EP 234: The Art of Ideas: Creative Thinking for Work and Life with William Duggan

Great ideas don’t just happen. Innovation springs from creative thinking—a method of the human mind that we can study and learn.

In The Art of Ideas, our guest brings together business concepts with stories of creativity in art, politics, and history to provide a visual and accessible guide to the art and science of new and useful ideas.

He details how to spark your own ideas and what to do while waiting for inspiration to strike. He shows that regardless of the field, innovations happen in the same way: examples from history, presence of mind, creative combination, and resolution to action.

The Art of Ideas features case studies and exercises that explain how to break down problems, search for precedents, and creatively combine past models to form new ideas. It showcases how Picasso developed his painting style, how Gandhi became the man we know today, and how Netflix came to disrupt the movie-rental business.