#597 How thinking inside the box will lead to more opportunities for your squiggly career.

Squiggly Careers

The episode explores how intentional constraints can foster creativity and career growth, drawing inspiration from David Epstein's book 'Ins

Key takeaways

• David Epstein's book 'Inside the Box' argues that constraints can actually enhance creativity rather than limiting it.
• The classic Dr. Seuss book 'Green Eggs and Ham' was created under the constraint of using only 50 distinct words.

Main topics

• Creative thinking through constraints
• Career development skills

Notable quotes

If it isn't hard, it's probably not the right constraint.

Conclusion

Embracing intentional limitations can transform a sense of being 'boxe

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) Hi, I'm Helen. And I'm Sarah. And you're listening to the Squiggly Careers podcast, a weekly podcast where we borrow brilliance from things we are watching at home or reading on the way to work or talking about with each other. Just random things that inspire us and help us think about different ideas that you can put into action with your career. And today is one of the slightly more, I Speaker 1 (0:22) don't know, Speaker 2 (0:22) left Speaker 1 (0:23) field, I don't know what to call it. Speaker 2 (0:24) What are we borrowing brilliance from today, Sarah? A Speaker 1 (0:27) box. A box. Speaker 2 (0:29) A box. It will make sense when we get... Tell us a bit more about the box so people know where we're going with it. Speaker 1 (0:35) Well, the more sort of conventional answer is a box and a book, maybe. A box and a book, okay. So David Epstein, who wrote Range, who's been on the podcast before, has a new book out. He doesn't write books very often, actually. He's not someone who... churns them out all the time maybe like us the Speaker 2 (0:52) people that have produced three books Speaker 1 (0:56) since 2020 yeah Speaker 2 (0:57) there's reasons for that but anyway Speaker 1 (1:00) um but he doesn't right he you know he i can't remember when rage came out but it would have been a little while ago now um and he's always really thoughtful and well researched and his new book is called inside the box how constraints make us better and so you know there are some people you think whatever they write I would always read. And I feel like he is one of those people. Margaret Heffernan. Speaker 2 (1:21) Yeah. Speaker 1 (1:22) It's a good question, actually. Who are those people? Amy Edmondson. Linda Grattan. Yeah. Adam Grant. I do. I learned to Speaker 2 (1:28) read all of those people. Speaker 1 (1:30) Because, you know, that's what you're interested in. Adam Morgan, who we'll come on to today. I'd always read anything he'd written. But the idea of the book is that constraints can work for you and actually help to make you more creative. And he starts off by saying, actually, you know, like, you know, Matrix where it's like, imagine there is no spoon. Imagine there is no box. Did she say imagine there is no spoon? Yeah, from Matrix. Spoon? Is there a spoon in the Matrix? Yeah, she, you know, the bendy spoon. Okay, I've got a nine-year-old who's got quite into Matrix and I feel like I might have got quite... Speaker 2 (2:09) Because normally people say like red pill, blue pill when they're talking about the Vagis. That's like a next level. The spoon thing is quite, I feel like that is quite a big moment in the film. Definitely. Speaker 1 (2:19) So we'll get distracted. This is where our podcast goes off the rails. Okay, Speaker 2 (2:23) no, we'll go back to Speaker 1 (2:24) the box. Okay, right. First of all, so I'm imagining there is no box. Yes, I got it. Which I have to say, I find quite appealing. Like at least on the surface, I'm like endless options, blank piece of paper. infinite you can sort of do what you want go where you want and actually I think what people find is that when that is their context actually it can end up being demotivating it can be overwhelming and there is an example in the book of like a tech company where they did have like endless resources yeah um a lot of the people I think were like x apple or they'd all come from this place and they kind of came up with this company got magic in it um that i'd never heard of but they were like they got all these brilliant people so much investment and sort of just couldn't couldn't produce anything because it was almost just like they could just do whatever they wanted um and that constraints actually can be quite helpful is it like you know when you're at the supermarket and there's like too many too much Speaker 2 (3:26) too much choice and then you get like the analysis paralysis thing and people can't make the choice for as much easier if you just got a couple a couple of variants to pick from Speaker 1 (3:32) yeah and I think the interesting thing in the book, if you do read it, is there are loads of stories and examples of when constraints have made people more creative. And I think if we're thinking like, well, why should we care about this? Like, why does this matter in the context of our squiggly career? You and I talk a lot about, I think, creative thinking, which is something that is relevant in all of our roles, feels like it's more important than ever. Speaker 1 (4:04) if we want to get better at creative thinking how we approach constraints is one way one way to do that here's some questions and reflections on Speaker 2 (4:12) this um Speaker 1 (4:13) because i'll share some fun examples i've got some fun examples before we Speaker 2 (4:15) get very practical okay do you want my questions reflections first okay questions first um my reflections are um that creativity in the context of squiggly careers is super useful yeah because if you're going to have a career as individual as you are which is what we want we want people to kind of let go the idea that there's only one way to succeed. I think then you working out what matters most to me and thinking creatively about the different ways you can get to that is really, really important. You can create more choice and I think that leads to more resilience. So I think it's a super important skill in a squiggly career. My question was, do you think, so I was thinking when you're talking about the box and I was thinking about, okay, the box in the context of... because I'm hearing you saying actually some boxes can be good. And so I was thinking, oh, but are there good boxes and bad boxes? Because I was like, oh, if I felt boxed in, so I might feel boxed in if I was micromanaged or if I was under, I don't know, under so much pressure, I didn't have time to be creative. And then I was thinking, oh, are there some good boxes? So constraints that serve you. And are there some bad boxes? So constraints that are hard to overcome. I've not read the book, so I was just wondering whether you'd come to any conclusions on that. Speaker 1 (5:36) So he doesn't talk about good and bad boxes, which may or may not surprise you. He didn't go, well, there are bad boxes and good boxes. I think he might argue that... particularly your, actually maybe both examples, you can't change, if you're being micromanaged, right, you can't change your manager. That's a constraint that you've kind of got to live with. And you talked about time pressure. And again, usually you can't create more time. And so it would be almost being like, well, this box is the reality. So it's actually like, how do you respond? How do you approach that? Rather than feeling like, because I could feel boxed in. Or I could try and think creatively about... Within the box I'm in. Kind of within that box. Speaker 2 (6:20) It's Speaker 1 (6:20) an interesting one, isn't it? Because I'm someone who loves a blank piece of paper, so I don't want to be boxed in or put in any box. I like the idea of kind of starting from scratch. But then when you do think about it, I think there are two ways of thinking about constraints. One that we've explored a bit more before with Adam, with Adam Morgan, which is constraints that get imposed on you, which are both your examples there. So typically... time, money, people. And when those constraints come your way, they're not things that you would choose, but how you respond matters. So that's where we've talked before about being stubbornly adaptive, using things like propelling questions and statements. That's episode 256. And Speaker 2 (7:01) I would just say for listeners, we will link to that in the pod sheet. So the pod sheet comes with every episode. We post about it on the Squiggly Careers page on LinkedIn. You can find it on our website, amazingif.com, but we will link to it there and put it in the show notes as well. Speaker 1 (7:15) And I am a massive fan of Adam's work. It's really influenced us and I think it's super useful. And a good example of something that really creative that came out of a constraint imposed on someone. that is in the book is, you know, Dr. Seuss? Yes. Green Eggs and Ham. Which we're going to talk about. So that book came from a bet from their editor, Bennett Cerf, I'm going to say as a pronunciation, bet him $50 that he couldn't write an entire book using 50 different words. So Green Eggs and Ham has got 50 distinct words repeated throughout the book. Sam I am. Yeah, I mean, I've read that. Oh my God, really took me back, the old green eggs and ham. But that became one of the best selling children's books of all time. Speaker 2 (8:00) Only 50 words, sorry. Speaker 1 (8:01) 50 distinct words. So the book is longer than 50 words, but it's the same 50 words repeated, which I think when you do read it after you're a kid, you're like, all right, was it on the old green eggs and ham? Like, yeah, I said Sam, ham, gram, yeah. But the point there, and apparently I think that was quite a kind of famous like publishing example. is that constraint led to creativity that resulted in a Speaker 2 (8:24) book that you can remember having not read it for a long time like amazing Speaker 1 (8:28) millions of people have read and so there are these constraints that sort of come your way you probably not expected then I think and I found this the more interesting part of David's work probably because it was newer to me and I feel like it's less explored is constraints that you choose so this is You making a decision as part of how you work to actually impose constraints on yourself, which I think I've thought about a lot less because I've thought a lot about, you know, how do you respond, but less about, oh, do I want to give myself some constraints? And my favorite example was Virginia Woolf. So another publishing example. She read, she'd written a book and somebody had critiqued that book and said, feels like it's a bit out of sync with like. where the world is right now. And actually she agreed with it and agreed that it was almost like too neat. This book was kind of too neat and started imposing her own creative constraints, like almost like refusing to write in certain ways. She started doing all these different short stories and she went on to then write some of her most, I think, sort of pioneering work. Like probably no surprise because she'd sort of started to do all of this. And so that's the sort of the framing for our conversation today. And I had to work quite hard. I've had to think about this quite a lot of like, how might I then start to apply some constraints to myself so that I can think more creatively about my squiggly career? That was sort of my own question. Oh, Speaker 2 (9:59) that's nice. Speaker 1 (9:59) We should probably call the podcast that. Okay, I Speaker 2 (10:02) can't remember what I called it. But that's Speaker 1 (10:04) a Speaker 2 (10:04) good, like applying constraints, creating constraints. to think differently about my squiggly career development or something. Yeah. Okay. So this is what we're going to do. Speaker 1 (10:11) Yes. And yeah, it's interesting. Like some podcasts we research and very quickly, you know exactly what you're going to do. I think I came up with about five different versions of like, how do we, how do we make this useful? Which is good. It's like, it's good to, good to explore. So what I have done is I have taken the five skills that we talk about in the squiggly career and then added one because I wanted to do learning because I wanted to add in, learn like a lobster as like a. uber skill taking a skill i have made up a constraint that then you and i are going to play with and be like oh we've created the constraints that i'm saying i've created it and then said okay well what would you what would you choose like what would you do so let's see let's see okay see if this works so i'm going to start with learning as our sort of master skill before i go to the five skills um and i've tried to make every constraint different so that if you're listening you can then also start like playing around with you know different different ones that you might want to have a go at so with learning you've got 50 pounds to spend on something to support your learning