Too Dumb to Know I Can't - Replace "I'm not creative" with this and see what shifts
Read by my JoAnn-AI assistant created with ElevenLabs.
This week’s writing practice started with a question: What do I want to understand more deeply right now?
The answer was another question—one I get asked often: How do you do what you do?
For years, my shorthand was a self-deprecating joke: “I’m too dumb to know I can’t.” It felt like an explanation. Recently, I learned a new phrase for it though: compressed complexity.
That sent me down a research rabbit hole that overwhelmingly supports innovation as something learnable. It’s not a born thing—it’s a built thing. Most people were just never trained to think this way or put into situations that required it.²
I love this, because (1) I want to share practical discoveries and (2) every future-of-work headline says the same thing: innovation is the new currency.¹ Yet one of the hardest problems to solve in innovation leadership is that so many people don’t see themselves as creative or as “innovators.”
Listen to hear how anyone can learn the skills of innovation.
Or read the article and leave a comment on Substack.
And don’t forget to register for the next live recording of Innovating Out Loud, the webcast. Jan 22nd (and every 4th Thursday monthly) at 9 AM PT / 12 PM ET. Our next guest is Sean Quinn, head of regenerative design at HOK.
Sources
* Shawn Kanungo, “The Infinite Mindset: Why Innovation Now Beats Knowledge” — https://shawnkanungo.com/blog/the-infinite-mindset-why-mediocre-jobs-are-dying-and-innovation-is-the-new-currency
* “The influence of creative self-efficacy, creative self-identity, and innovation support,” International Journal of Business Innovation and Research (2023) — https://www.inderscienceonline.com/doi/full/10.1504/IJBIR.2023.128334
* Tierney & Farmer, “Creative Self-Efficacy,” Academy of Management Journal (2002); Frontiers in Psychology (2022) — https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.937971/full
* Miller, “The Magical Number Seven”; Förster et al. on Construal Level Theory — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chunking_(psychology); https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11943103/
* Beghetto, “Creative Self-Efficacy Among Children and Adolescents,” Frontiers in Psychology (2020) — https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.02237/full
* Dweck, “Growth Mindsets: The Power of Praising Process and Persistence” — https://www.library.pima.gov/blogs/post/growth-mindsets-the-power-of-praising-process-and-persistence/
* Bandura, “Self-Efficacy Interventions,” Handbook of Behavior Change — https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/handbook-of-behavior-change/selfefficacy-interventions/D4EC41A2F16CB6171058C5B00AE575AB
* “Flexing the Frame: Training Abstract, Concrete, and Ambidextrous Thinking” (Dissertation, UT Arlington) —https://mavmatrix.uta.edu/psychology_dissertations/163/
