.
And maybe it's a bit cool uncoolto kind of be creative or you,
(04:30):
you know, you might getdistracted by boys or girls or
other things gonna going on.
Um, and what happens then isthat we become adults and some
people have creativity in theirtitles.
So for some people you might bea creative at work.
You might be a copywriter, acreative director did.
Yeah.
And I, what I realized and Icame up through advertising
(04:51):
agencies in my early twentiesbefore co-founding junky media
in my mid to late twenties.
And I realized that when you getpeople around a table to talk
about creativity or to come upwith ideas, yes, the people who
have creative in their title arepretty good at things, but
there's such amazing.
Creativity comes from unexpectedplaces.
(05:13):
So anytime we would get to acreative ideation session and
would get someone from financeto come in, we would get the
receptionist to come and sit inthe table.
And the way that they think wasalways extraordinary, they would
always would start off in thesame place with briefs.
And this is what we're trying tosolve.
And everyone would then go offin their own way.
(05:33):
And that just really made merealize that everyone, including
you, Paul are extremely creativewho knew well,
Speaker 3 (05:40):
Yeah.
Was there a lot of pushback orwas it challenging for people
who wouldn't normally do that tocome in and participate in that
kind of process?
Speaker 4 (05:47):
It, it is.
Yeah.
Cuz cuz creativity is aself-belief thing.
Yeah.
Some people believe that theyare not creative.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Well I think it's kind of like trained out of
people a little bit.
Isn't it?
As you
Speaker 4 (05:57):
Very much.
So go
Speaker 3 (05:58):
Through a, a non-creative career path.
People would maybe like you notto be so creative if you're in
like accounting or finance
Speaker 4 (06:06):
so, I mean,
I've got, I bet some wonderfully
creative accountants.
Yes they do.
You sure do great things with mytax bills um, so yeah, I
think, I think creativity is abelief.
And what I wanted to do withthis book was to empower people,
to read it for anyone to pick itup.
Even if you don't think you arecreative yeah.
(06:26):
And read it and get some kind ofinspiration around, you know,
what, maybe I can think up anamazing idea.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
So, so one of the themes that come through very
strongly in the book is the waythat you set up a creative
environment to allow everybodyto contribute.
Um, and this idea that, um, it'sa mix of being creative on your
own and then creative in a groupof people.
Um, and making sure that whenthat group come together, you
(06:54):
don't have what you describe ashippos.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Do you wanna tell us
Speaker 4 (06:59):
About that?
Yeah.
So hippos hippos is this greatterm that I came across.
I don't know where I originallydiscovered it, so it's not my
original concept, but it standsfor the highest paid person's
opinion.
H I P P O.
And it means when you cometogether to creatively ideate to
come up with ideas, often thehighest paid person's opinion is
what will dictate.
(07:19):
Whether someone will talk aboutan idea, whether someone will
think something's good or not.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Even just their presence, like sitting in the
corner, people will, theyradiate this kind of influence,
Speaker 4 (07:29):
Even when they're not in the room often, it's like,
what will the boss think of thisidea?
And I therefore have, you know,I, I spent a lot of time in
creative brainstorm over theyears and I talk a lot in the
book around how much I dislikebrainstorm.
We'll gotta
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Come onto that.
Speaker 4 (07:46):
yeah.
Okay.
We'll, we'll get to, that's a,that can be a whole podcast in
itself.
Um, so yeah, I thinkpsychological safety and people
being, uh, comfortable insharing ideas that are generally
fragile when you come up withsomething that's really
important to the whole process.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Yes.
Yes.
And, and in the book you do thesame thing that you do in cult
status, which is to give peoplethese IRLs yes.
Which are basically simpleinstructions or little work
exercises to do, to extract someof these things.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
Yeah.
The, the wonderful thing aboutwriting a book is that you can
write it for people likeyourself.
And the way that I love to readbooks is I love to get inspired.
So like show me this big visionof something.
And then once I understand thevision, tell me how I can
actually do it myself.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Yes.
So ILS stands for
Speaker 4 (08:41):
Stands for in real life, in real
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Life.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
I was actually thinking about that as I was
going through each chapter, itstarts off with like quite a lot
of like context setting.
And like, as you say, broadvision and I, I was thinking, I
was really interested by this,by the title of this chapter.
And we are talking about this ina way and I'm thinking, oh my
gosh, and this there's,you know, this is a lot of, you
(09:06):
know, awesome experience.
And this is a great story, butthen it comes down to the end,
to the end of the chapter.
And like, this is what it is.
This is how you do it.
Yeah.
These are the exercises that youcan go through.
It's like, oh, this is great.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
Yeah.
Then that's actually how I tryto write each chapter.
Yeah.
So I try to start big and startwith what's the vision, what's
an example.
That's gonna illustrate this.
What's a company that peoplemight know or may have never
heard of that you can introducethem to, and then just narrow it
down, narrow it down.
By the time you get to the endof the chapter, hopefully people
should be like, yep.
(09:38):
I agree with you.
That's how I wanna do it.
Yeah.
And then it's okay.
Here's how to actually do it.
Get out a piece of paper, writedown this, heading, answer these
questions and that's how I liketo work.
Yeah.
And that's why I think I get toindulge a little bit in how I
like to learn, which is inspireme and then show me how to do
it.
Yeah.
And that's what I try to do withother people.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
So that's great.
Let's, let's go back to thebeginning.
Killer.
Not something you would normallyassociate with something that's
either loved or adored orimpactful, but killer thinking.
So what came first?
The acronym or the, the word orthe combination of those two
words.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
Great question.
um, the word came first.
So, so killer thinking I had asan idea and the way that I
thought about killer thinkingwas I didn't want to write a
book of about creativity.
That was just about killerideas.
The concept of a killer idea iskind of pretty well known.
That's a concept that existslong before I put pen to paper.
(10:33):
But the way that I thought aboutit was killer thinking was that
unique combination of killerideas and killer execution
together.
Right.
Put those two things together,that
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Process,
Speaker 4 (10:41):
Right?
Yes.
And you have a process of killerthinking.
So that came first, the name ofthe book.
And then when I started to speakto people all around the world
who had what I thought wereexamples of killer thinking.
So it was, I went down toMelbourne and spent some time
with Travis Garone who was aco-founder one of the
(11:01):
co-founders of November.
Yeah.
I think that's a really killeridea.
Yeah.
And then I spent some time onthe phone with Hemi Ortiz,
Marino who started LA Lala,which is where they shut down
the streets, a Bogata to carsevery Sunday.
Yeah.
And so I started speaking to allthese different people about
these ideas, Abigail ForSight,who co-founded keep cup.
(11:23):
And as I was speaking to them,after I do every interview, I
write down little summaries tomyself of like, okay, what's the
crux of what they're trying tosay.
And then I try and figure outonce I've done 10 20 of these
interviews, I try and connectthe dots.
Yeah.
What do these people have incommon that I can pull out to
help other people do the samething.
As I started doing that, a bunchof these things started jumping
(11:46):
out.
So things like, uh, killer inthe book stands for kind
impactful, loved lasting, easyand repeatable.
And as I started looking atthese ideas, I realized they had
things in common and then itstarted all fall into place.
And there was this light bulbmoment that was, could this
work, if it spelled out the wordI needed to look up at the SOS
Speaker 2 (12:06):
,
Speaker 4 (12:07):
There was the SOS and some of the words to make sure
that they really fit into there,but the bulk of it was there.
And it was a really nice kind oflight bulb moment.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
It's, it's an incredibly powerful metaphor.
And, and I, and very easy tounderstand the thing that
strikes me about it as well ishow that relates back to what
you do with cult status intalking about creating adored
organization.
So you start with love.
Yes.
Cult status starts withadoration or, you know, creating
organizations that people wantto be part of.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
Yeah.
That, that inter labor, it's
Speaker 2 (12:38):
A, it's very powerful , uh, way of looking at how we
generate think or how wegenerate great ideas and turn
them into killer ideas.
Ah
Speaker 3 (12:46):
Yeah.
Or even make places where greatideas happen.
Yes.
I think if you have an adoredorganization and you were
talking about this in like thelast podcast, like, you know,
having, you know, kindness as acenter of a business, this
brings in people who are goingto be very interested, you know,
in creating things that, thatare, you know, really killer and
that's and moving those ideas,as you say, from good to great
(13:09):
to killer.
There's a lot of investment inthere already.
Speaker 4 (13:12):
Yeah.
Yeah.
The interplay between the twoconcepts was important to me.
Yeah.
I didn't want to do a completeU-turn on that world of cult
status that I really believe in,which is how you build a
business that has, is reallyloved and adored.
And so the interplay, the factthat in killer, one of the LS in
killer stands for loved loved.
(13:32):
Yeah.
And really, if you wanna go deepinto that read cult status.
Yep.
So it's, there's, there's areally lovely interplay between
the two and I wasn't intentionaljust came out that way and then
once it started coming out, um,it's funny when you write a
book, you have a, a thesis atthe start on what a topic could
be, and then you just chase itdown, whichever path it goes
(13:55):
down.
It's not until the end, you canstand back and look at it and
realize that it, where it hasgone.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
So at what point did, did the, the eight steps emerge
from that process?
Speaker 4 (14:07):
Yeah.
So not until the second draft.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
Wow.
Oh, wow.
Okay.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
So interestingly, the first draft of the book, I had
most of the content there.
Yeah.
But I didn't, I was trying tonot put myself into a box.
So the first book col status hasseven steps to achieving Colt
status.
And step one, do this step two,do this.
And I tried to write my secondbook thinking, I don't want to
(14:34):
just do the exact same step to,I L let's think, think about a
whole different way of thinkingabout this.
So i'vee it.
And it wasn't quite there.
It was, it was a bit jumbled.
Um, it didn't quite make sense.
And I, I sent it off to mypublisher and they read it and
said to me, have you consideredputting it into steps the same
(14:55):
as go status but I said,I had, and I dunno if I wanna do
steps again.
And he said, just try it.
Yeah, I tried it.
And the whole thing just clickedinto this.
It was just, just made sense.
I had the steps inside my head.
Yeah.
Yes.
I'd been playing around withdifferent language around it.
(15:16):
And as soon as I did that anddid steps, chapter big picture
thinking IRL, step two, chapterbig picture thinking IRL, it
just made sense.
And it made me realize that whena reader reads a book, there's
something that I've beenthinking about this for years
and going over it and a readerpicks it up.
And it's the first time theyprobably thought about this in
(15:36):
this way.
Yeah.
You really need to sign post andmake it easy for someone to
understand, to take them on ajourney.
Mm.
And for me doing, explainingwhat it is explaining the killer
framework and then saying, theseare the eight steps, step one,
step two, step three.
And then the end you say, andthese were the eight steps that
you just, you just learned thatmakes it easy for someone to
(15:56):
understand.
Yes.
And that's really important whenit comes to non-fiction books.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
It is.
So let's just dive into some ofthose steps because there are
some incredibly examples of them, uh, in, in each of the steps.
Um, and the first one is be yourown
Speaker 4 (16:10):
Therapist, be your problems.
Therapist's right.
Your
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Problem.
Therapist's problem therapist.
And you give this example ofseven 11.
Do you want just talk us throughthat example?
I love, I love
Speaker 4 (16:19):
Classic.
I love this story.
Um, and it's so fun again, toresearch and think about all of
these things and they're thingsthat you just discover when
you're thinking about a bookthat might be in the back of
your head, or when you doresearch and broad reading, you
might discover it somewhere.
So it was talking about sevenelevens and it started off in,
(16:39):
um, Canada in the 1980s.
And there was lots of youngpeople would turn up to seven 11
car parks, um, particularlyafter hours.
So when I got to 7, 8, 9o'clock, they would just hang
out in the car, parks, listeningto music, doing what young
people do.
Good, good on.
They needed somewhere to go.
Yeah.
And I needed to make sure inwhen I wrote this story, that
this is not an young personthing, this is more just an
(17:00):
example of killer thinking.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Pre-internet
Speaker 4 (17:03):
Age, pre-internet age.
Absolutely.
Totally.
What else were they going to do?
Yeah.
Needed some,
Speaker 2 (17:07):
No social media.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
Exactly.
So the, so the 1980s kids inteenagers in Canada would go and
sit in Seven-Eleven car parks.
So seven 11 were trying tofigure out how do we creatively
solve this problem?
And the way that they did it,first of all, was to think
through some of the obviousideas.
So obvious ideas would be let'shire security, guards, security
(17:28):
guards can stand there and movethe kids on.
Let's go out and tell the kids,Hey kids, maybe you should, you
know, go away.
Let's turn the lights off.
You know, maybe if they turn thelights off, they're not gonna
hang around.
All of these things were kind ofobvious ideas.
And in this, in the scheme ofthe book, that's probably a good
idea, a good idea.
It might be just be turning thelights off.
(17:49):
It's pretty easy to do.
It's got some drawbacks, mostideas.
I, I, um, hypothesize are prettygood ideas, but they had a, um,
a brainstorming session and theygot everyone together.
And the way that they tried tothink about this was we need to
put ourselves in the minds ofthese young people.
(18:09):
So if I'm a young person and I'mgoing to a seven 11 car park,
why am I doing that?
It's because I want to seem coolto my friends.
I wanna go there might wannapick someone up, might wanna
chat, chat to someone I'd beencalling up on their home phone
and then this the 1980s.
Yeah.
Um, so the whole idea of tryingto look cool was the main
motivator of why young peoplewere there.
(18:29):
So someone in the meetingsuggested this really simple
idea, and this is, uh, where, uh, the solution came from.
They said, why don't we make ituncool for the kids to hang out
in the car park and the way ofmaking it uncool was playing
really daggy music.
Yeah.
So either classical music orBarry Manalow Barry man was
(18:50):
used, the Manalow effect wasused a lot in Australia.
Yeah.
Um, and so they decided theyturned on their speakers and
they started playing classicalmusic through the speakers.
And all of the kids, all of asudden were like, this makes me
look uncool.
I don't wanna do this.
And they left the car park.
So really simple solution thatnow has been used, used all over
the world.
(19:10):
Um, we won't go into the effectsof displacing young people just
where you don't want'em to be byplaying music, but more the idea
of, if you really wannaunderstand how to solve a
problem, you need to understandthe problem better than anyone
else
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Quite.
And it's a great example.
And there are, there are lots ofothers.
I dunno if you wanna pick outany Luke from, um, the other
seven or eight steps, one of theones I was really keen to talk
about was this, uh, one aboutplus each other's ideas.
And did you coin the phrasecelebration?
Is that your, um, youtrademarked that one?
Speaker 4 (19:44):
Uh, so Isaac, Isaac, Isaac Asimov, who's a science
fiction writer.
He originally came up with the,with the, with this term
celebration when he wrote aletter, the us, um, uh, the us
government were trying tocreatively problem solve how to,
um, have a MIS a ballisticmissile defense system in the us
(20:04):
.
This was kind of in the sixties,I think.
Um, and they thought let's get ascience fiction writer along,
which is an amazing idea becausescience fiction writers can come
up who was a, a scientist aswell.
Yes.
Who scientist an amazingscientist and would, would
certainly add a lot to asession.
Absolutely.
Um, and he didn't end up goingto the brainstorming session,
but he wrote a letter to themwhich talked about creativity.
(20:27):
And in the letter, he talksabout that.
Firstly, the most importantthing to do is to come up with
your own ideas first, which iswhere this came from.
And he just had this offhandedterm in there where he just said
in this celebration session,something, something, something.
And I just stopped when I readthat and I was like celebration
session.
And I'd been trying to think ofa really good name for me, that
(20:48):
combined cerebral.
So coming up thinking and acelebration.
Yeah.
And as soon as I sawcelebration, I was like, Isaac,
as OVV you've done it again.
so I can't takecredit for the word, but I can
take credit for the process.
It is a beautiful word.
Isn't it?
It is a beautiful, it's awonderful word.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
So we need, so, so talk us through the process.
What is it we're talking hereabout the balloons.
Speaker 4 (21:09):
Are we?
Yes.
Yeah, yeah.
I've been the party and the.
Yeah.
So, so in order to come up withideas collectively, the moment,
one of the tools that we have isbrainstorming.
Yep.
Brainstorming invented the 1940sby a guy called Alex Osborn.
Um, a very smart, amazingcreative guy who started at
agency called B, B, D O, whichstill exists to this day.
(21:30):
And you know, sure.
There's some slightly sexistparts to what he, what he says.
He says that brainstorm shouldbe mostly men coming together,
but this was the 1940s when hewrote this.
So it needs, you could say
Speaker 2 (21:41):
That in those
Speaker 4 (21:42):
Days taken with a, it was like a synonym per person
then wasn't it yeah.
Yeah.
It was, it was, you know, youhave to read these things with
the, the lens, through whichthey were written.
Sure.
But brainstorming therefore for80 years has been the main way
that we've come up with ideas as, as a group, particularly in
work environments, there's sixmain problems with it.
I won't go into all the problemshippos or one of them introverts
(22:04):
is a big problem.
When you do that group think isa problem focusing on the wrong
problem, focus.
There's lots of things wrongwith it, but probably the most
important thing wrong with it isthat we are living in a hybrid
world now where, when AlexOsborn came up with this,
everyone went into an office.
Now we live in a
Speaker 2 (22:21):
World.
No, no
Speaker 4 (22:21):
Preparation, no, no preparation needed.
You can, yeah.
You can walk into a room and youcan turn off and do it think of
ideas, but we're now living in aworld where some people are on
zoom.
Some people are at home, somepeople are in an office.
There's this kind of new way ofthinking about, um, creativity.
So I came up with a very simple,um, amalgamation of all
(22:44):
different sorts of brainstormingtechniques and it's called
celebration.
And the very simple way of doinga celebration is there's three
parts.
And I've tried to make this asmemorable as possible.
I tested this out on my husbandas I was writing the book.
So I wrote most of his bookwhile he was in a camper van.
And we'll talk about it.
We'll talk about that later.
We will, should have been funtimes.
It was, it was a very fun time.
And as I came up with little, um, parts, I try to make things as
(23:07):
mnemonic as possible because Ithink going into your heads,
that's why killer acronym is amnemonic.
Um, and the celebration systemhas three parts to it and they
all relate to a party, acelebration.
The first part is blowing upballoons.
The second part is writing outcards and the third part is
sharing the presence.
And that's the three parts youneed to remember.
(23:28):
Um, I go into more detail in thebook, but blowing up balloons is
investigating the problem thatyou're trying to solve.
And putting that into a balloonshape, writing out cards is
spending time individuallycoming up with ideas yourself.
So ride them onto post-it notesor pieces of paper.
And then sharing presence iswhere you come together as a
group and you start sharing theideas and figuring out what they
(23:49):
have in common.
Um, and to really,
Speaker 3 (23:51):
That's great.
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:52):
It's a really simple process.
And, and it's the end ofbrainstorming as we know it.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
Well, I was, we're very excited to that.
The big part of what we do ismove people beyond brainstorming
to actually yeah.
Help them understand whatthey're trying to solve.
Amazing.
What's an effective way to comeup with ideas.
So what's an effective way tocome up with solutions.
Again, going, as you say,diverge, divergent, convergent,
and I was too far away from themicrophone.
(24:18):
Um, and uh, actually the, theperson who is most involved with
delivering that services overthere telling me off about the
microphone.
.
Yes.
But yeah.
And so I was, I thought it waswonderful to that.
Cuz you can see the differencein people can't you when they
they're going through thatprocess.
And it's so different to cuzlike an hour long brainstorming
(24:41):
session can seem like such aDrudge of an activity ah,
it really can, and you've caughtit ation.
It should be something thatpeople look forward to.
It should be fun.
Speaker 4 (24:49):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, and exciting actuallyblow up actual balloons and put
me in
Speaker 3 (24:53):
A room, let's
Speaker 4 (24:54):
Make this fun.
I have done, I did countlessexperiments in the lead up to
this with businesses of alldifferent size, trying to figure
out what's the best way of doingthis.
Mm.
And then since the book has comeout a couple of weeks ago, I've
done a bunch of workshops withcompanies of different sizes.
Yeah.
Just teaching them the method.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And there is nothing better thanseeing a group of people all
(25:17):
equally contributing to IDgeneration.
Mm.
So you get five to eight peopletogether and the way that you,
we share the presence, which issharing the ideas is that you go
around the room whoever'sbirthday is coming up next.
Yeah.
Is the next person share theidea?
Yeah.
Keeping the celebration themegoing.
Yeah.
And it's amazing because you dothis and all of a sudden you
have, as I said, you've gotsomeone in finance sitting there
(25:40):
who normally would notparticipate.
Who is there going, I've gotthis kind of crazy idea cuz
their mind has gone off intothis other place and then they
have this idea.
And then what we talk about inthe book is the idea of plusing
it, which is something that Istole from, um, Walt Disney.
Hold on.
Um, with the credit, with thecredit Frank you off.
Yes.
Yes.
Um, and it's all about buildingon other people's ideas to make,
(26:02):
to make them better.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
Yeah.
That's really great.
And you can, you're getting somuch more value out of all the
people in the room that way.
Right.
Rather than just like a fewpeople.
Um, and you know, then leavingthe other people who might not
say much or contribute much isjust, I think it makes so much
sense for any organization tothink about doing that.
So, you know, taking that onbecause suddenly you look at all
(26:25):
the people who are there and youthink, oh my gosh, everyone,
everyone has so much tocontribute.
Speaker 4 (26:30):
So, and that's how you build creative confidence.
So to go back to one of the veryfirst questions you asked Paul
around, how do you know thebelief that everyone is
creative?
You give them the confidence andtools to be able to come up with
ideas.
And Jenny from accounts comes toa celebration session.
She's listened to, she's heardshe has great ideas.
(26:50):
They get built upon.
Yeah.
The next time she sits down forcreative ideation session, she's
got the back of her head.
Wow.
I, I have space and ability tobe able to come up with great
ideas.
Yes.
That's really important.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
So, so that's again, I think how you kind of, um,
dissect the amount of time thatis spent on each of these stages
is fascinating because you say,you know, you should be spending
a third of your timeunderstanding the problem just
on your own, work it out.
Yeah.
What, what is the real problemhere rather than what might be
the superficial problem?
(27:22):
The way that people explain itmight not be the way it actually
is.
Yes.
And then moving into individualideas and then, then groups.
Speaker 4 (27:29):
Yeah.
I've spent hundreds of hours,thousands of hours.
I tried to calculate at onestage for the book about how,
how long I'd spent in creativeideation sessions, big ones,
small ones.
And almost every single time yousit down and, and someone who's
running the meeting goes, okay,so we're trying to solve world
hunger.
Who's got some ideas.
(27:50):
John, what do you thinkover there?
Jenny, you got some ideas andyou just dive straight into it.
So I did a pie chart.
Yeah.
Um, in the book, which was 95%of time group ideation.
Yeah.
5% of time thinking about theproblem.
5% of time coming out withindividual ideas.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
Well, another thing I loved about the, the idea around
the balloons and the celebrationwas breaking those big problems
down into smaller ones.
And, and, but then once peoplehave contributed those eyes,
bringing them back togetheraround the large problem.
Yeah.
And yeah, that seems, it goesfrom, oh, here's a small
problem.
Here's some ideas.
(28:26):
Those ideas seem good.
And now we bring them back tothe bigger problem.
Now we've got like a ton ofinsight.
Yeah.
And, and it seems like a reallypowerful and exciting thing
again, to be able to see.
Speaker 4 (28:36):
Yeah, it really is.
And so, you know, I, I lay thegauntlet down to both, to both
of you to run some celebrationsessions and see how they go see
, see the difference it makes.
Definitely we're
Speaker 2 (28:49):
We are
Speaker 3 (28:49):
Definitely gonna
Speaker 4 (28:50):
Do that.
I will, I will hit you up foryour feedback afterwards.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Yes.
Um, so next question is reallyaround boredom, right?
So again, I just love all ofthese individual ideas.
I was think, God, it's such asimple idea, but it's so
powerful.
Tell us why boredom is such apositive thing.
Speaker 4 (29:09):
Boredom has a really bad rep.
people try and avoid it.
People do go out of their way.
Our entire media ecosystem isdesigned to avoid boredom.
Yep.
The entire content complex isall about, have you got five
minute spare as you walking thedog?
Listen to this podcast.
Yeah.
Have you got some time in thecar?
(29:30):
Listen to this radio show.
Have you got time on a plane?
Listen, watch this TV show.
We are never allowed to getbored.
Mm no.
So boredom is almost an act ofdefiance is how I
Speaker 3 (29:44):
Look at things.
It takes a lot of discipline tobe bored.
Speaker 4 (29:46):
It does
Speaker 3 (29:47):
Cause it's so unusual to have quiet time where you
have no input yeah.
Speaker 4 (29:53):
You have to act, you act to.
I think when we grow and I I'm41, the world's oldest live in
millennial as I call myself manytimes probably on the last
podcast.
Um, and the last generationwithout screens to have a
childhood.
So I remember childhood wasabout being bored.
It's kind of what our parentsdid.
We had Lego to do that and nownot just children, but all of
(30:16):
us, we feel our time whenever wecan with content, with listening
to things so that we can avoidour own thoughts.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
It's a constant distraction.
Speaker 4 (30:26):
Yeah.
So, so being actively pursuingboredom is something that I
think is really important andthere's really simple ways of
doing it as well.
The simplest way that I do itand try and incorporate it into
my everyday life is whenever Iwalk my dog, I put my headphones
in, turn my noise counts in on,and I don't put anything in
them.
So I don't know music, nopodcast.
I'll go for a half hour walk.
(30:47):
People think I've got things in.
So they don't stop me.
If I'm at the dog park, thennever have a
Speaker 3 (30:51):
Chance interruptions.
Speaker 4 (30:52):
And I'll just sit there and be in my own thoughts
for half an hour.
And it's hard.
Like it's, it's, it's a thingyou have to consciously try and
do.
Yes.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
So what, what happens when you do that?
What do, what do you see asbeing the, the benefit and the
outcome of just being bored?
Speaker 4 (31:07):
It's amazing.
The connections that your mindstarts to make.
So I talk in the book around thebest ideas, need time to sit and
sit stands for space inputs andtime.
Yeah.
That's and that's a simple one.
Yep.
Um, and so by being bored,you're giving your mind the
space that it needs to startmaking some neurological
connections between whatever'sgoing on.
(31:29):
And it's amazing how much, howmuch creativity can come and
kind of fill the void when youconsciously take it away.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
Yeah.
You gave yourself a huge span ofboredom at one point.
Didn't you going away to anisland?
Camping.
Yeah.
And you had nothing but an a penand a notebook.
Speaker 4 (31:51):
Yeah, yeah.
For a couple of weeks it wasnotebooks, no music.
Yeah.
Just me by myself on a desertedisland.
Um, and a pen and a notebook.
And I got so fricking bored I cannot tell you, I had
one book to read when I say Ihad no books.
I had a medical book, like a ohfirst aid book.
(32:13):
Oh, okay.
And so I gave myself like 10pages of to read each day just
to something to freaking do.
It was in case I like fell overand broke my leg or like yeah.
A snake bit me or something likethat.
Um, and I was really, reallyfricking bored and it was hell
the first week was hell, I kindof hated it.
It was cold and wet and windy.
(32:34):
And I was really bored.
And I only had myself to blame and thought, this is the
worst thing in the world.
You're such an idiot.
And then something flipped abouthalfway through.
Um, I went around to one side ofthe island that was really
protected from the wind.
And in particular, the wind waslike really loud, everywhere
else, except on this one side ofthe island.
And as soon as that noisestopped, like the whole thing
(32:58):
just like flipped for me andjust, it became this like
beautiful experience.
And I then started writing in mybook.
It was kinda like a bit likeMaslow's hierarchy of needs.
Mm-hmm I neverquite got off the bottom ones.
I didn't get to selfactualization I was kind
of like cold and hungry andtired and scared.
But once I did get a bit, youknow, solved some of those basic
(33:18):
things, um, I wrote so much inmy book and just like just
explored my own mind for acouple.
Yeah.
It was pretty amazing.
And you mentioned somethinghappened to that book.
Oh yeah.
Did I mention that in the book?
I didn't say that's a story allthe time.
Yeah.
So that's another time.
Yeah.
The, um, the, both, I had acamera, which I, in order to
(33:40):
pass time on the island, I woulddo photo shoots, very mm-hmm
early influencer.
This was, you know, 15 yearsago.
Fantastic.
But I would set up like adigital camera and do it, you
know, 10, ten second.
And I'd go one side of theisland and jump in.
They'll do something like that.
Yeah.
So I took all these digitalphotos and I wrote in, I think I
end up having about two books,like two huge, um, you know,
(34:03):
notepads and I just wrotethoughts and doodles and all
this kind of stuff.
And I then went off the islandand I went to a hotel, um, for
about three or four days.
And I spent that three or fourdays.
I didn't even tell anyone.
I think I was off the island atthe time.
Cause I kind of wanted to stayin the bubble.
Yeah.
And I transcribed almosteverything that was in the book
into my computer.
(34:23):
So just not everything, not like, so it wasn't exhaust.
It was like all these doodles,all these amazing things.
And then I caught a flight home.
It was from Queensland to Sydney, to the Wales and somewhere on
that plane or on that journeyhome, I lost the digital camera
and I lost the notebook and Ihave never, I'm not a, I've
(34:45):
never lost my wallets.
I've never lost a phone.
Never lost keys.
Wow.
There was something, I don'tknow my way of thinking about it
instead of getting angry orannoyed or upset is that it was
a universe's way of telling methat my way of telling other
people about this is writingabout it and talking about it
rather than showing them a photoof what it looked like.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
So it's a very strange thing.
(35:07):
And I also, every about sixmonths, um, you guys might know
this being technical and of the,of the internet, every digital
photo has a, like a, you cantrace a digital photo by putting
up on the internet to see ifother digital photos from the
same camera also on theinternet.
And about every six months, Iwill upload an old, like a photo
(35:27):
that taken on the digital camerato a site that looks at every
photo on the internet to see ifanother photo.
Cause I'm hoping that maybesomeone picked up the camera,
maybe it turned has used it ordone something like that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And nothing, nothing, nothing.
It's just gone completely intothe how
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Extraordinary.
Mm.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:45):
Well that, no, that's amazing.
But even that you lost thecamera and the notebook,
unfortunately it sounds like anamazing process as well to have
gone through it was.
Yeah.
And, and do you think that kindof like changed your outlook?
Was it like a, before theisland, after the island?
Speaker 4 (36:00):
Um, it made
Speaker 2 (36:01):
Me
Speaker 4 (36:02):
Realize it was one of those things that I'd always had
a fantasy as a kid of wanting togo deliver it under Z island.
And I think I'd watch too muchlike cast away and Robinson
family cruso and read all thesebooks about it.
And I kind of just got to an agethat I thought that I needed to
start putting some of my dreamsinto action.
So it kind of just inspired meto constantly not just think of
(36:24):
things up here, figure out howcan I actually do them, like
write a book that was one of thethings that I'd always wanted to
do.
Yeah.
Beautiful,
Speaker 2 (36:31):
Great story.
Um, so killer thinking is aboutthinking, but you mention, uh,
how important it is to havekiller execution as well.
Tell us about why that is soimportant and what are the
aspects of killer execution thatyou think are really important?
Speaker 4 (36:48):
I thought having a book that was only about killer
ideas will be a bit of a waste,right?
Because ideas are one part ofit, but ideas can be worthless
if they just stay in your mind.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
So I then originally had grandplans for it to be kind of half,
half, half ideas, halfexecution.
As I started writing the book, Irealized that a book on
execution could be 10,000 books.
(37:11):
How do you bring something tolife?
Um, so I started to think thatit was best to concentrate just
on some key parts of that andthe two key parts.
And this is not the sole ways ofexecuting idea, but two of the
really important things that I Italk about in the book are to
one launch something into arising tide, which is thinking,
what is the bigger moment ormovement that you can launch an
(37:31):
idea onto the back of?
Mm.
And the second one is aboutfeedback and active listening to
what people are saying toiterate the idea, to make it
better.
And that's called listen withopen ears, right?
So they're the two kind of likenods to execution then obviously
not the only thing involved inbringing an idea to life.
No, but the two of the reallyimportant ones,
Speaker 2 (37:50):
I think what, the other thing that struck me was
this kind of iterative approach.
Yeah.
You talking a lot of theexamples, how people started out
doing one thing, which turnedinto this, which turned into
that, I mean match.com toTinder, to Bumble, I think was
one.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Which is, you know, you wouldn'thave imagined that to begin
with, but, but it, throughgetting feedback from customers
on what, what it is andunderstanding, oh, there's a
(38:12):
bigger opportunity here.
I need to tweak this and tweakthat.
And eventually I'll end up witha proposition that is a killer.
Speaker 4 (38:20):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's, that was, that waskind of part of the whole
premise of the book is if youdistill it down to a couple of
words is how do you take a goodidea?
Turn it into a great idea, thenmassage it into a killer idea.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And the iterations are one wayof doing that.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:33):
I love that journey.
Like you're saying with, or with, um, the app, like going from
starting off with the firstversion with match and then
going to the next version andthen to the next version.
So like the idea and executionwere kind of like, you know,
being developed at the sametime.
Speaker 4 (38:47):
Yeah.
And what I love about that isthat it's kind of never ending.
So if I wrote this book again in10 years time, there's probably
gonna be the next iteration ofwhat's better than Bumble.
Yeah.
How do you take that and make itbetter?
How do you do this in themetaverse?
How do you do it?
There's, there's probably waysof that, that idea of massaging
(39:07):
and making an idea better isnever ending.
Sure.
And that's what I love about
Speaker 2 (39:11):
It.
So, so, so what's your dream forkiller thinking from now
onwards?
Are you gonna be, you know,doing podcasts, doing workshops
for customers, is there acommunity gonna be built around
this thing?
How development exactly Your ownnatural development,
Speaker 4 (39:29):
How am I gonna tell killer
Speaker 2 (39:30):
Killer thinking gonna become a killer
Speaker 4 (39:32):
yes.
And there's no, there's nopressure in this.
Cause I wrote a book calledstatus about how to build a, a
strong community around abusiness.
Yes.
So no pressure, but to make abus, a real strong community and
now killer thinking, it needs tobe some great ideas.
So my aim with killer thinkingis how do I get this into as
many people's heads as possible.
Right.
That that's how I want greatimpact is by how do I get as
(39:52):
many people as possible doingcelebration sessions?
Yes.
Throwing out brainstorm.
Yeah.
And doing celebrations.
Yes.
How do I get as many people aspossible using some of the
frameworks to think about, aremy ideas kind impactful, loved
last and easy and repeatable.
So that's, that's my aim.
And so I do that throughwonderful podcasts like this.
Yes.
I'll do it through speaking gigsengagements.
(40:14):
Um, that, that is the, the shortto medium term goal of killer
thinking.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
Great.
And, and look, I mean, I thinkit's gonna be a hugely
successful book.
No, I think as col status was aswell.
And I think, look, we can seeways that we could be applying
this in our day to day
Speaker 3 (40:31):
Business.
Yeah, absolutely.
It's such a clear and importantmessage I think.
And the thing is I think that alot of these things are what
people are reaching for orthey're looking for in, you know
, the way that they run theirbusinesses.
Um, having such a clearexpression of it with steps, um,
is, is like, I think reallyhelpful and beneficial.
And of course we've got theaudio book coming out.
Speaker 4 (40:54):
Yes.
The audiobook is now out.
Just came out last week.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
So the audiobook is availablefrom audiobooks and audible and
wherever you get your audiobookfrom, and it has my Dolce tones
narrating it for six and a halfhours in your ear.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
Who could refuse that?
Speaker 3 (41:10):
I mean, I know
Speaker 2 (41:11):
No.
Um, Tim, thank you so much forcoming in and seeing us.
It's great talking to you again.
I really enjoy very best of luckwith the, with the book.
It's gonna be a massive success.
Um, definitely recommend it toanybody listening to this, this
podcast and in the notes, we'llput links to the various places
it can be acquired.
So thank you very much, indeed.
Speaker 4 (41:32):
Thank you
Speaker 1 (41:32):
For having me love day.
Thank you.
It's been mine.
Hope you enjoyed today'sepisode.
Please feel free to check us outon our website, digital
village.network for our pastepisodes.
We'll be back next month, but onthe last Wednesday of every
month, as we are with more greatstories and guests see you then.
Welcome back to another episode of the digital
village podcast, the podcast,all about the latest tech
trends, impacting businesspeople and planet.
In this episode, we're touchingon the topic I work closely in,
in my day to day life,specifically, customer
experience switching things upthis week, Luke and Paul from
digital village will be hostingand they will be joined by Tim
Duggan, author of two books.
(00:23):
Now, cult status, and the newlyreleased killer thinking.
They'll be discussing thepractical and mindset of
creativity, how we're allcreative and the processes you
can use to maximize this ineverything you do for yourself.
And in business today's episodeis also sponsored by Macari
financial derivatives marketexchange.
They've helped with a new,incredible space and tech for
(00:44):
this podcast.
So thank you guys.
We appreciate the help.
So sit back and enjoy theepisode.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
So welcome back to the digital village podcast.
Episode nine on, uh, a subjectthat both of us are absolutely
passionate about, which is a newbook, Luke
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Indeed called killer thinking by Tim Duggan.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
So Jason has had enough both of us, apparently.
Yeah.
So he's disappeared off toEurope.
I got off three months.
I can't blame him.
The weather he's been shocking.
70% of the day, since thebeginning of the year have had
rain.
Interest rates are climbing.
The federal election happensnext week.
So by the time you hear this,the country will be run by a
Motley crew of either labor orliberals with a smattering of
(01:29):
till colored independence.
Um, the stock market's crumblingcrypto is in bits after the
lunar crash, Elon Musk is havingdoubts about whether or not he
should get wet to, to Twitter.
And Mike Cannon Brooks hasparked his tanks on the lawn in
front of AGL.
It's all kicking off inAustralia.
I can tell you, and against thismaelstrom of technology driven
(01:51):
catastrophes, our next guest haschosen to launch his second book
to teach us all well, how tounleash the creative beast
within, uh, waiting to createperhaps the next Netflix or keep
up or canvas.
So welcome Tim Duggan.
Lovely to have you back on theshow.
Speaker 4 (02:07):
Thank you very much.
It is wonderful to be back here.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
We've got a lot to talk about in a relatively short
period of time.
So we are not gonna talk anawful lot, but we hope you will.
Um, both Luke and I have haveread killer thinking.
It's an really, really excitingbook and a fantastic follow up
to Colt stasis, which was anaward-winning book.
You wrote two or three years agonow, and we interviewed you on
that one.
(02:30):
Um, so we're looking forward tohearing more about it.
I'd like to start really by justasking you what was the
motivation behind starting towrite that book, having written
col status.
Speaker 4 (02:41):
It's funny that Colt status was my first book and
writing.
The first book is unusualbecause you don't know if
anyone's going to read it
and yeah, in my wildest dreams,if one person read it and
thought it was good, that to mewas success.
Um, luckily enough, lots ofpeople read it and enjoyed it.
(03:03):
And it really started methinking about, okay, what would
a follow up look like?
And I wanted to explore the sameworld as cult status.
If that makes sense.
I, I live in a world.
I'm an optimist and I'd live ina world where I believe business
can be used as a force for good.
I believe creativity can solveproblems.
Um, and I wanted to write a bitof a companion book, if that
(03:27):
makes sense, going deep into onearea of running a business,
which is creativity and ideas.
And either coming up with theidea for a business at the start
of a journey, or once you havean established business, how do
you use creativity, creativityto problem solve and to sure,
kind of get some solutions tothings that are pretty hard
(03:50):
there, a new way.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
So the thing that really struck me when I started
reading it was your belief thateveryone is creative.
So, you know, I, I'm an engineerby heart by trade that's where I
sort of learned my, uh, sort ofwent through university and into
, into business.
I never thought of myself asbeing a creative person, but why
do you think everyone iscreative?
Speaker 4 (04:10):
I wholeheartedly believe not just believe no
everyone is creative.
All of us as kids are encouragedto be creative.
We get crayons, we get paint.
Yeah.
We get, you know, told to makethings and break things.
Then teenage years come on.
And maybe it's a bit cool uncoolto kind of be creative or you,
(04:30):
you know, you might getdistracted by boys or girls or
other things gonna going on.
Um, and what happens then isthat we become adults and some
people have creativity in theirtitles.
So for some people you might bea creative at work.
You might be a copywriter, acreative director did.
Yeah.
And I, what I realized and Icame up through advertising
(04:51):
agencies in my early twentiesbefore co-founding junky media
in my mid to late twenties.
And I realized that when you getpeople around a table to talk
about creativity or to come upwith ideas, yes, the people who
have creative in their title arepretty good at things, but
there's such amazing.
Creativity comes from unexpectedplaces.
(05:13):
So anytime we would get to acreative ideation session and
would get someone from financeto come in, we would get the
receptionist to come and sit inthe table.
And the way that they think wasalways extraordinary, they would
always would start off in thesame place with briefs.
And this is what we're trying tosolve.
And everyone would then go offin their own way.
(05:33):
And that just really made merealize that everyone, including
you, Paul are extremely creativewho knew
Speaker 3 (05:40):
Yeah.
Was there a lot of pushback orwas it challenging for people
who wouldn't normally do that tocome in and participate in that
kind of process?
Speaker 4 (05:47):
It, it is.
Yeah.
Cuz cuz creativity is aself-belief thing.
Yeah.
Some people believe that theyare not creative.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Well I think it's kind of like trained out of
people a little bit.
Isn't it?
As you
Speaker 4 (05:57):
Very much.
So go
Speaker 3 (05:58):
Through a, a non-creative career path.
People would maybe like you notto be so creative if you're in
like accounting or finance
Speaker 4 (06:06):
creative accountants.
Yes they do.
You sure do great things with mytax bills
think, I think creativity is abelief.
And what I wanted to do withthis book was to empower people,
to read it for anyone to pick itup.
Even if you don't think you arecreative yeah.
(06:26):
And read it and get some kind ofinspiration around, you know,
what, maybe I can think up anamazing idea.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
So, so one of the themes that come through very
strongly in the book is the waythat you set up a creative
environment to allow everybodyto contribute.
Um, and this idea that, um, it'sa mix of being creative on your
own and then creative in a groupof people.
Um, and making sure that whenthat group come together, you
(06:54):
don't have what you describe ashippos.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Do you wanna tell us
Speaker 4 (06:59):
About that?
Yeah.
So hippos hippos is this greatterm that I came across.
I don't know where I originallydiscovered it, so it's not my
original concept, but it standsfor the highest paid person's
opinion.
H I P P O.
And it means when you cometogether to creatively ideate to
come up with ideas, often thehighest paid person's opinion is
what will dictate.
(07:19):
Whether someone will talk aboutan idea, whether someone will
think something's good or not.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Even just their presence, like sitting in the
corner, people will, theyradiate this kind of influence,
Speaker 4 (07:29):
Even when they're not in the room often, it's like,
what will the boss think of thisidea?
And I therefore have, you know,I, I spent a lot of time in
creative brainstorm over theyears and I talk a lot in the
book around how much I dislikebrainstorm.
We'll gotta
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Come onto that.
Speaker 4 (07:46):
Okay.
We'll, we'll get to, that's a,that can be a whole podcast in
itself.
Um, so yeah, I thinkpsychological safety and people
being, uh, comfortable insharing ideas that are generally
fragile when you come up withsomething that's really
important to the whole process.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Yes.
Yes.
And, and in the book you do thesame thing that you do in cult
status, which is to give peoplethese IRLs yes.
Which are basically simpleinstructions or little work
exercises to do, to extract someof these things.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
Yeah.
The, the wonderful thing aboutwriting a book is that you can
write it for people likeyourself.
And the way that I love to readbooks is I love to get inspired.
So like show me this big visionof something.
And then once I understand thevision, tell me how I can
actually do it myself.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Yes.
So ILS stands for
Speaker 4 (08:41):
Stands for in real life, in real
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Life.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
I was actually thinking about that as I was
going through each chapter, itstarts off with like quite a lot
of like context setting.
And like, as you say, broadvision and I, I was thinking, I
was really interested by this,by the title of this chapter.
And we are talking about this ina way and I'm thinking, oh my
gosh,
(09:06):
know, awesome experience.
And this is a great story, butthen it comes down to the end,
to the end of the chapter.
And like, this is what it is.
This is how you do it.
Yeah.
These are the exercises that youcan go through.
It's like, oh, this is great.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
Yeah.
Then that's actually how I tryto write each chapter.
Yeah.
So I try to start big and startwith what's the vision, what's
an example.
That's gonna illustrate this.
What's a company that peoplemight know or may have never
heard of that you can introducethem to, and then just narrow it
down, narrow it down.
By the time you get to the endof the chapter, hopefully people
should be like, yep.
(09:38):
I agree with you.
That's how I wanna do it.
Yeah.
And then it's okay.
Here's how to actually do it.
Get out a piece of paper, writedown this, heading, answer these
questions and that's how I liketo work.
Yeah.
And that's why I think I get toindulge a little bit in how I
like to learn, which is inspireme and then show me how to do
it.
Yeah.
And that's what I try to do withother people.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
So that's great.
Let's, let's go back to thebeginning.
Killer.
Not something you would normallyassociate with something that's
either loved or adored orimpactful, but killer thinking.
So what came first?
The acronym or the, the word orthe combination of those two
words.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
Great question.
So, so killer thinking I had asan idea and the way that I
thought about killer thinkingwas I didn't want to write a
book of about creativity.
That was just about killerideas.
The concept of a killer idea iskind of pretty well known.
That's a concept that existslong before I put pen to paper.
(10:33):
But the way that I thought aboutit was killer thinking was that
unique combination of killerideas and killer execution
together.
Right.
Put those two things together,that
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Process,
Speaker 4 (10:41):
Right?
Yes.
And you have a process of killerthinking.
So that came first, the name ofthe book.
And then when I started to speakto people all around the world
who had what I thought wereexamples of killer thinking.
So it was, I went down toMelbourne and spent some time
with Travis Garone who was aco-founder one of the
(11:01):
co-founders of November.
Yeah.
I think that's a really killeridea.
Yeah.
And then I spent some time onthe phone with Hemi Ortiz,
Marino who started LA Lala,which is where they shut down
the streets, a Bogata to carsevery Sunday.
Yeah.
And so I started speaking to allthese different people about
these ideas, Abigail ForSight,who co-founded keep cup.
(11:23):
And as I was speaking to them,after I do every interview, I
write down little summaries tomyself of like, okay, what's the
crux of what they're trying tosay.
And then I try and figure outonce I've done 10 20 of these
interviews, I try and connectthe dots.
Yeah.
What do these people have incommon that I can pull out to
help other people do the samething.
As I started doing that, a bunchof these things started jumping
(11:46):
out.
So things like, uh, killer inthe book stands for kind
impactful, loved lasting, easyand repeatable.
And as I started looking atthese ideas, I realized they had
things in common and then itstarted all fall into place.
And there was this light bulbmoment that was, could this
work, if it spelled out the wordI needed to look up at the SOS
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Speaker 4 (12:07):
There was the SOS and some of the words to make sure
that they really fit into there,but the bulk of it was there.
And it was a really nice kind oflight bulb moment.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
It's, it's an incredibly powerful metaphor.
And, and I, and very easy tounderstand the thing that
strikes me about it as well ishow that relates back to what
you do with cult status intalking about creating adored
organization.
So you start with love.
Yes.
Cult status starts withadoration or, you know, creating
organizations that people wantto be part of.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
Yeah.
That, that inter labor, it's
Speaker 2 (12:38):
A, it's very powerful , uh, way of looking at how we
generate think or how wegenerate great ideas and turn
them into killer ideas.
Ah
Speaker 3 (12:46):
Yeah.
Or even make places where greatideas happen.
Yes.
I think if you have an adoredorganization and you were
talking about this in like thelast podcast, like, you know,
having, you know, kindness as acenter of a business, this
brings in people who are goingto be very interested, you know,
in creating things that, thatare, you know, really killer and
that's and moving those ideas,as you say, from good to great
(13:09):
to killer.
There's a lot of investment inthere already.
Speaker 4 (13:12):
Yeah.
Yeah.
The interplay between the twoconcepts was important to me.
Yeah.
I didn't want to do a completeU-turn on that world of cult
status that I really believe in,which is how you build a
business that has, is reallyloved and adored.
And so the interplay, the factthat in killer, one of the LS in
killer stands for loved loved.
(13:32):
Yeah.
And really, if you wanna go deepinto that read cult status.
Yep.
So it's, there's, there's areally lovely interplay between
the two and I wasn't intentionaljust came out that way and then
once it started coming out, um,it's funny when you write a
book, you have a, a thesis atthe start on what a topic could
be, and then you just chase itdown, whichever path it goes
(13:55):
down.
It's not until the end, you canstand back and look at it and
realize that it, where it hasgone.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
So at what point did, did the, the eight steps emerge
from that process?
Speaker 4 (14:07):
Yeah.
So not until the second draft.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
Wow.
Oh, wow.
Okay.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
So interestingly, the first draft of the book, I had
most of the content there.
Yeah.
But I didn't, I was trying tonot put myself into a box.
So the first book col status hasseven steps to achieving Colt
status.
And step one, do this step two,do this.
And I tried to write my secondbook thinking, I don't want to
(14:34):
just do the exact same step to,I L let's think, think about a
whole different way of thinkingabout this.
So i'vee it.
And it wasn't quite there.
It was, it was a bit jumbled.
Um, it didn't quite make sense.
And I, I sent it off to mypublisher and they read it and
said to me, have you consideredputting it into steps the same
(14:55):
as go status
steps again.
And he said, just try it.
Yeah, I tried it.
And the whole thing just clickedinto this.
It was just, just made sense.
I had the steps inside my head.
Yeah.
Yes.
I'd been playing around withdifferent language around it.
(15:16):
And as soon as I did that anddid steps, chapter big picture
thinking IRL, step two, chapterbig picture thinking IRL, it
just made sense.
And it made me realize that whena reader reads a book, there's
something that I've beenthinking about this for years
and going over it and a readerpicks it up.
And it's the first time theyprobably thought about this in
(15:36):
this way.
Yeah.
You really need to sign post andmake it easy for someone to
understand, to take them on ajourney.
Mm.
And for me doing, explainingwhat it is explaining the killer
framework and then saying, theseare the eight steps, step one,
step two, step three.
And then the end you say, andthese were the eight steps that
you just, you just learned thatmakes it easy for someone to
(15:56):
understand.
Yes.
And that's really important whenit comes to non-fiction books.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
It is.
So let's just dive into some ofthose steps because there are
some incredibly examples of them, uh, in, in each of the steps.
Um, and the first one is be yourown
Speaker 4 (16:10):
Therapist, be your problems.
Therapist's right.
Your
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Problem.
Therapist's problem therapist.
And you give this example ofseven 11.
Do you want just talk us throughthat example?
I love, I love
Speaker 4 (16:19):
Classic.
I love this story.
Um, and it's so fun again, toresearch and think about all of
these things and they're thingsthat you just discover when
you're thinking about a bookthat might be in the back of
your head, or when you doresearch and broad reading, you
might discover it somewhere.
So it was talking about sevenelevens and it started off in,
(16:39):
um, Canada in the 1980s.
And there was lots of youngpeople would turn up to seven 11
car parks, um, particularlyafter hours.
So when I got to 7, 8, 9o'clock, they would just hang
out in the car, parks, listeningto music, doing what young
people do.
Good, good on.
They needed somewhere to go.
Yeah.
And I needed to make sure inwhen I wrote this story, that
this is not an young personthing, this is more just an
(17:00):
example of killer thinking.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Pre-internet
Speaker 4 (17:03):
Age, pre-internet age.
Absolutely.
Totally.
What else were they going to do?
Yeah.
Needed some,
Speaker 2 (17:07):
No social media.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
Exactly.
So the, so the 1980s kids inteenagers in Canada would go and
sit in Seven-Eleven car parks.
So seven 11 were trying tofigure out how do we creatively
solve this problem?
And the way that they did it,first of all, was to think
through some of the obviousideas.
So obvious ideas would be let'shire security, guards, security
(17:28):
guards can stand there and movethe kids on.
Let's go out and tell the kids,Hey kids, maybe you should, you
know, go away.
Let's turn the lights off.
You know, maybe if they turn thelights off, they're not gonna
hang around.
All of these things were kind ofobvious ideas.
And in this, in the scheme ofthe book, that's probably a good
idea, a good idea.
It might be just be turning thelights off.
(17:49):
It's pretty easy to do.
It's got some drawbacks, mostideas.
I, I, um, hypothesize are prettygood ideas, but they had a, um,
a brainstorming session and theygot everyone together.
And the way that they tried tothink about this was we need to
put ourselves in the minds ofthese young people.
(18:09):
So if I'm a young person and I'mgoing to a seven 11 car park,
why am I doing that?
It's because I want to seem coolto my friends.
I wanna go there might wannapick someone up, might wanna
chat, chat to someone I'd beencalling up on their home phone
and then this the 1980s.
Yeah.
Um, so the whole idea of tryingto look cool was the main
motivator of why young peoplewere there.
(18:29):
So someone in the meetingsuggested this really simple
idea, and this is, uh, where, uh, the solution came from.
They said, why don't we make ituncool for the kids to hang out
in the car park and the way ofmaking it uncool was playing
really daggy music.
Yeah.
So either classical music orBarry Manalow Barry man was
(18:50):
used, the Manalow effect wasused a lot in Australia.
Yeah.
Um, and so they decided theyturned on their speakers and
they started playing classicalmusic through the speakers.
And all of the kids, all of asudden were like, this makes me
look uncool.
I don't wanna do this.
And they left the car park.
So really simple solution thatnow has been used, used all over
the world.
(19:10):
Um, we won't go into the effectsof displacing young people just
where you don't want'em to be byplaying music, but more the idea
of, if you really wannaunderstand how to solve a
problem, you need to understandthe problem better than anyone
else
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Quite.
And it's a great example.
And there are, there are lots ofothers.
I dunno if you wanna pick outany Luke from, um, the other
seven or eight steps, one of theones I was really keen to talk
about was this, uh, one aboutplus each other's ideas.
And did you coin the phrasecelebration?
Is that your, um, youtrademarked that one?
Speaker 4 (19:44):
Uh, so Isaac, Isaac, Isaac Asimov, who's a science
fiction writer.
He originally came up with the,with the, with this term
celebration when he wrote aletter, the us, um, uh, the us
government were trying tocreatively problem solve how to,
um, have a MIS a ballisticmissile defense system in the us
(20:04):
.
This was kind of in the sixties,I think.
Um, and they thought let's get ascience fiction writer along,
which is an amazing idea becausescience fiction writers can come
up who was a, a scientist aswell.
Yes.
Who scientist an amazingscientist and would, would
certainly add a lot to asession.
Absolutely.
Um, and he didn't end up goingto the brainstorming session,
but he wrote a letter to themwhich talked about creativity.
(20:27):
And in the letter, he talksabout that.
Firstly, the most importantthing to do is to come up with
your own ideas first, which iswhere this came from.
And he just had this offhandedterm in there where he just said
in this celebration session,something, something, something.
And I just stopped when I readthat and I was like celebration
session.
And I'd been trying to think ofa really good name for me, that
(20:48):
combined cerebral.
So coming up thinking and acelebration.
Yeah.
And as soon as I sawcelebration, I was like, Isaac,
as OVV you've done it again.
take credit for the process.
It is a beautiful word.
Isn't it?
It is a beautiful, it's awonderful word.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
So we need, so, so talk us through the process.
What is it we're talking hereabout the balloons.
Speaker 4 (21:09):
Are we?
Yes.
Yeah, yeah.
I've been the party and the
Yeah.
So, so in order to come up withideas collectively, the moment,
one of the tools that we have isbrainstorming.
Yep.
Brainstorming invented the 1940sby a guy called Alex Osborn.
Um, a very smart, amazingcreative guy who started at
agency called B, B, D O, whichstill exists to this day.
(21:30):
And you know, sure.
There's some slightly sexistparts to what he, what he says.
He says that brainstorm shouldbe mostly men coming together,
but this was the 1940s when hewrote this.
So it needs, you could say
Speaker 2 (21:41):
That in those
Speaker 4 (21:42):
Days taken with a, it was like a synonym per person
then wasn't it
Yeah.
It was, it was, you know, youhave to read these things with
the, the lens, through whichthey were written.
Sure.
But brainstorming therefore for80 years has been the main way
that we've come up with ideas as, as a group, particularly in
work environments, there's sixmain problems with it.
I won't go into all the problemshippos or one of them introverts
(22:04):
is a big problem.
When you do that group think isa problem focusing on the wrong
problem, focus.
There's lots of things wrongwith it, but probably the most
important thing wrong with it isthat we are living in a hybrid
world now where, when AlexOsborn came up with this,
everyone went into an office.
Now we live in a
Speaker 2 (22:21):
World.
No, no
Speaker 4 (22:21):
Preparation, no, no preparation needed.
You can, yeah.
You can walk into a room and youcan turn off and do it think of
ideas, but we're now living in aworld where some people are on
zoom.
Some people are at home, somepeople are in an office.
There's this kind of new way ofthinking about, um, creativity.
So I came up with a very simple,um, amalgamation of all
(22:44):
different sorts of brainstormingtechniques and it's called
celebration.
And the very simple way of doinga celebration is there's three
parts.
And I've tried to make this asmemorable as possible.
I tested this out on my husbandas I was writing the book.
So I wrote most of his bookwhile he was in a camper van.
And we'll talk about it.
We'll talk about that later.
We will, should have been funtimes.
It was, it was a very fun time.
And as I came up with little, um, parts, I try to make things as
(23:07):
mnemonic as possible because Ithink going into your heads,
that's why killer acronym is amnemonic.
Um, and the celebration systemhas three parts to it and they
all relate to a party, acelebration.
The first part is blowing upballoons.
The second part is writing outcards and the third part is
sharing the presence.
And that's the three parts youneed to remember.
(23:28):
Um, I go into more detail in thebook, but blowing up balloons is
investigating the problem thatyou're trying to solve.
And putting that into a balloonshape, writing out cards is
spending time individuallycoming up with ideas yourself.
So ride them onto post-it notesor pieces of paper.
And then sharing presence iswhere you come together as a
group and you start sharing theideas and figuring out what they
(23:49):
have in common.
Um, and to really,
Speaker 3 (23:51):
That's great.
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:52):
It's a really simple process.
And, and it's the end ofbrainstorming as we know it.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
Well, I was, we're very excited to that.
The big part of what we do ismove people beyond brainstorming
to actually yeah.
Help them understand whatthey're trying to solve.
Amazing.
What's an effective way to comeup with ideas.
So what's an effective way tocome up with solutions.
Again, going, as you say,diverge, divergent, convergent,
and I was too far away from themicrophone.
(24:18):
Um, and uh, actually the, theperson who is most involved with
delivering that services overthere telling me off about the
microphone.
Yes.
But yeah.
And so I was, I thought it waswonderful to that.
Cuz you can see the differencein people can't you when they
they're going through thatprocess.
And it's so different to cuzlike an hour long brainstorming
(24:41):
session can seem like such aDrudge of an activity
it really can, and you've caughtit ation.
It should be something thatpeople look forward to.
It should be fun.
Speaker 4 (24:49):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, and exciting actuallyblow up actual balloons and put
me in
Speaker 3 (24:53):
A room, let's
Speaker 4 (24:54):
Make this fun.
I have done, I did countlessexperiments in the lead up to
this with businesses of alldifferent size, trying to figure
out what's the best way of doingthis.
Mm.
And then since the book has comeout a couple of weeks ago, I've
done a bunch of workshops withcompanies of different sizes.
Yeah.
Just teaching them the method.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And there is nothing better thanseeing a group of people all
(25:17):
equally contributing to IDgeneration.
Mm.
So you get five to eight peopletogether and the way that you,
we share the presence, which issharing the ideas is that you go
around the room whoever'sbirthday is coming up next.
Yeah.
Is the next person share theidea?
Yeah.
Keeping the celebration themegoing.
Yeah.
And it's amazing because you dothis and all of a sudden you
have, as I said, you've gotsomeone in finance sitting there
(25:40):
who normally would notparticipate.
Who is there going, I've gotthis kind of crazy idea cuz
their mind has gone off intothis other place and then they
have this idea.
And then what we talk about inthe book is the idea of plusing
it, which is something that Istole from, um, Walt Disney.
Hold on.
Um, with the credit, with thecredit Frank you off.
Yes.
Yes.
Um, and it's all about buildingon other people's ideas to make,
(26:02):
to make them better.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
Yeah.
That's really great.
And you can, you're getting somuch more value out of all the
people in the room that way.
Right.
Rather than just like a fewpeople.
Um, and you know, then leavingthe other people who might not
say much or contribute much isjust, I think it makes so much
sense for any organization tothink about doing that.
So, you know, taking that onbecause suddenly you look at all
(26:25):
the people who are there and youthink, oh my gosh, everyone,
everyone has so much tocontribute.
Speaker 4 (26:30):
So, and that's how you build creative confidence.
So to go back to one of the veryfirst questions you asked Paul
around, how do you know thebelief that everyone is
creative?
You give them the confidence andtools to be able to come up with
ideas.
And Jenny from accounts comes toa celebration session.
She's listened to, she's heardshe has great ideas.
(26:50):
They get built upon.
Yeah.
The next time she sits down forcreative ideation session, she's
got the back of her head.
Wow.
I, I have space and ability tobe able to come up with great
ideas.
Yes.
That's really important.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
So, so that's again, I think how you kind of, um,
dissect the amount of time thatis spent on each of these stages
is fascinating because you say,you know, you should be spending
a third of your timeunderstanding the problem just
on your own, work it out.
Yeah.
What, what is the real problemhere rather than what might be
the superficial problem?
(27:22):
The way that people explain itmight not be the way it actually
is.
Yes.
And then moving into individualideas and then, then groups.
Speaker 4 (27:29):
Yeah.
I've spent hundreds of hours,thousands of hours.
I tried to calculate at onestage for the book about how,
how long I'd spent in creativeideation sessions, big ones,
small ones.
And almost every single time yousit down and, and someone who's
running the meeting goes, okay,so we're trying to solve world
hunger.
Who's got some ideas.
(27:50):
Jenny, you got some ideas andyou just dive straight into it.
So I did a pie chart.
Yeah.
Um, in the book, which was 95%of time group ideation.
Yeah.
5% of time thinking about theproblem.
5% of time coming out withindividual ideas.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
Well, another thing I loved about the, the idea around
the balloons and the celebrationwas breaking those big problems
down into smaller ones.
And, and, but then once peoplehave contributed those eyes,
bringing them back togetheraround the large problem.
Yeah.
And yeah, that seems, it goesfrom, oh, here's a small
problem.
Here's some ideas.
(28:26):
Those ideas seem good.
And now we bring them back tothe bigger problem.
Now we've got like a ton ofinsight.
Yeah.
And, and it seems like a reallypowerful and exciting thing
again, to be able to see.
Speaker 4 (28:36):
Yeah, it really is.
And so, you know, I, I lay thegauntlet down to both, to both
of you to run some celebrationsessions and see how they go see
, see the difference it makes.
Definitely we're
Speaker 2 (28:49):
We are
Speaker 3 (28:49):
Definitely gonna
Speaker 4 (28:50):
Do that.
I will, I will hit you up foryour feedback afterwards.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Yes.
Um, so next question is reallyaround boredom, right?
So again, I just love all ofthese individual ideas.
I was think, God, it's such asimple idea, but it's so
powerful.
Tell us why boredom is such apositive thing.
Speaker 4 (29:09):
Boredom has a really bad rep.
People do go out of their way.
Our entire media ecosystem isdesigned to avoid boredom.
Yep.
The entire content complex isall about, have you got five
minute spare as you walking thedog?
Listen to this podcast.
Yeah.
Have you got some time in thecar?
(29:30):
Listen to this radio show.
Have you got time on a plane?
Listen, watch this TV show.
We are never allowed to getbored.
Mm no.
So boredom is almost an act ofdefiance
Speaker 3 (29:44):
Look at things.
It takes a lot of discipline tobe bored.
Speaker 4 (29:46):
It does
Speaker 3 (29:47):
Cause it's so unusual to have quiet time where you
have no input
Speaker 4 (29:53):
You have to act, you act to.
I think when we grow and I I'm41, the world's oldest live in
millennial as I call myself manytimes probably on the last
podcast.
Um, and the last generationwithout screens to have a
childhood.
So I remember childhood wasabout being bored.
It's kind of what our parentsdid.
We had Lego to do that and nownot just children, but all of
(30:16):
us, we feel our time whenever wecan with content, with listening
to things so that we can avoidour own thoughts.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
It's a constant distraction.
Speaker 4 (30:26):
Yeah.
So, so being actively pursuingboredom is something that I
think is really important andthere's really simple ways of
doing it as well.
The simplest way that I do itand try and incorporate it into
my everyday life is whenever Iwalk my dog, I put my headphones
in, turn my noise counts in on,and I don't put anything in
them.
So I don't know music, nopodcast.
I'll go for a half hour walk.
(30:47):
People think I've got things in.
So they don't stop me.
If I'm at the dog park, thennever have a
Speaker 3 (30:51):
Chance interruptions.
Speaker 4 (30:52):
And I'll just sit there and be in my own thoughts
for half an hour.
And it's hard.
Like it's, it's, it's a thingyou have to consciously try and
do.
Yes.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
So what, what happens when you do that?
What do, what do you see asbeing the, the benefit and the
outcome of just being bored?
Speaker 4 (31:07):
It's amazing.
The connections that your mindstarts to make.
So I talk in the book around thebest ideas, need time to sit and
sit stands for space inputs andtime.
Yeah.
That's and that's a simple one.
Yep.
Um, and so by being bored,you're giving your mind the
space that it needs to startmaking some neurological
connections between whatever'sgoing on.
(31:29):
And it's amazing how much, howmuch creativity can come and
kind of fill the void when youconsciously take it away.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
Yeah.
You gave yourself a huge span ofboredom at one point.
Didn't you going away to anisland?
Camping.
Yeah.
And you had nothing but an a penand a notebook.
Speaker 4 (31:51):
Yeah, yeah.
For a couple of weeks it wasnotebooks, no music.
Yeah.
Just me by myself on a desertedisland.
Um, and a pen and a notebook.
And I got so fricking bored
one book to read when I say Ihad no books.
I had a medical book, like a ohfirst aid book.
(32:13):
Oh, okay.
And so I gave myself like 10pages of to read each day just
to something to freaking do.
It was in case I like fell overand broke my leg or like yeah.
A snake bit me or something likethat.
Um, and I was really, reallyfricking bored and it was hell
the first week was hell, I kindof hated it.
It was cold and wet and windy.
(32:34):
And I was really bored.
And I only had myself to blame
worst thing in the world.
You're such an idiot.
And then something flipped abouthalfway through.
Um, I went around to one side ofthe island that was really
protected from the wind.
And in particular, the wind waslike really loud, everywhere
else, except on this one side ofthe island.
And as soon as that noisestopped, like the whole thing
(32:58):
just like flipped for me andjust, it became this like
beautiful experience.
And I then started writing in mybook.
It was kinda like a bit likeMaslow's hierarchy of needs.
Mm-hmm
I didn't get to selfactualization
of like cold and hungry andtired and scared.
But once I did get a bit, youknow, solved some of those basic
(33:18):
things, um, I wrote so much inmy book and just like just
explored my own mind for acouple.
Yeah.
It was pretty amazing.
And you mentioned somethinghappened to that book.
Oh yeah.
Did I mention that in the book?
I didn't say that's a story allthe time.
Yeah.
So that's another time.
Yeah.
The, um, the, both, I had acamera, which I, in order to
(33:40):
pass time on the island, I woulddo photo shoots, very mm-hmm
This was, you know, 15 yearsago.
Fantastic.
But I would set up like adigital camera and do it, you
know, 10, ten second.
And I'd go one side of theisland and jump in.
They'll do something like that.
Yeah.
So I took all these digitalphotos and I wrote in, I think I
end up having about two books,like two huge, um, you know,
(34:03):
notepads and I just wrotethoughts and doodles and all
this kind of stuff.
And I then went off the islandand I went to a hotel, um, for
about three or four days.
And I spent that three or fourdays.
I didn't even tell anyone.
I think I was off the island atthe time.
Cause I kind of wanted to stayin the bubble.
Yeah.
And I transcribed almosteverything that was in the book
into my computer.
(34:23):
So just not everything, not like, so it wasn't exhaust.
It was like all these doodles,all these amazing things.
And then I caught a flight home.
It was from Queensland to Sydney, to the Wales and somewhere on
that plane or on that journeyhome, I lost the digital camera
and I lost the notebook and Ihave never, I'm not a, I've
(34:45):
never lost my wallets.
I've never lost a phone.
Never lost keys.
Wow.
There was something, I don'tknow my way of thinking about it
instead of getting angry orannoyed or upset is that it was
a universe's way of telling methat my way of telling other
people about this is writingabout it and talking about it
rather than showing them a photoof what it looked like.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
So it's a very strange thing.
(35:07):
And I also, every about sixmonths, um, you guys might know
this being technical and of the,of the internet, every digital
photo has a, like a, you cantrace a digital photo by putting
up on the internet to see ifother digital photos from the
same camera also on theinternet.
And about every six months, Iwill upload an old, like a photo
(35:27):
that taken on the digital camerato a site that looks at every
photo on the internet to see ifanother photo.
Cause I'm hoping that maybesomeone picked up the camera,
maybe it turned has used it ordone something like that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And nothing, nothing, nothing.
It's just gone completely intothe how
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Extraordinary.
Mm.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:45):
Well that, no, that's amazing.
But even that you lost thecamera and the notebook,
unfortunately it sounds like anamazing process as well to have
gone through it was.
Yeah.
And, and do you think that kindof like changed your outlook?
Was it like a, before theisland, after the island?
Speaker 4 (36:00):
Um, it made
Speaker 2 (36:01):
Me
Speaker 4 (36:02):
Realize it was one of those things that I'd always had
a fantasy as a kid of wanting togo deliver it under Z island.
And I think I'd watch too muchlike cast away and Robinson
family cruso and read all thesebooks about it.
And I kind of just got to an agethat I thought that I needed to
start putting some of my dreamsinto action.
So it kind of just inspired meto constantly not just think of
(36:24):
things up here, figure out howcan I actually do them, like
write a book that was one of thethings that I'd always wanted to
do.
Yeah.
Beautiful,
Speaker 2 (36:31):
Great story.
Um, so killer thinking is aboutthinking, but you mention, uh,
how important it is to havekiller execution as well.
Tell us about why that is soimportant and what are the
aspects of killer execution thatyou think are really important?
Speaker 4 (36:48):
I thought having a book that was only about killer
ideas will be a bit of a waste,right?
Because ideas are one part ofit, but ideas can be worthless
if they just stay in your mind.
Mm-hmm
Yeah.
So I then originally had grandplans for it to be kind of half,
half, half ideas, halfexecution.
As I started writing the book, Irealized that a book on
execution could be 10,000 books.
(37:11):
How do you bring something tolife?
Um, so I started to think thatit was best to concentrate just
on some key parts of that andthe two key parts.
And this is not the sole ways ofexecuting idea, but two of the
really important things that I Italk about in the book are to
one launch something into arising tide, which is thinking,
what is the bigger moment ormovement that you can launch an
(37:31):
idea onto the back of?
Mm.
And the second one is aboutfeedback and active listening to
what people are saying toiterate the idea, to make it
better.
And that's called listen withopen ears, right?
So they're the two kind of likenods to execution then obviously
not the only thing involved inbringing an idea to life.
No, but the two of the reallyimportant ones,
Speaker 2 (37:50):
I think what, the other thing that struck me was
this kind of iterative approach.
Yeah.
You talking a lot of theexamples, how people started out
doing one thing, which turnedinto this, which turned into
that, I mean match.com toTinder, to Bumble, I think was
one.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Which is, you know, you wouldn'thave imagined that to begin
with, but, but it, throughgetting feedback from customers
on what, what it is andunderstanding, oh, there's a
(38:12):
bigger opportunity here.
I need to tweak this and tweakthat.
And eventually I'll end up witha proposition that is a killer.
Speaker 4 (38:20):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's, that was, that waskind of part of the whole
premise of the book is if youdistill it down to a couple of
words is how do you take a goodidea?
Turn it into a great idea, thenmassage it into a killer idea.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And the iterations are one wayof doing that.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:33):
I love that journey.
Like you're saying with, or with, um, the app, like going from
starting off with the firstversion with match and then
going to the next version andthen to the next version.
So like the idea and executionwere kind of like, you know,
being developed at the sametime.
Speaker 4 (38:47):
Yeah.
And what I love about that isthat it's kind of never ending.
So if I wrote this book again in10 years time, there's probably
gonna be the next iteration ofwhat's better than Bumble.
Yeah.
How do you take that and make itbetter?
How do you do this in themetaverse?
How do you do it?
There's, there's probably waysof that, that idea of massaging
(39:07):
and making an idea better isnever ending.
Sure.
And that's what I love about
Speaker 2 (39:11):
It.
So, so, so what's your dream forkiller thinking from now
onwards?
Are you gonna be, you know,doing podcasts, doing workshops
for customers, is there acommunity gonna be built around
this thing?
How development exactly Your ownnatural development,
Speaker 4 (39:29):
How am I gonna tell killer
Speaker 2 (39:30):
Killer thinking gonna become a killer
Speaker 4 (39:32):
And there's no, there's nopressure in this.
Cause I wrote a book calledstatus about how to build a, a
strong community around abusiness.
Yes.
So no pressure, but to make abus, a real strong community and
now killer thinking, it needs tobe some great ideas.
So my aim with killer thinkingis how do I get this into as
many people's heads as possible.
Right.
That that's how I want greatimpact is by how do I get as
(39:52):
many people as possible doingcelebration sessions?
Yes.
Throwing out brainstorm.
Yeah.
And doing celebrations.
Yes.
How do I get as many people aspossible using some of the
frameworks to think about, aremy ideas kind impactful, loved
last and easy and repeatable.
So that's, that's my aim.
And so I do that throughwonderful podcasts like this.
Yes.
I'll do it through speaking gigsengagements.
(40:14):
Um, that, that is the, the shortto medium term goal of killer
thinking.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
Great.
And, and look, I mean, I thinkit's gonna be a hugely
successful book.
No, I think as col status was aswell.
And I think, look, we can seeways that we could be applying
this in our day to day
Speaker 3 (40:31):
Business.
Yeah, absolutely.
It's such a clear and importantmessage I think.
And the thing is I think that alot of these things are what
people are reaching for orthey're looking for in, you know
, the way that they run theirbusinesses.
Um, having such a clearexpression of it with steps, um,
is, is like, I think reallyhelpful and beneficial.
And of course we've got theaudio book coming out.
Speaker 4 (40:54):
Yes.
The audiobook is now out.
Just came out last week.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
So the audiobook is availablefrom audiobooks and audible and
wherever you get your audiobookfrom, and it has my Dolce tones
narrating it for six and a halfhours in your ear.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
Who could refuse that?
Speaker 3 (41:10):
I mean, I know
Speaker 2 (41:11):
No.
Um, Tim, thank you so much forcoming in and seeing us.
It's great talking to you again.
I really enjoy very best of luckwith the, with the book.
It's gonna be a massive success.
Um, definitely recommend it toanybody listening to this, this
podcast and in the notes, we'llput links to the various places
it can be acquired.
So thank you very much, indeed.
Speaker 4 (41:32):
Thank you
Speaker 1 (41:32):
For having me love day.
Thank you.
It's been mine.
Hope you enjoyed today'sepisode.
Please feel free to check us outon our website, digital
village.network for our pastepisodes.
We'll be back next month, but onthe last Wednesday of every
month, as we are with more greatstories and guests see you then.
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