Podcasts about big little breakthroughs

Josh Linkner is a brilliant expert on creativity and innovation. He is the founder and CEO of five tech companies that sold for a combined value of over $200 million. He is a highly respected business leader, venture capitalist, keynote speaker and even a gifted jazz guitarist. He is also the New York Times bestselling author of several books, including his latest, Big Little Breakthroughs. On this classic episode, Josh joined host Robert Glazer on the Elevate Podcast to discuss his winding career path, how each of us can achieve daily creative breakthroughs, and how companies can unlock their collective creativity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From Comedy to Keppler (ft. Warren Jones)An unexpected path brings surprising insightsOPENING QUOTE:“Thunder applause, everybody on their feet. So happy, just ecstatic. And he said, "Here's the thought I had. I've got to write a new speech.”-Warren JonesGUEST BIO:From a hugely successful career in entertainment, working as a manager at ABC and then at Professional Representatives Organization International, Warren Jones entered the world of marketing to eventually land the CEO gig at EnterWorks. He also launched a successful comedy agency. Later, a casual breakfast meetup with a friend led to an offer to become the CEO of the prestigious Keppler Speakers Bureau. Warren couldn't turn down the challenge, and the rest is history.Links:LinkedInCORE TOPICS + DETAILS:[15:31] - “I've Got to Write a New Speech”Improving from the topWarren brings up an inspiring story of a speaker who told him about an experience they had after a speech. They had just delivered their message to a packed room, who erupted in thunderous applause, and this speaker was feeling at the absolute top of their game. In that moment, they thought: “I've got to write a new speech.”This speaker was so focused on ensuring that the response they received — and the quality of their message— never diminished, that even at the absolute pinnacle they could only think about their new leap. That's the mark of a true pro.[18:10] - What Speakers Can Learn from ComediansEfficiency and ConnectionIn Warren's experience, comedians often say that writing the first five minutes of a set is the hardest. So many of them work backward — they start with their key beats or punchlines, then build from their destination backward. If something doesn't help get them there, they cut it. Meanwhile, comedians intuitively understand that comedy is about connection as much as its about humor. When an audience is tuned into the wavelength of the performer, that's when real magic happens.Speakers can learn from both of these lessons: design keynotes around your key points, being ruthlessly efficient in the process, and never forget about the power of connection.[23:46] - What Do the Greats Do?Asking Warren what gives speakers staying powerWarren helpfully outlines his example of the perfect pro speaker. She does the event calls and pre-event calls, sometimes more than one. She offers a follow-up conversation. When she walks onstage, she knows the audience — what the hot buttons are, what they may have talked about that morning in another session or the day before. She doesn't play down to the audience or underestimate them. She interacts early and often with the event planner. She even serves as an ambassador for other speakers. She's deeply service oriented.Consider this a checklist for anyone wanting not only a successful speaking career, but a long one.[36:22] - Substance Over FlashThe past, present, and future of the industryThere was a time in speaking when star power was king. Event planners wanted to draw a crowd, and a marquee speaker was the way to do it. But now events draw their crowds from the quality and relevance of the event itself. That means speakers aren't the star — their message is. The future of keynote speaking is all about transformative messages that lead to real impact, not recognizable names that ultimately lead nowhere. Content is what it's all about.RESOURCES:[1:35] About Keppler[40:15] Big Little Breakthroughs, by Josh LinknerFollow Warren Jones:LinkedInFollow Josh Linkner:FacebookLinkedInInstagramTwitterYouTubeABOUT MIC DROP:Hear from the world's top thought leaders and experts, sharing tipping point moments, strategies, and approaches that led to their speaking career success. Throughout each episode, host Josh Linkner, #1 Innovation keynote speaker in the world, deconstructs guests' Mic Drop moments and provides tactical tools and takeaways that can be applied to any speaking business, no matter it's starting point. You'll enjoy hearing from some of the top keynote speakers in the industry including: Ryan Estis, Alison Levine, Peter Sheahan, Seth Mattison, Cassandra Worthy, and many more. Mic Drop is sponsored by ImpactEleven.Learn more at: MicDropPodcast.comABOUT THE HOST:Josh Linkner is a Creative Troublemaker. He believes passionately that all human beings have incredible creative capacity, and he's on a mission to unlock inventive thinking and creative problem solving to help leaders, individuals, and communities soar. Josh has been the founder and CEO of five tech companies, which sold for a combined value of over $200 million and is the author of four books including the New York Times Bestsellers, Disciplined Dreaming and The Road to Reinvention. He has invested in and/or mentored over 100 startups and is the Founding Partner of Detroit Venture Partners.Today, Josh serves as Chairman and Co-founder of Platypus Labs, an innovation research, training, and consulting firm. He has twice been named the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year and is the recipient of the United States Presidential Champion of Change Award. Josh is also a passionate Detroiter, the father of four, is a professional-level jazz guitarist, and has a slightly odd obsession with greasy pizza. Learn more about Josh: JoshLinkner.comSPONSORED BY IMPACTELEVEN:From refining your keynote speaking skills to writing marketing copy, from connecting you with bureaus to boosting your fees, to developing high-quality websites, producing head-turning demo reels, Impact Eleven (formerly 3 Ring Circus) offers a comprehensive and powerful set of services to help speakers land more gigs at higher fees. Learn more at: impacteleven.comPRODUCED BY DETROIT PODCAST STUDIOS:In Detroit, history was made when Barry Gordy opened Motown Records back in 1960. More than just discovering great talent, Gordy built a systematic approach to launching superstars. His rigorous processes, technology, and development methods were the secret sauce behind legendary acts such as The Supremes, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross and Michael Jackson.As a nod to the past, Detroit Podcast Studios leverages modern versions of Motown's processes to launch today's most compelling podcasts. What Motown was to musical artists, Detroit Podcast Studios is to podcast artists today. With over 75 combined years of experience in content development, audio production, music scoring, storytelling, and digital marketing, Detroit Podcast Studios provides full-service development, training, and production capabilities to take podcasts from messy ideas to finely tuned hits. Here's to making (podcast) history together.Learn more at: DetroitPodcastStudios.comSHOW CREDITS:Josh Linkner: Host | josh@joshlinkner.comConnor Trombley: Executive Producer | connor@DetroitPodcastStudios.com

The pressure to generate big ideas can feel overwhelming. We know that bold innovations are critical in these disruptive and competitive times, but when it comes to breakthrough thinking, we often freeze up. Instead of shooting for a $10-billion payday or a Nobel Prize, the most prolific innovators focus on Big Little Breakthroughs—small creative acts that unlock massive rewards over time. By cultivating daily micro-innovations, individuals and organizations are better equipped to tackle tough challenges and seize transformational opportunities. How did a convicted drug dealer launch and scale a massively successful fitness company? What core mindset drove LEGO to become the largest toy company in the world? How did a Pakistani couple challenge the global athletic shoe industry? What simple habits led Lady Gaga, Banksy, and Lin-Manuel Miranda to their remarkable success? Big Little Breakthroughs isn't just for propeller-head inventors, fancy-pants CEOs, or hoodie-donning tech billionaires. Rather, it's a surpassingly simple system to help everyday people become everyday innovators.

Josh Linkner started his career as a jazz guitarist who personifies creativity, entrepreneurship, and disruptive innovation. He has been the founder and CEO of five tech companies, which sold for a combined value of over $200 million. Josh is a New York Times bestselling author of four books: Disciplined Dreaming, The Road to Reinvention, Hacking Innovation, and his latest title, Big Little Breakthroughs.  These days, Josh segments his professional time in three buckets: 1. Co-founder and Managing Partner of Muditā Venture Partners, a venture firm with a soul. Over the last two decades, Josh has helped launch and scale over 100 startups. 2. Co-Founding Partner of ImpactEleven, a training and development community helping talented people with a powerful message in a position to impact the world. 3. Co-founder and Chairman of Platypus Labs, a boutique global innovation studio that offers keynotes, training, and consulting to help organizations unlock innovation. Josh has been named the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year twice and is a United States Presidential Champion of Change award recipient.  __ In this episode, Josh starts by talking about his formative years and what inspired him to become a jazz guitarist, a founder of five tech companies, and a New York Times best-selling author.  Josh then discusses what sparked his motivation to write “Big Little Breakthroughs”. Josh explains his definition of creativity and why it is so important.  Josh talks about his book and explains the need for creative problem-solving and inventive thinking in all roles and walks of life. He explains how someone can inject more purposeful creativity into their life.  Josh believes that small creative ideas can lead to massive breakthroughs. He breaks down the anatomy of an idea, and how someone can use this model to think of small yet creative ideas.  Josh thinks that it is important to have a systematic framework for inventive thinking and creative problem-solving. He shares how someone can become an everyday innovator and shares a story of a creative hero. Josh values great habits, routines, and rituals on a daily basis. He shares one ritual that he practices to fuel the best of his creative abilities. Lastly, Josh provides his definition of greatness and what it means to him. __ Host: Ben Mumme Twitter: https://twitter.com/mumme_ben Medium: https://benjaminmumme.medium.com/ YouTube: https://bit.ly/3fAcFrt Instagram:    https://www.instagram.com/livingyourg... __ Guest: Josh Linkner Website: https://joshlinkner.com/  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joshlinkner/?hl=en  Twitter: https://twitter.com/joshlinkner  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshlinkner/  __ Let's Connect

Josh Linkner is a brilliant expert on creativity and innovation. He is the founder and CEO of five tech companies that sold for a combined value of over $200 million. He is a highly respected business leader, venture capitalist, keynote speaker and even a gifted jazz guitarist. He is also the New York Times bestselling author of several books, including his latest, Big Little Breakthroughs. Josh joined host Robert Glazer on the Elevate Podcast to discuss his winding career path, how each of us can achieve daily creative breakthroughs, and how companies can unlock their collective creativity. Learn More about Josh Josh's Website Josh's Latest Book – Big Little Breakthroughs Josh's Other Books Book Josh to Speak Follow Josh: Twitter | Instagram| LinkedIn| Facebook

How to become a creative troublemaker    Today we are kicking off another season of Summer of Reading! We are going to go through some of the best books I have read this year, and there is no better way to start this season than with Josh Linkner and his fantastic book, Big Little Breakthroughs.   As an entrepreneur, you are always looking for more ways to be innovative and stand out from the crowd. But where do you start? We often become so obsessed with where everyone else is that we stop focusing on where we are going.    It's time to stop following the leader. You need to break it to fix it in your way! Get out your notepad and headphones; this episode will teach you how to become a creative troublemaker and discover a mindset that will push you to your best. Let's get started!    What's in This Episode Obsession of everyday innovators  How two minutes a day can change your mindset Idea jamming vs. brainstorming  A test kitchen for your ideas  Judo flipping How to use language to make ideas memorable to readers How to train your creativity     What To Do Next Visit lisalarter.com/e65 for all resources from this episode.

Cal talks with the best-selling author and one of America's most sought after keynote speakers about the first steps that can send you on your way. Josh has founded, built and sold five companies for a combined exit value of more than $200 million. He knows of what he speaks. The innovation exercise he plays out with Cal on reshaping healthcare in this episode can be tailored to anybody's needs. Josh's mantra is: Think of how powerful your company can be if everyone innovates, every day. You'll be stronger for listening . . . much stronger.

Josh Linkner is a creative troublemaker. He has been the founder and CEO of five tech companies, which sold for a combined value of over $200 million, and is the author of four books including the New York Times bestsellers, Disciplined Dreaming, and The Road to Reinvention. He has helped launch over a hundred startups and was the Founding Partner of Detroit Venture Partners. Josh is also a passionate Detroiter, the father of four is a professional-level jazz guitarist, and has a slightly odd obsession for greasy pizza. For more, visit JoshLinkner.com. Big Little Breakthroughs book on Amazon.

Josh Linkner is a creative troublemaker. He has been the founder and CEO of five tech companies, which sold for a combined value of over $200 million, and is the author of four books including the New York Times bestsellers, Disciplined Dreaming, and The Road to Reinvention. He has helped launch over a hundred startups and was the Founding Partner of Detroit Venture Partners. Josh is also a passionate Detroiter, the father of four is a professional-level jazz guitarist, and has a slightly odd obsession for greasy pizza. For more, visit JoshLinkner.com. Big Little Breakthroughs book on Amazon.

Josh Linkner, VC, tech entrepreneur, NYT bestselling author, keynote speaker. 2:39 - What is the attitude of Detroit, MI?  4:19 - Who was Josh Linkner's first influences in developing his attitude. Adores his wife. How did grandparents influence his attitude. Big Little Breakthroughs book. Grandmother was very present.  8:53 - When people come to pitch a venture capital partner, what do you look for when you decide how to invest. What are the mistakes and what are the successes? As an investor I want to see how passionate you are about your concept. Been involved with the launch of over 100 startups. Coachable. Discipline to overcome adversity. Attitude is the way you dedicate yourself to the way you think. Open-mindedness. Failing is not a four letter word.  15:14 - Who is the most humble person you've met? Innovation. Trellan rustwick. Ballot Bin bright yellow bin. You don't need to be a billionaire to be innovative. Micro innovations.  24:23 - Discipline Dreaming book. Adding creativity to our lives. Music as a mechanism to inspire innovation. The Road To Reinvention book. Reinvention should be an ongoing process.  28:08 - Is leadership changing. The best leaders are service oriented leaders. Great leaders are great learners. Great leaders focus on who they serve. Delivering extraordinary value. Longer term focused rather than short term.  30:48 - Knowledge through the decades. What was the attitude lesson at birth. Service. Thoughts on being broke. You're not broke as a person. There is a real opportunity to learn through failure. The smartest people have big failures.  36:31 - What was the attitude lesson at the age of 10? Selling illegal fireworks.  37:50 - What was the attitude lesson at the age of 20? Put self through college with music. Jazz. Building creatively confidence. Michel Dell.  42:31 - What was the attitude lesson at the age of 30? Building company EatWise. Jewish decent. Going above and beyond. Divorce. Wanted to be a mensch.  45:23 - What was the attitude lesson at the age of 40? Do the right thing rather than the easy thing. Maintain integrity.  48:17 - What was the attitude lesson at the age of 50? Trying to be more patient. Thought leadership. Platypus Labs, innovation training. Mudita. Taking joy in other peoples' success. Apposite of schadenfreude. Venture fund with a soul. Impact11.  51:26 - Message of hope. Escaping dormant creativity. Have. Do. Be.  _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _  SUBSCRIBE / RATE / REVIEW

Josh Linkner, VC, tech entrepreneur, NYT bestselling author, keynote speaker.2:39 - What is the attitude of Detroit, MI? 4:19 - Who was Josh Linkner's first influences in developing his attitude. Adores his wife. How did grandparents influence his attitude. Big Little Breakthroughs book. Grandmother was very present. 8:53 - When people come to pitch a venture capital partner, what do you look for when you decide how to invest. What are the mistakes and what are the successes? As an investor I want to see how passionate you are about your concept. Been involved with the launch of over 100 startups. Coachable. Discipline to overcome adversity. Attitude is the way you dedicate yourself to the way you think. Open-mindedness. Failing is not a four letter word. 15:14 - Who is the most humble person you've met? Innovation. Trellan rustwick. Ballot Bin bright yellow bin. You don't need to be a billionaire to be innovative. Micro innovations. 24:23 - Discipline Dreaming book. Adding creativity to our lives. Music as a mechanism to inspire innovation. The Road To Reinvention book. Reinvention should be an ongoing process. 28:08 - Is leadership changing. The best leaders are service oriented leaders. Great leaders are great learners. Great leaders focus on who they serve. Delivering extraordinary value. Longer term focused rather than short term. 30:48 - Knowledge through the decades. What was the attitude lesson at birth. Service. Thoughts on being broke. You're not broke as a person. There is a real opportunity to learn through failure. The smartest people have big failures. 36:31 - What was the attitude lesson at the age of 10? Selling illegal fireworks. 37:50 - What was the attitude lesson at the age of 20? Put self through college with music. Jazz. Building creatively confidence. Michel Dell. 42:31 - What was the attitude lesson at the age of 30? Building company EatWise. Jewish decent. Going above and beyond. Divorce. Wanted to be a mensch. 45:23 - What was the attitude lesson at the age of 40? Do the right thing rather than the easy thing. Maintain integrity. 48:17 - What was the attitude lesson at the age of 50? Trying to be more patient. Thought leadership. Platypus Labs, innovation training. Mudita. Taking joy in other peoples' success. Apposite of schadenfreude. Venture fund with a soul. Impact11. 51:26 - Message of hope. Escaping dormant creativity. Have. Do. Be. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ SUBSCRIBE / RATE / REVIEW

How can (and should) companies create memorable experiences that people want to SHARE? You'll learn it's not terribly difficult. And, when done consistently, it can yield some pretty awesome results! Our guest on this episode is a friend of the show who was a guest back in Season 3 (episode 44!) -- we discussed how customer experience really is marketing. This is Dan's wheelhouse and he shares so many amazing examples with us about how word-of-mouth marketing really is the best kind.   “A great customer experience strategy is the best way to get people talking about a brand.” Our guest... Dan Gingiss  Dan is an international keynote speaker and coach who believes that a remarkable customer experience is your best sales and marketing strategy. His 20-year professional career included leadership positions at McDonald's, Discover, and Humana. Dan is the author of two books, The Experience Maker and Winning at Social Customer Care, and is the host of two shows, the Experience This! podcast and The Experience Maker LinkedIn live show. His book reco: Big Little Breakthroughs by Josh Linkner   We are "Making a Marketer"... in all ways. Check out episode 96 -- and please take a minute to follow, rate, & review us on iTunes & get each ep. when it drops! https://bit.ly/mamITuneNEW ::: This episode is made possible by Powers of Marketing - emPOWERing strategic communication ::: ** Our show music is provided by our GIFTED editor, MUSICIAN, Avri. Check out his song, "Too Close"! **

頻繁測試大量微小點子是事業永續成長與追求成功的新模式。不管你是領導一個跨國團隊，或是自行探索，愈快開始進行大量測試，肯定能大大激發你的創意成果。

頻繁測試大量微小點子是事業永續成長與追求成功的新模式。不管你是領導一個跨國團隊，或是自行探索，愈快開始進行大量測試，肯定能大大激發你的創意成果。

On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, we sit down with Kaiser Yang, Co-founder of Platypus Labs and Author of the new book Crack the Code. Kaiser and I talk about the mindsets needed to foster creativity and innovation. And some of the pitfalls you can avoid when trying to spin up your innovation initiatives.Inside Outside Innovation as the podcast to help new innovators navigate what's next. Each week, we'll give you a front row seat to what it takes to learn, grow, and thrive in today's world of accelerating change and uncertainty. Join us as we explore, engage, and experiment with the best and the brightest innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneering businesses. It's time to get started.Interview Transcript of Kaiser Yang, Co-founder of Platypus Labs and Author of Crack the CodeBrian Ardinger: Welcome to another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. I'm your host Brian Ardinger. And as always, we have another amazing guest. Today we have Kaiser Yang. He is co-founder of Platypus Labs and author of the book Crack the Code: Eight Surprising Keys to Unlock Innovation. Welcome. Kaiser Yang: Hey, thank you so much, Brian. I'm delighted to be here and be a part of your program. Brian Ardinger: I'm excited to have you on the show. We got connected through Josh Linkner. I was interviewing him about his new book, Big Little Breakthroughs. And he reached out recently to say, hey, Kaiser's got a new book out in and around this particular subject. You've worked with some great companies out there when it comes to Innovation, Heineken, and ESPN, and Coca-Cola. What are some of the most common problems that companies are trying to solve when it comes to Innovation?Kaiser Yang: There's a number of challenges that we help organizations focus on and prioritize. But it really starts at the leadership level of prioritizing Innovation, building the right set of rituals and rewards that motivates team members to drive inventive thinking in their day-to-day responsibilities. And so, we do spend a lot of time working from the leadership level first understanding what the desired state is. What some of the desired outcomes are.And crafting a strategy. And that strategy, it could involve a number of different things from bringing thought leadership to the organization, doing training workshops, running Innovation, bootcamps. Sometimes it even just comes down to creating inspiration and motivation in terms of ideas, like giving them the power to recognize patterns outside of their industry. So, they can innovate their own and challenge the status quo. So, for us, I think when we first work with organizations, it has to start at the top. Meaning there needs to be a commitment to driving innovation and making it a priority. And then it makes the rest of the initiatives so much smoother moving forward.Brian Ardinger: That is so important that context setting. Because I think a lot of times organizations get off the wrong track because they don't necessarily define Innovation the same way. A lot of people think of innovation as I've got to come up with the next electric car or new Uber. And as you know, Innovation can be something much simpler as far as, you know, how do you find it and identify a problem and create something of value to solve that problem. And a lot of the book talks about that creative problem-solving area that doesn't have to be transformational, but it can be little breakthroughs that make a difference. Kaiser Yang: Absolutely. It's a philosophy that I share with Josh. And his book, Big Little Breakthroughs is all about the fact that we should look for everyday acts of creativity or what he calls micro innovations.And for us too, when we work with organizations, we obviously want to look at transformational opportunities, high growth opportunities. But sometimes when you look at Innovation, just in that context, it can be paralyzing for most of the team members, right. Unless it's a billion-dollar Elon Musk type idea that it doesn't count.When in reality, some of the best innovations start with small acts of creativity applied to solving the customer experience or driving improvement in internal processes. And those little innovations can stack up and make a significant difference over time. Brian Ardinger: Well, you almost have to build up those muscles and, you know, to jump directly to starting a brand-new business or a brand-new idea is challenging, especially if you've been hired to optimize and execute in a particular business model that you know and have some certainty around. Versus a completely unknown kind of environment. Kaiser Yang: For sure. What we see in many organizations is that there's this tremendous creative readiness, this curiosity, this willingness to drive change. But where it falls short is the implementation side. And it's most often these teams and individuals don't have the right tools or the training or critical thinking skills to apply their creativity to innovative outcomes.And that really is kind of the point of Crack the Code, my new book. It's more of a field guide, a manual to help you unlock your creativity. And add a little bit more structure to the process. So rather than saying, hey, let's solve the sales challenge or this customer experience problem, or this operational inefficiency and just brainstorming in the traditional sense. These are proven tools and techniques that really guide you through that creative process, so you can realize better outcomes in the end. Brian Ardinger: Let's talk a little bit about the book. You kind of break it up into these four key mindsets that you believe individuals and organizations need to be building and growing on. Talk a little bit about the mindsets and how they came to be and the thought process around it. Kaiser Yang: Yeah. I mean, these mindsets are really based on almost like two decades worth of research and real-world experiences, having been a startup entrepreneur and starting my own businesses. Creativity is that one underlying skill set that was applied to drive growth and transformation and performance at pretty much every level.And so, when we think about some of these mindsets, they may come across to you as common sense, but common sense isn't always common practice. So, for example, the first core mindset that we start out with is this notion that every barrier can be penetrated. It's this inherent belief that no matter how difficult the challenge is, if you apply enough creative energy at it, that obstacle can be overcome.Right, the most powerful successful innovators out there, when they have a setback or they have a failure, what they don't do is throw up their arms and get discouraged. They're the ones that say not yet. So, while it seems obvious that every barrier can be penetrated, if you look at organizations and teams, once you have a couple of failures or a few setbacks, a lot of times it's like, eh, this idea is not going to work. Or maybe we should do something else. Instead, we believe that with the right focus of your creative energy, you can really overcome some of the most difficult challenges out there. Brian Ardinger: And ironically, sometimes those constraints are actually the things that open up the creativity. Having a constraint, forces you to think differently about how you might solve that problem or what problem you're actually solving. And I think that, you know, having that mindset of being able to overcome that challenge and think differently about it is very important. Kaiser Yang: The other mindset that we often teach organizations, larger organizations we work with is this whole notion of compasses over maps. The main underscoring point is you need to start before you're ready. Too often, organizations wait until they have a full-on three-year business plan. The ROI has been vetted. They've got every stakeholder approved. But the most successful innovators out there, I believe, trust their instinct to course correct along the way and get started. So, they use more of a compass to guide their innovation journey rather than waiting for a detailed map.And it's so powerful when you know, you can arm a team to really start taking action and iterative experimentation processes to test a new way to improve customer satisfaction, or get payables reduce by 20%. And just these small incremental wins, it requires organizations to empower their teams to start before they're ready. And that's what the whole compass over maps mindset is all about. So that's one of the mindsets that we talk about in the book. The Ewing Marion Kauffman FoundationSponsor Voice: The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation is a private, nonpartisan foundation based in Kansas City, Missouri, that seeks to build inclusive prosperity through a prepared workforce and entrepreneur-focused economic development. The Foundation uses its $3 billion in assets to change conditions, address root causes, and break down systemic barriers so that all people – regardless of race, gender, or geography – have the opportunity to achieve economic stability, mobility, and prosperity. For more  information, visit www.kauffman.org and connect with us at www.twitter.com/kauffmanfdn and www.facebook.com/kauffmanfdn.Brian Ardinger: Yeah, I like that concept. It's almost like you're in a cave. Innovation is like you're in a cave and it's dark and you don't have a map. So, you have to feel around the walls to figure your way out of it. And I think obviously a lot of people are not comfortable in that particular environment, but the more you get used to knowing that maps can be directionally important, but they're not necessarily the actual be all end all to get you to the end goal. Especially in uncertain environments. The more likely you are to build that mechanism and that muscle of being okay with that ambiguity, I suppose. Kaiser Yang: Yeah. I mean that ambiguity can be paralyzing for many organizations, where there's a lot of uncertainty unknown. There isn't a clear path forward. But we view it more as that artist's studio where it's all about discovery and exploration. And so, while it's easy to say that much of the work that we do with organizations is giving that toolkit to overcome some of those anxiety driven moments led by ambiguity. So, here's a systematic process that doesn't stifle your creativity, but rather provides more of a scaffolding around it and helps you guide you through the process. So even when we talk about understanding pain points and customer needs, really for us, that's where the innovation process starts. Just saying that is one thing but giving you some tools and systems and processes that help guide you through that journey. I think that's super powerful. And it adds structure to that artist studio that many people might feel uncomfortable in. Brian Ardinger: So maybe we can dig in a little bit about some of the tactics or some of the specific guidance that you have within the book, as far as action steps or things that people can do to both create these mindsets and then take action on it. Kaiser Yang: Yeah, for sure. There's eight different tactics that are built into the book. And they're all my favorite tactics. And I think Innovation in and of itself, there isn't a silver bullet in terms of ideation or process. Every situation is unique, and we encourage many of our clients to tackle the innovation challenge, using a number of different tactics and strategies, so you can see things from a various perspective.And then you open up for exploration and deeper discovery. But for example, one of the ones that we have a lot of success teaching organizations is one that we simply called the Borrowed Idea. Right? It's looking outside of your industry for key factors that drive competitive advantage. Drive sustainable success. And taking some of those insights and bringing it back to your own.One of our partners that we work with often says that expertise can be the greatest enemy of innovation. Meaning when you know too much about an industry, or you've been in your role for too long, it's really hard to embrace new ways or see things in a different way. So, this borrowed idea technique is a very systematic way of looking outside. Looking at business models, right?So, in what ways are they leveraging technology? What is their customer experience like? How are they driving sales? What's their pricing model? And for example, like higher education. What could they potentially learn from the hospitality industry or maybe higher education? What could they learn from consumers today engaging on Tik Tok? And borrowing those ideas and bringing it back. And one of my favorite quotes was from Steven Jobs who a long time ago said that he's sometimes embarrassed when people call him creative, because he thinks creativity is nothing more than the ability to connect dots. As we grow older in our careers and become more experienced, we're very good at that one dot that we're paid very well to do, but we forget about all the dots out there. So, what can we learn from the field of music or athletics or, you know, getting into specific categories? That's the whole concept of the borrowed idea. Systematically exploring as far away from your industry as possible and finding new ways that you can bring back to your organization. Brian Ardinger: It's surprising how focused a lot of organizations get with, they know a hundred percent what their competitors are doing and everything about that particular customer segment and that, but like you said, don't necessarily take one adjacent step to the left or right to see what's going on, that could significantly change the game. Because most of the people are playing the same game. And if you slightly change the game, you can outpace your competition. So, we are living in a world of accelerating change. Obviously, innovation is much more important than it has ever been before. And I think a lot of people are now getting that or understanding that. What are some of the trends that you're seeing when it comes to Innovation? Kaiser Yang: There's lots of trends. I mean, we can categorize it in terms of strategy and technology and, you know, market trends, things like that. But I think at the height of the organizations that we've worked with, one of the trends that we have started to see with larger enterprise organizations is building this culture of rapid experimentation.We've all read about Facebook and, you know, case studies like Bookings.com, where they have 30,000 concurrent experiments going on at any given time. But even large organizations like Allstate and Mass Mutual, they're building these cultures where they're constantly testing. And I think it's so cool to see because the old school was research and experimentation was a very linear process.It was measured and calculate. But we're seeing many organizations move to this very iterative model, not being afraid of failure. Taking responsible risks and applying this notion of rapid experimentation, constantly looking for new ways to better the customer experience or to serve their community.And that shift, you know, for me, is fascinating to see like large 30,000 employee organizations move to this model of rapid experimentation. And whether it's, you know, following the Lean Startup Movement or any of those other models out there, just seeing companies put aside the need for ROI and business plans and you know, every stakeholder buy-in. But instead, just getting out there and quickly testing new ways to serve their customers. It's one of those trends that hopefully we'll see many organizations continue to embrace, because I think that's the way you find the idea right. Like remove uncertainty through experimentation. Validate your concepts. And quickly move them forward through an iterative process rather than sitting on it for 12 or 18 months waiting for the R and D department to say, okay, let's go forward with it.Brian Ardinger: Great point. And I'd love to hear your thoughts on how to get over that fear. You know, that seems to be one of the biggest barriers is people fundamentally understand the theory around, well, I should be experimenting more, but like the incentives aren't there, the rewards aren't there, the culture is not there such that it enables that risk-taking. So, are there any hints or tips or things you've seen that might work to overcome that fear? Kaiser Yang: I mean, again, like we said, at the start of this discussion, it does start at the leadership level, setting up the right environment that fosters learning. I don't know if I would say fosters failure, but the ability to take risks on behalf of the company and try new things.So even like there's the case studies of issuing get out of jail free cards and building different rewards that recognize people that have taken action. So, I think it starts there at the leadership level, creating the right environment, that the team members feel safe in. But more so we focus on the individual level. Because a lot of times that fear manifests itself by the fear of being embarrassed in front of our peers. Or the fear of my idea not being good enough. Or even sometimes it's the fear of success that this idea might actually put me out of a job. So, we focus more on the individual level of removing that fear by teaching them proven frameworks, to really experiment and validate and overlaying that with some of the mindsets that we talked about.One of the mindsets that we often talk about, it's not in the book, but it's this notion of, if you fall seven, you stand eight. And the best innovators out there, always find a way of shaking it off, getting back up and no matter what the challenges they persist through adversity. And I think that's kind of that mindset that's critically important to pair with all of these tools and techniques that gives you the confidence, if you will, right. To come up with ideas and stretch your imagination. Oftentimes when we sit with organizations, it's your natural tendency to come up with the safest, easiest, most obvious ideas. Those are the safe ones, right? And it can be a little bit fearful to push your imagination to further limits, to come up with the wild or unusual, or even unorthodox wacky idea. But those are usually the ones that drive the most change and progress for any organization. And so, creating the right mix of tools and techniques and mindsets to help team members get there, that's where we see at least for us it's so satisfying to find those what we call aha moments, where that light bulb goes off and you come up with some great, innovative ideas. Brian Ardinger: Yeah. The other thing I've seen that seems to work is oftentimes just changing the mindset. I think a lot of people think they have to have the perfect plan before they can present it to their boss and move it forward. But almost changing that conversation to saying, I've got something I want to try over here. Or here's a little side project I'm working on. Don't have it all figured out, but here's the next thing I'm going to try to do to learn or build out, get evidence that I'm on the right path. That type of mindset or that type of philosophy around it sometimes change the game significantly versus I guess the old way of I've got to put together a 50-page business plan, figuring out all the obstacles and hope that I'm right. When I actually launch it. Kaiser Yang: Yeah, for sure. I mean, just building crude, prototypes and running some simple experiments to remove some uncertainty can make a huge difference in the organization's ability to move a little bit quicker. But even what you said about the strategic side, right. That oh my, I have to put a 50-page deck together to pitch our ideas.We have something that's called the Strategic Canvas and it's an iterative six- step process that really simplifies the strategy building. So you're not, hyper-focused on all the details and business models and assumptions and all of that stuff. But it builds a very strong foundation under your idea.And it's a very powerful way to be able to present your idea cohesively very succinctly and very efficient. wSo, we try to demystify that business plan process as well, to empower team members, to move a little bit faster and take their ideas and get some visibility and traction around it, in the process.Brian Ardinger: A lot of our folks that are listening aren't necessarily at the leadership level, they're charged with being innovative or launching new products and that. But sometimes they're at the process of trying to get that buy in from the top. Do you have any recommendations or thoughts around how, as an individual within an organization, to start building that culture of creativity and innovation within their group? Kaiser Yang: There's a couple of ways we can look at this, but at the first cut is just teams or individuals viewing the fact that creativity is really a muscle, that needs to be stretched out, warmed up and strengthened to do its best performance. A lot of times we just need to kind of shake off the cobwebs and dust it off a little bit. But, you know, we don't put as much effort into the preparation of creativity I think, then we should. And so, there's lots of energizers and activities to help achieve hemispheric synchronization or to warm up your creative muscles. Platypus labs, we practice a lot of applied improve. Right. That helps you drive expansive thinking, but more importantly, it teaches you active listening and it gives you this platform to really try to explore your creativity in a number of different ways. And there are so many tools and techniques out there that do that, that if you build a culture where you're practicing things and applying them to your day-to-day business, I mean, it's just amazing to see the transformation and the creative capacity of the teams that we've work with. So, I would start there as really, discover some of these energizers, and workouts, if you will, for your creative muscle, that you can do on a day to day or even week to week basis. For More InformationBrian Ardinger: Yeah. Start local and then go global. Well, Kaiser, I really appreciate you coming on Inside, Outside Innovation to talk about this book, I encourage people to pick up Crack the Code. If people want to find out more about yourself or Platypus Labs or the book, what's the best way to do that? Kaiser Yang: Our team's website is PlatypusLabs.com. Specific to the book, you can go to CracktheInnovationCode.com and learn more about the book there. There's actually an assessment on that site where you can see if the book is worth your time. So, I would encourage you to take that and see if it might be something of value to you. Brian Ardinger: Kaiser, thanks again for being on the show, looking forward to working together again in the future. And let's keep this conversation going in the future. Appreciate it. Kaiser Yang: All right. Thank you so much Brian.Brian Ardinger: That's it for another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. If you want to learn more about our team, our content, our services, check out InsideOutside.io or follow us on Twitter @theIOpodcast or @Ardinger. Until next time, go out and innovate.FREE INNOVATION NEWSLETTER & TOOLSGet the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events. SUBSCRIBE HEREYou can also search every Inside Outside Innovation Podcast by Topic and Company.  For more innovations resources, check out IO's Innovation Article Database, Innovation Tools Database, Innovation Book Database, and Innovation Video Database.  As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.

Self proclaimed, creative troublemaker, Josh Linkner, says we have to challenge assumptions and never stay still for too long if we want to be successful. A business leader and New York Times bestselling author of, Big Little Breakthroughs, Josh started his career as a jazz guitarist and then went on to become the founder and CEO of five tech companies, which sold for a combined value of over $200 million. Find out why Josh says we underestimate the risk of standing still and why we should focus on micro innovations that can lead to big breakthroughs. For more happiness, visit www.management30.com 

Creativity is all about revision. Not many of us are capable of launching ideas already formed and perfectly successful, but that doesn't mean we aren't creative. I had my friend, Josh Linkner, join me for a conversation about creativity and innovation. Josh is the number one most booked innovation keynote speaker. And he also loves Legos. We discussed Josh's recent book, Big Little Breakthroughs, which is all about how small creative acts can unlock massive creative rewards over time. Whether you consider yourself in the “creative field” or not, you absolutely have the potential to unlock innovation. In this episode:Find out more on Josh Linkner's website or at 3 Ring CircusCheck out Josh's book Big Little BreakthroughsSponsored by Remodel Health. Use code ACUFF50 and get 50% off!Follow Jon on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook.Order Soundtracks, Jon's newest book available wherever you find quality books!

Do you believe that you are on the cusp of a breakthrough on a daily basis? Despite popular belief (and to some extent, the media's portrayal of success stories), the wildest successes rarely ever happen on a whim. These stories are the result of regular and consistent creative acts, which prime our brain and our mindset to be more receptive for the big reveal to the big solution. This is the message of Josh Linkner's book, entitled Big Little Breakthroughs, and he believes that everybody has the capacity to be creative; however, a lot of people hold themselves back for several reasons. It could be due to preconceived notions they have of themselves, a bias against creative thinking, or certain thinking habits.    Exercising the Creative Muscle: We are used to thinking that your creativity is like our height: a physical feature we grow into for a bit, but cannot change eventually. However, the reality is it's more like our weight. By implementing changes in habit, mindset, and lifestyle, we are capable of making incremental adjustments.  However, creativity does not exist in a binary. It's more like our position changes on a spectrum depending on how consistently we choose to exercise our creativity muscle. There are plenty of misconceptions that prevent us from being creative. The first is that it is only possible to be a creative person in certain industries. We have conditioned ourselves to think that it is only in the arts that we can be creative—but in reality, there are plenty of opportunities to express the right side of our brain across all industries.  Creativity can be a powerful tool in hyping up conversations with your clients in customer service positions, finding quick solutions to last-minute problems in operations, and extracting meaningful insights from pools of data.  The biggest blocker of creative output has never been a lack of natural talent, or a lack of opportunity; Josh believes that it is caused by fear and our tendency to stick to safe ideas, while we wait for a “right time” to launch the more provocative ones. It is our responsibility to be more thoughtful of the status quo, and challenge ourselves to find new ways to be creative.   Creativity in Nation Building and Social Justice: In the podcast, Josh shared an insightful discussion he had with Caron Proschan, one of the individuals he interviewed for Big Little Breakthroughs. Caron was a fitness nut who also enjoyed chewing gum. One day, when she reached into her bag for a stick of gum, she realized that it was an eerie shade of blue— almost certainly synthetically produced using who knew what substances. This small discovery inspired Caron to search for natural alternatives. However, there was no such thing as natural gum. The massive chewing gum industry was run almost entirely by two giant organizations, with no concern for the quality of the ingredients that went into manufacturing gum. As a result, Caron set out to create the world's first all-natural gum. She is now the founder and CEO of Simply Gum. Beyond Caron and her passion towards creating natural snacking alternatives, we see traces of these small changes in other parts of our lives. Rosa Parks is another stunning example of how simple actions can lead to ripple effects. Her act of defiance on the bus was eventually used as a source of empowerment for the civil rights movement.  This is meaningful because it indicates that the power for change does reside in everyday people; not large corporations, entities, or figures in authority.  “Sustainable progress usually doesn't come from the stroke of an autocratic leader; it comes from the body of the people.” Josh concluded. In many situations, the action that starts the ripple effect is always small: saying “no,” or just looking for ways to improve something you love. Creativity is not limited to situations or people that make you feel fear; rather, the sparks for creativity can come from a positive desire or drive to change something.   Closing Thoughts: Eradicating Anti-Creative Biases: Big Little Breakthroughs is a rallying call for people to become more aware of the way they limit themselves. Now that we've established that everyone is capable of being creative, how do we encourage ourselves to develop it as a skill? According to Josh, experimentation is the key to making creativity a habit. Trying to solve a problem from the get-go will be difficult; but pinpointing small actions people could take would be a great start. Josh likened this process to pointillism. Pointillism, which refers to painting in small strokes that eventually blend into an image from a distance, is the perfect metaphor for his message. He challenges everybody, especially the younger generation to find small ideas to work on and rise from every failure with a slight creative pivot.   It's inspiring to think that a passing thought is all it can take for you to change the world. www.tartle.co   Tcast is brought to you by TARTLE. A global personal data marketplace that allows users to sell their personal information anonymously when they want to, while allowing buyers to access clean ready to analyze data sets on digital identities from all across the globe.   The show is hosted by Co-Founder and Source Data Pioneer Alexander McCaig and Head of Conscious Marketing Jason Rigby.   What's your data worth?   Find out at: https://tartle.co/   YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TARTLE   Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TARTLEofficial/   Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tartle_official/   Twitter: https://twitter.com/TARTLEofficial   Spread the word!

Josh Linkner is a five-time tech entrepreneur, a bestselling author, and a highly requested speaker. His book, Big Little Breakthroughs: How Small, Everyday Innovations Drive Oversized Results, came out in April of this year. Josh is extremely passionate about harnessing human creativity, and Big Little Breakthroughs is actually his fourth book on that topic. He wanted to help everyday people become everyday innovators, because we normally think of innovators as Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerburg--people who have billion dollar ideas that they bring to life. But what Josh believes is that baby acts of creativity, which are less risky, add up to great things. What entrepreneurs can learn about creativity from Josh's book There are a lot of things to take from Josh's book, but three main points about creativity that he shared with us were: Everybody's creative period--All human beings are creative, even if you don't feel that you are. We can reconnect to those roots pretty quickly Harnessing creativity is no longer nice, it's mission critical--In a world that is so competitive, fast moving, technology forward, dealing with Covid, etc….we can no longer simply rely on the models of the past and expect the same results. Creativity is a natural free renewable superpower resource--When we tap into it creativity can become a significant competitive advantage. We all have it and it's free, so don't let it go to waste. What do you do when you're not in the mood to be creative or innovative? We all have those moments when we aren't mentally in a place to be creative or innovative, when we just want to step away from working. Josh has advice for anyone who is stuck in that place. One of the main things that Josh does himself is a five minute a day creativity ritual and that sets him up for the day. The first minute is about inputs, as Josh puts it he “guzzles the creativity of others”. He might stare at a painting, watch a musical performance on YouTube, read a poem out loud. He just absorbs it. The second minute is partly about thinking back to a time in the past when he was creative. Maybe there was a problem he solved where he was in the zone and his creative juices were flowing. And then the remaining 30 seconds is about thinking about himself doing something creative in the future. He then does what he calls “jumping jacks for creativity”, which means he gives himself an unrelated problem to solve. For example he may look at the news and find a problem and decide to come up with 10 ideas that may help that problem. It isn't about solving an actual problem with his own personal work, it's about solving something totally unrelated to get the juices flowing. Next he spends time thinking about possible future success and how much of that success would be tied to creativity. This helps him to frame the importance of creativity. And the last thing he does is he spends time thinking of ideas in rapid fire. He tries to see how many ideas he can come up with in one minute. For example, he might think about how he can market his book and he spends one minute coming up with as many different ways to do that as he can. He says the key is to repeat this ritual everyday, and suggests that you give yourself a 30 day challenge. By the end of your 30 days you will be blown away with how much your mind has changed. How to view failure as an entrepreneur It's easy to look at other people who have reached success and get the idea that they had it easy and they had overnight success. But that's not how it happens and it's harmful to have that mindset. Josh says, “We see somebody who's achieved business success, and we think okay, they had this idea, they're in the shower, by the time they draw dry out there's a limo waiting and they're whisked off to fame and fortune and for their photoshoot of Forbes magazine. And that just is not what entrepreneurship is all about. Entrepreneurship is much more. It's like a blood sport to a degree, I kind of feel like you know, you're not even an entrepreneur until you've been sucker punched, and you're dusting yourself off and you're bleeding on the mat. I mean, that's kind of what entrepreneurship is.” We have been so conditioned that failure is the worst possible outcome, that mistakes are fatal. But as Josh shares, that's just not the case, we should wear failure as a badge of honor. Failure is not a fun thing to go through, but it gives us data that we can use to move forward. Failure is part of the innovation process. “You're not going to achieve something meaningful without some stumbles along the way. In fact, if we're not failing ever, we're not trying hard enough. Even in a corporate setting.” If you have zero failed experiments, that's a problem. Josh points to companies like Google and Microsoft, they experiment all the time and they have 30%-60% failed experiments--and yet they are the companies we admire the most. So don't buy into the distorted view that those we look up to and admire never fail. It's when we face challenges and fall down that we learn the most and get to the good stuff. We frequently get asked things like: What do we use for courses and email marketing? What platform do we use to find people to join our team? What tools do we use for project and task management? Where do we host and publish podcasts and how do we transcribe them? And More.  Well, we just put together the Entrepreneurs' Online Business Toolkit PDF which will give you a complete breakdown of the tools we use to run our 7-figure businesses and how we use them. Click here to grab a copy, it will be an invaluable resource in your entrepreneurial journey! Connect with us: Website: https://www.byobpodcast.com/  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/byobpodcasting  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thebyobpodcast  Twitter: https://twitter.com/thebyobpodcast  Newsletter: http://www.byobpodcast.com/newsletter 

This week Scott talks with Josh Linkner on human creativity and how it can elevate your business. Josh is an entrepreneurial force, world-class speaker, bestselling author, jazz guitarist, and a self-proclaimed creative trouble maker. If you're looking for a way to set your business apart and get to the next level you'll want to listen close to Josh's thoughts on how to find those big little breakthroughs and utilize creativity to stand above the crowd. 

A creative troublemaker and growth-hacking guru, Josh Linkner first learned the art of creating something from nothing from his history as a jazz musician. Today, he is a celebrated entrepreneur, New York Times Bestselling Author, engaging keynote speaker, and an expert in unlocking the power of human creativity. In this episode, Josh shares real life examples from his experience on how to fail forward to cultivate the kind of creativity that leads to big results. Join us to learn what it means to democratize innovation, empower responsible risk, and reward the rituals that lead to psychologically safe environments open to ideas and innovation.Resources Relevant to this Conversation: Big Little Breakthroughs: How Small, Everyday Innovations Drive Oversized ResultsFollow Josh on LinkedInFollow Joe on LinkedIn

In this HRchat episode, we focus on human creativity in its many forms and some ways of bringing that to life and in a corporate setting.Bill's illustrious guest is 5-time tech entrepreneur, New York Times Bestselling Author, America's Top Innovation Keynote Speaker, and world-renowned creativity expert, Josh Linkner.Since 2007, Josh has delivered more than 1,000 keynotes, mostly on how to stimulate more creativity in organizations that will produce meaningful results, such as better problem-solving to overcome obstacles.Josh recently released his latest book, Big Little Breakthroughs: How Small, Everyday Innovations Drive Oversized Results. Josh's desire in writing Big Little Breakthroughs is to help everyday people become every day innovators. He spent over 1000 hours of research finding real-world stories of everyday innovators in all walks of life. In his book, Josh builds a specific and practical system that helps develop one's  “creativity muscles.”Questions include:The Great One, Wayne Gretzky, famously said “You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take.” You've suggested that fear, not a lack of natural talent, is the biggest blocker of creativity. How does fear hold us back?Brainstorming is a "great exercise to yield mediocre ideas. Role-storming is a simple technique that completely removes the fear." Tell our listeners about the concept of role-storming and ways the character acting approach it takes can bring innovation to organizations.How can leaders encourage their employees to be creative? What's involved in creating a culture of innovation?You suggest that when people are "kicking around new ideas", they shouldn't actually call them 'ideas', because an idea itself, in theory, is ready for scrutiny. Instead, you explain, we should first think of them as a spark. What's the difference and why does it matter in the context of moving the need within an organization?You believe everyone has "dormant creative capacity". What can leaders and HR teams do to better to identify and encourage a willingness in certain employees to share their ideas? How can we encourage leaders and HR to champion creativity every day?We do our best to ensure editorial objectivity. The views and ideas shared by our guests and sponsors are entirely independent of The HR Gazette, HRchat Podcast, and Iceni Media Inc.   

There's a lot of pressure to innovate and break through ceilings. It's not always easy, and it can be a double-edged sword. You put too much stress on it and you won't be able to create. Put too little emphasis on it and there's no direction. Where's the fine balance? Today's guest has ways to make this process easier! Josh Linkner started his career as a jazz guitarist, which has been a foundational piece to his extensive experience in creativity, entrepreneurship, and disruptive innovation. He is the Founder and CEO of five tech companies, which have sold for a combined value of over $200 million. What does Josh mean by achieving “big little” breakthroughs? Is that even possible? The concept of this is to flip innovation on its head. We often think innovation means big breakthroughs that change the world. Uber, Google, Airbnb, all come to mind. However, what we often don't see are the tiny micro-steps that lead us there. Instead of cultivating wildly risky “moonshots,” why not just start small? You can work on little innovations every day, which then lead to big breakthroughs over time. Baby ideas are also way less risky and more accessible for your team to do. There isn't a pressure to “perform” or to “think creatively” when you just start small. Like those big tech giants, most of us cannot make a billion-dollar bet. A Harvard study showed that 77% of the U.S. gross domestic product comes from big little breakthroughs. Don't let the news headlines fool you into thinking everyone is achieving big “aha” moments! It's only a small percentage.   Interview Links: Sponsored by: Bit.ly/clariontech Joshlinkner.com Josh on LinkedIn   Resources: Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube   Did you enjoy today's episode? If so, then head over to iTunes and leave a review. Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Gazelles Coaching, on how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast and a leading Gazelles Coach. Gazelles is the term we use for fast-growing companies.   We help leadership teams with 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Scaling Up for Gazelles companies is based on the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from Verne's original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).  

Innovation. Is it creativity? Is it disruption? Is it personal or organizational? It can be all of that and more. Josh Linkner joins Kevin to discuss innovation and a growth mindset. Josh is the author of Big Little Breakthroughs: How small, everyday innovations drive oversized results. and shares that research shows our brain is not fixed. We can develop our innovative skills. Innovation doesn't have to be big or brand new. We can cultivate small ideas, which are less risky and more accessible. We can also innovate around the outcomes we are already doing. Small adjustments can make a big difference. In this episode, Josh shares: The difference between offensive and defensive innovation. The 70/30 rule. How our environment plays a role in innovation. This episode is brought to you by… Unleashing Your Remarkable Potential, Kevin's free weekly e-newsletter. It's full of articles and resources to help you become a more confident and successful leader. Additional Leadership Resources Book Recommendations: Big Little Breakthroughs: How Small, Everyday Innovations Drive Oversized Results by Josh Linkner Soundtracks: The Surprising Solution to Overthinking by Jon Acuff Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know by Adam Grant Connect with Josh Linkner: Website | Book Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | LinkedIn Related Podcast Episodes: Innovation is Everybody's Business with Tamara Ghandour. The Innovation Delusion with Lee Vinsel and Andy Russell. Making Creativity an Everyday Habit with Scott Anthony. Follow the Podcast Don't miss an episode! Follow this podcast through the options below. Apple Podcasts Stitcher TuneIn Soundcloud RSS Or your favorite podcast app. Leave a Review If you liked this conversation, we'd be thrilled if you'd let others know by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. Here's a quick guide for posting a review. Join Our Facebook Group Join our Facebook community to network with like-minded leaders, ask us questions, suggest guests and more. We welcome your wealth of experience and hope you will join us in sharing it with others on their leadership journey. You can join the group here: facebook.com/groups/RemarkableLeadershipPodcast/

Studies show that the Creativity factor is the number one recognized attribute in successful leaders; that creativity is a revenue generator; and that every person alive (that means you!) is born creative. Basically, we have to learn how NOT to be creative, and we're sure doing a bang-up job at that (thank you western culture, technology, and the anxiety of hustle)! So, I bet you can guess we're going against that in this episode to unleash some Creativity, both in our personal lives and in our Friendships! We'll talk about how to get Creativity flowing if you feel stuck, why it's important that you create, and how to do it together so that you build something that lasts. We hope this episode leaves you inspired and ready to become the Creative Genius you are so that your personal expression lives loud on the earth today! For more, check out the book Big Little Breakthroughs, How Small, Everyday Innovations Drive Oversized Results by Josh Linkner. Don't for get to SUBSRIBE and LEAVE A REVIEW, to help us "Make Friendship Famous." --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/theflawsoffriendship/support

Josh Linkner is a well-known thought leader and author of two New York Times Bestsellers, Disciplined Dreaming and The Road to Reinvention, plus the bestsellers Hacking Innovation and his 2021 book, Big Little Breakthroughs. He is a five-time tech entrepreneur, serving as founder and CEO of each company, driving a combined exit value of over $200 Million. One of Josh's ventures was as founder and CEO/Chairman of ePrize, the largest interactive promotion agency in the world. He is a founding partner of Detroit Venture Partners, which helps rebuild his hometown of Detroit, Michigan. Josh is a weekly contributor to Inc. Magazine, Forbes, Detroit Free Press, and has been featured by many other international media. He has received high praise from people like Magic Johnson, Seth Godin, Steve Case, and from the chairmen of companies like US Bancorp and Groupon. Josh moves audiences to action with practical and effective approaches to driving better business outcomes via creativity, innovation, reinvention, and hyper-growth leadership. Josh is also a professional jazz guitarist, so creativity comes natural to him.Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share! https://www.calentertainment.com/virtually-speaking/

The Jeffs talk with Josh Linkner, an innovation expert and New York Times best-selling author. Don't miss the discussion on:           • The relationship between innovation and high-growth leadership           • How to empower creativity within a set of guidelines           • How to drive innovation on a work teamJosh LinkerFollow Us on Facebook, Instagram, or TwitterGet in touch InnovationJunkie.com 

Running a business, you constantly run into challenges that need creative solutions. But what happens when you've hit a creative rut and time is ticking? This episode's special guest Josh Linkner, author of Big Little Breakthroughs, shows you exactly how to reclaim your creativity using five brainstorming techniques to help solve your trickiest problems and unlock your biggest opportunities!    --   Order Josh Linkner's book Big Little Breakthroughs and access exclusive bonus content at BigLittleBreakthroughs.com   Finally take the mystery out of growing your business and go to BusinessMadeSimple.com. For only $275 annually you'll get instant unlimited access to all of our online courses, including our signature course, How To Grow A Business, plus live coaching events with Donald Miller every month.   Take the mystery out of growing your business today at BusinessMadeSimple.com.

The pressure to generate big ideas can feel overwhelming. We know that bold innovations are critical in these disruptive and competitive times, but when it comes to breakthrough thinking, we often freeze up. According to today's guest Josh Linkner, instead of shooting for a $10-billion payday or a Nobel Prize, the most prolific innovators focus on Big Little Breakthroughs—small creative acts that unlock massive rewards over time. By cultivating daily micro-innovations, individuals and organizations are better equipped to tackle tough challenges and seize transformational opportunities. This episode is sponsored by Skillshare. Explore your creativity at Skillshare.com/AC and get a free trial of Premium Membership. We love our supporters - thank you! Want to support the show? Get ad-free episodes and access to the full archives at ACpremium.me. The Accidental Creative is part of the Airwave Media network.

In this episode of Dubb's podcast, “Connection Loop”, Dubb's Founder, Ruben Dua (@rubendua) meets with Josh Linkner. Topics explored include: #Innovation #Leadership #VentureCapital Listen to more episodes here (dubb.com/cl-podcast). The story continues on dubb.com. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/connection-loop-dubb/message

The Power of Everyday InnovatorsWhy you don't have to be a global game changer to make innovation a part of your life and career.OPENING QUOTE:“Most of us think of innovation as this big topic that's out of our reach. Inventing the electric automobile or SpaceX or something and we say, "Great for Elon Musk, but I'm a normal person. How does that apply to me?" I tried to flip that whole concept upside down. This is like innovation for the rest of us. Again, helping everyday people become everyday innovators.”—Josh LinknerGUEST BIO:Josh Linkner is a creative troublemaker. He started his career as a jazz guitarist and then went on to become the founder and CEO of five tech companies, which sold for a combined value of over $200 million. He is also a deeply experienced business leader, venture capitalist, top-rated keynote speaker, New York Times bestselling author, and professional jazz guitarist. He is a world-renown expert on innovation, disruption, and hyper-growth leadership.Learn more about Josh Linkner:WebsiteFacebookLinkedInInstagramTwitterYouTubeCORE TOPICS + DETAILS:[7:04] -- Lifelong Learning in a Busy WorldHow to read in the rat race, and why you shouldJosh mourns the statistic that 50% of adults haven't read a book since they graduated college. Whether it's books, podcasts, YouTube videos, or some other source, lifelong learning is 100% essential to being an everyday innovator. You don't have to be holed up in a study poring over books for hours— find small moments in your day to learn something new, and your creativity will blossom.[12:23] -- The 30 Days RuleTry it, experience it, and move forwardYou don't have to commit to some monumental life change in order to transform your trajectory. Interested in something? Commit to 30 days. At the end of that 30 days, determine whether you want to commit to another 30. Breaking up your passions into manageable time periods will help make life changes feel less monumental.[12:44] -- The 5-Minute Creativity RitualJosh's jet fuel for a day of innovationEvery day, Josh starts with a 5-minute ritual designed to supercharge his daily creativity. Minute one, he guzzles inputs. Watching a performance, reading a poem— anything to inspire. Minute two, he goes through the highlight reel of his recent successes and future goals. This is the confidence boost. Minute three, he thinks of solutions for a problem unrelated to his life and business. Recycling plastics, for example. This is the mental stretching exercise. Minute four is the time machine. Go forward to a future where you've achieved everything you ever dreamed. How did you get there? Finally, minute five— take 60 seconds to consider an active problem in your life. It could be personal or business-related. This is a one-minute sprint to consider how you're going to work towards solving that problem today.That's Josh's 5-minute creativity ritual. What's yours?[22:00] -- The Story of Big Little BreakthroughsHow Josh unlocked the secrets of CEOs, billionaires, and celebritiesAll over the world, people do amazing things— some in the public spotlight, some away from it. Josh interviewed dozens of them to determine how they structure their days to allow for small breakthroughs that lead to big rewards.[25:42] -- The Power of Just StartingStart with bad, and get a little bit betterImagine you and another person both see an opportunity. You have more money, more smarts, and more resources overall. You take some time to start mapping out the options, determining the best path forward, weighing the risks and rewards. But the other person just starts. They start with what they have, and it's terrible, but each day it gets a little less terrible. By the time six months have gone by, that person with no money or resources will be ahead of you.[27:20] -- No Money, No Time, No Innovation?“I don't have the resources to be creative.”Josh shares the funny but true statement, “If the amount of resources that you had equaled your level of creativity, the Federal government would be the most creative organization on the planet and startups would be the least.” Resources don't create innovation. Innovators do.[34:14] -- The View from the PeakWhat to do, and not do, when you're at the topJosh shares with us the peaks and valleys from his career, and one key takeaway is the importance of not learning the wrong lessons from your successes. Don't become full of yourself— recognize the combination of luck and perseverance that got you there, take a moment to celebrate, then move on to the next challenge.[38:45] -- You Have More Time Than You ThinkDon't let what you have to do stand in the way of what you want to doAs Josh and Paul close out their conversation, Josh reflects on how anyone can find a moment every day to be the truest, most authentic versions of themselves. No person alive has days filled front-to-finish with only the things they want to do. But we can all find the time, whether it's five minutes or five hours, to pursue the things about which we're the most passionate.RESOURCES:[0:36] - The Power of Playing Offense, by Paul Epstein[2:18] - Disciplined Dreaming, The Road to Reinvention, and Big Little Breakthroughs, all by Josh Linkner[6:04] - Think Again, by Adam Grant[6:09] - Soundtracks, by Jon Acuff[6:14] - The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, by Robin Sharma[6:23] - Atomic Habits, by James Clear[33:46] - Curtis Martin's TED TalkFOLLOW:We'd love to hear your thoughts on today's episode. Feel free to DM Paul on social or shoot him an email at paul@paulepsteinspeaks.com.Want to keep making the right plays? Subscribe to Playmakers now.Check out more episodes and content on the Playmaker's website.Learn more about Josh Linkner:WebsiteFacebookLinkedInInstagramTwitterYouTubeFollow Paul:Playmakers PodcastThe Power of Playing OffenseLinkedInFacebookTwitterInstagramYoutubeSHOW SPONSOR:Audible: Interested in leveling up and lifelong learning? Then what's better than a free audio book and 30-day free trial when you visit audible.playmakerspod.com? With over 200,000 titles to choose from, there's no limit to what you can explore and learn on Audible. TRY AUDIBLE TODAYABOUT PLAYMAKERS: IMPACT UNLEASHED:Playmakers: Impact Unleashed is an all-access pass to the game-changers of today and the history makers of tomorrow. The show looks past the trophy cabinet and features a no-BS, inside look into the world of comeback, transformation, and impact unearthing practical tools and mindsets that we can all leverage to make a play in our own lives and careers.Take a seat at the table with leadership expert, sports industry veteran, bestselling author, personal transformation coach, purpose igniter, and your host Paul Epstein in this inspiring, yet immediately actionable podcast. From stories of total defeat to the thrills of unimaginable achievement to the practices of mastering the inside game, each show will share a high-energy, prescriptive blueprint to unleash impact and drive success, significance, and purpose no matter your starting point.Meet Paul at the 50 and make a play together!Learn more at: PlaymakersPod.comABOUT DETROIT PODCAST STUDIOS:In Detroit, history was made when Barry Gordy opened Motown Records back in 1960. More than just discovering great talent, Gordy built a systematic approach to launching superstars. His rigorous processes, technology, and development methods were the secret sauce behind legendary acts such as The Supremes, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross and Michael Jackson.As a nod to the past, Detroit Podcast Studios leverages modern versions of Motown's processes to launch today's most compelling podcasts. What Motown was to musical artists, Detroit Podcast Studios is to podcast artists today. With over 75 combined years of experience in content development, audio production, music scoring, storytelling, and digital marketing, Detroit Podcast Studios provides full-service development, training, and production capabilities to take podcasts from messy ideas to finely tuned hits. Here's to making (podcast) history together.Learn more at: DetroitPodcastStudios.comABOUT THE HOST:Paul Epstein may not be a hard charging running back on the actual football field, but his list of high-profile wins in the world of sports will have you thinking that he could be.Paul has spent nearly 15 years as a pro sports executive for multiple NFL and NBA teams, a global sports agency, and the NFL league office. He's transformed numerous NBA teams from the absolute bottom in league revenue to top-two in financial performance. He's broken every premium revenue metric in Super Bowl history as the NFL's sales leader. He's opened a billion-dollar stadium, helped save the New Orleans NBA franchise, and founded the San Francisco 49ers Talent Academy.He's since installed his leadership and high-performance playbook with Fortune 500 leaders, Founders and CEOs, MBAs, and professional athletes.Now, as Founder of Purpose Labs, keynote speaker, bestselling author, and host of the Playmakers: Impact Unleashed podcast, Paul explores how living and working with a focus on leadership, culture, and purpose can transform organizations and individuals anywhere to unleash their full potential.Learn more about Paul at PaulEpsteinSpeaks.comOrder Paul's new book The Power of Playing OffenseCREDITS:Paul Epstein: Host | paul@paulepsteinspeaks.comConnor Trombley: Executive Producer | connor@detroitpodcaststudios.com

Innovations aren't born overnight, and we already know that. What many overlook is the idea that you don't have to have big changes in order to be innovative; some of the best out there were born out of a succession of small steps toward it. In this episode Kaihan welcomes Josh Linkner, a Creative Troublemaker passionately a believer that all human beings have incredible creative capacity, and he's on a mission to unlock inventive thinking and creative problem solving to help leaders, individuals, and communities soar. Josh has been the founder and CEO of five tech companies, which sold for a combined value of over $200 million and is the author of four books including the New York Times Bestsellers, Disciplined Dreaming and The Road to Reinvention. He has invested in and/or mentored over 100 startups and is the Founding Partner of Detroit Venture Partners. Today, Josh serves as Chairman and co-founder of Platypus Labs, an innovation research, training, and consulting firm. He has twice been named the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year and is the recipient of the United States Presidential Champion of Change Award. In this episode he breaks down why we should focus on “little” innovation breakthroughs rather than big ones and some practical steps to unlock innovation in your employees.__________________________________________________________________________________________"I think as leaders, because I know we have a lot of leaders listening, it's critical for us to create the conditions that foster creativity. If you think about like a greenhouse what is the optimal conditions for plants to grow. We as leaders probably need to be thinking about creating a greenhouse to nurture and grow the creative capacity of our team."We're often told that innovation only counts if it's a billion-dollar idea, where only certain rules can be innovative, like unless you're wearing a lab coat or a hoodie, forget about it. This is the opposite. It's sort of like innovation for the rest of us. And it encourages people not to take giant, highly-risky moonshot swings, but rather to cultivate high-velocity, high-volume of small micro-innovations, daily acts of creativity."-Josh Linkner__________________________________________________________________________________________Episode Timeline:00:00—Introducing Josh Linkner + The topic of today's episode1:34—If you really knew me, you know that...2:43—What is your definition of strategy?3:52—What got you interested in strategy?4:28—What would you say you're most known for?5:30—The founding the unicorn company StockX6:10—"Big Little Breakthroughs" explained7:53—Examples of little innovations that have had a big impact11:18—What's something that you believed in that you've changed your mind on?12:38—Can you give us some practical tips or ideas on what we can do to empower greater employee-led innovation?14:08—What is one takeaways from this discussion?__________________________________________________________________________________________Resources Mentioned:Big Little Breakthroughs - Josh Linknerbiglittlebreakthroughs.com - Download an assessment tool

Innovations aren't born overnight, and we already know that. What many overlook is the idea that you don't have to have big changes in order to be innovative; some of the best out there were born out of a succession of small steps toward it. In this episode Kaihan welcomes Josh Linkner, a Creative Troublemaker passionately a believer that all human beings have incredible creative capacity, and he's on a mission to unlock inventive thinking and creative problem solving to help leaders, individuals, and communities soar. Josh has been the founder and CEO of five tech companies, which sold for a combined value of over $200 million and is the author of four books including the New York Times Bestsellers, Disciplined Dreaming and The Road to Reinvention. He has invested in and/or mentored over 100 startups and is the Founding Partner of Detroit Venture Partners. Today, Josh serves as Chairman and co-founder of Platypus Labs, an innovation research, training, and consulting firm. He has twice been named the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year and is the recipient of the United States Presidential Champion of Change Award. In this episode he breaks down why we should focus on “little” innovation breakthroughs rather than big ones and some practical steps to unlock innovation in your employees.__________________________________________________________________________________________"I think as leaders, because I know we have a lot of leaders listening, it's critical for us to create the conditions that foster creativity. If you think about like a greenhouse what is the optimal conditions for plants to grow. We as leaders probably need to be thinking about creating a greenhouse to nurture and grow the creative capacity of our team."We're often told that innovation only counts if it's a billion-dollar idea, where only certain rules can be innovative, like unless you're wearing a lab coat or a hoodie, forget about it. This is the opposite. It's sort of like innovation for the rest of us. And it encourages people not to take giant, highly-risky moonshot swings, but rather to cultivate high-velocity, high-volume of small micro-innovations, daily acts of creativity."-Josh Linkner__________________________________________________________________________________________Episode Timeline:00:00—Introducing Josh Linkner + The topic of today's episode1:34—If you really knew me, you know that...2:43—What is your definition of strategy?3:52—What got you interested in strategy?4:28—What would you say you're most known for?5:30—The founding the unicorn company StockX6:10—"Big Little Breakthroughs" explained7:53—Examples of little innovations that have had a big impact11:18—What's something that you believed in that you've changed your mind on?12:38—Can you give us some practical tips or ideas on what we can do to empower greater employee-led innovation?14:08—What is one takeaways from this discussion?__________________________________________________________________________________________Resources Mentioned:Big Little Breakthroughs - Josh Linknerbiglittlebreakthroughs.com - Download an assessment tool

Feel like you've been lacking Creativity? This episode has EVERYTHING you need to understand WHY, and HOW YOU TOO can create just like the world's most recognized creators, innovators, and musicians this planet has ever seen.   Today I'll be talking with Josh Linkner, a self-proclaimed creative troublemaker, and the author of a brilliant book on creativity, Big Little Breakthroughs: How Small, Everyday Innovations Drive Oversized Results   That is just what I want to talk with him about today, about how to discover your creative genius and use it to change your life. Plus a creativity boosting exercise!   As children we were PLAYING machines, HARD WIRED to be CREATIVE and free of judgement and limitations! But growing up in a world that fosters “realistic” expectations, we lose that powerful, boundless child's creativity.   We can track the decrease of creativity, all the way back to the Industrial Age. This has been a ripple effect coming on for CENTURIES.   The GOOD NEWS is it's all reversible–we can take back our creative power! Tune into this episode as Josh Linkner (author of "Big Little Breakthroughs") and I give you ACTIONABLE items you can do NOW to “SPARK” your inner most creativity and align with your SOUL for DIVINE Creativity.   Make sure you stay tuned in through the ENTIRE Episode as Josh and I share some GAME CHANGING tips and tools to break through ruts, procrastination and MORE.   We'll also discuss selling fireworks in school, Jimi Hendrix and Woodstock, Herbie Hancock vs Avi Bortnick, the importance of Lil Dicky, and what in the world voting with your butts has to do with anything!   To find out more visit: https://amzn.to/3xqeL4f - Big Little Breakthroughs: How Small, Everyday Innovations Drive Oversized Results https://joshlinkner.com/ www.biglittlebreakthroughs.com  https://amzn.to/3qULECz - Order Michael Sandler's new book, "AWE, the Automatic Writing Experience" www.automaticwriting.com  ……. Follow Michael and Jessica's exciting journey and get even more great tools, tips, and behind-the-scenes access. Go to https://www.patreon.com/inspirenation   For free meditations, weekly tips, stories, and similar shows visit: https://inspirenationshow.com/   We've got NEW Merch! - https://teespring.com/stores/inspire-nation-store   Follow Inspire Nation, and the lives of Michael and Jessica, on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/InspireNationLive/   Find us on TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@inspirenationshow 

Josh Linker author of "Big Little Breakthroughs" by The Best Business Minds

In this episode of "Keen On", Andrew is joined by Josh Linkner, the author of "Big Little Breakthroughs", to discuss the relationship between unlocking creativity and creating a better life. Josh Linkner is: - A dad and husband (4 kids; hopelessly in love with my wife). - An innovation expert (studying human creativity for 30+ years). - A tech startup leader (started, built, and sold five companies. Had plenty of failures, too). - An author (three books on innovation, creativity and reinvention). - A jazz guitar player (obsessed with playing complex and dangerous jazz classics. Been making mistakes for 40 years. Crazy, right?). - A keynote speaker (man, do I love inspiring audiences to action). - An intense caffeine junkie (make mine a double). - A venture capital investor (invested in over 100 startups). - A creative troublemaker (sure is fun to break some rules, no?). - A pizza lover (all kinds, but Detroit-style is the world’s best). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Difference Between Creativity And Innovation   Instead of shooting for a $10 billion IPO or a Nobel Prize, the most prolific innovators focus instead on Big Little Breakthroughs – small creative acts that unlock massive rewards over time. By building a daily habit of creativity, organizations not only enjoy a high volume of small […] The post Creativity VS Innovation – #301 appeared first on James Taylor.

The Difference Between Creativity And Innovation   Instead of shooting for a $10 billion IPO or a Nobel Prize, the most prolific innovators focus instead on Big Little Breakthroughs – small creative acts that unlock massive rewards over time. By building a daily habit of creativity, organizations not only enjoy a high volume of small […] The post Creativity VS Innovation – #301 appeared first on James Taylor.

In an era of dizzying speed, complexity, and competition, harnessing innovation is the only way to fuel growth and beat the old guard. Linkner’s newest book, BIG LITTLE BREAKTHROUGHS, reveals the creative thinking behind the world’s most successful entrepreneurs and why they focus on small, daily creative acts to topple industry giants. Drawing on his three decades of experience as a tech entrepreneur, his investments in over 100 startups (including a “unicorn”), and interviews with innovative leaders around the globe, Linkner provides proven tools to accelerate growth, gain competitive advantage, and drive meaningful results. BIG LITTLE BREAKTHROUGHS by Josh Linkner: https://amzn.to/337W4UV BIO Josh Linkner is a creative troublemaker. He started his career as a jazz guitarist and then went on to become the founder and CEO of five tech companies, which sold for a combined value of over $200 million. He is also a deeply experienced business leader, venture capitalist, top-rated keynote speaker, New York Times bestselling author, and professional jazz guitarist. He is a world-renown expert on innovation, disruption, and hyper-growth leadership and has delivered over 1,000 keynotes to companies and organizations across sectors, including ABC, Heineken, American Express, Mercedes Benz, and the U.S. State Department. Enjoying our podcast? Get access to sample advanced training episodes here: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo We use affiliate links whenever possible (if you purchase items listed above using our affiliate links, we will get a bonus).

Our guest today Josh Linkner has had a pretty varied set of experiences that led to to writing his latest book, Big Little Breakthroughs. In fact, he describes himself as being a “strange mix of things.” From an early age he picked up guitar. That’s not necessarily notable, as lots of young kids pick up guitar. However, his interest led him to focus on jazz guitar, resulting in him even attending the Berkeley School of Music here in Boston. But his journey didn’t end there, as he ended up transferring to University of Florida to study business (as well as guitar). Afterward, he found himself drawn toward being a tech-startup entrepreneur, having a number of successes and as he describes it, plenty of failures. From there, he has become a well-known and much sought after professional speaker and venture capital investor, talking to audiences across industries as well as helping companies find their innovative spark. The author of four books, Josh and I talk about what it means to be innovative, and how little changes and small insights can lead to dramatic transformations. From his fascination with the video game Frogger, to our conversation on the need for change in our educational system, we explore the potential for creativity in all aspects of our lives, filling what he calls the creativity gap in organizations, and how Detroit serves him as the hub of his innovative approach and spirit for renewal. 

Welcome to the What's Next! podcast with Tiffani Bova. This week I am absolutely thrilled to bring you a special BONUS episode of the What’s Next! Podcast, an encore of my LinkedIn Live chat with good friend of the show, Josh Linkner! Josh is a creative troublemaker who started his career as a jazz guitarist and then went on to become the founder and CEO of five tech companies, which sold for a combined value of over $200 million. He is also a deeply experienced business leader, venture capitalist, top-rated keynote speaker, and New York Times bestselling author of four books including the New York Times Bestsellers: Disciplined Dreaming and The Road to Reinvention. He has invested in and/or mentored over 100 startups and is the Founding Partner of Detroit Venture Partners. Today, he serves as Chairman and co-founder of Platypus Labs, an innovation research, training, and consulting firm. He has twice been named the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year and is the recipient of the United States Presidential Champion of Change Award. Josh is also a passionate Detroiter, father of four, and a professional-level jazz guitarist. He is a world-renown expert on innovation, disruption, and hyper-growth leadership. I am so excited to bring you this episode with  Josh Linkner on the What’s Next! Podcast!   THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR… entrepreneurs, purveyors of ideas, and those yet to be sparked into innovation and entrepreneurship!   TODAY’S MAIN MESSAGE… Creativity is a skill that can be built and developed, it isn’t a rare talent granted to a select few. Josh is here to help us dissect the anatomy of any idea and how you too can be a part of the “creative wizardry” we know as innovation and entrepreneurship. How can you build rituals and rewards into an organization that cultivates desired outcomes? How do you implement techniques that bring ideas to the surface? It’s all discipline, not magic. It’s all reps and iteration. So, let’s take a look under the microscope with Josh!   WHAT  I  LOVE  MOST… Josh’s suggestions for how to incorporate more creativity and innovation into our everyday lives!   Running time: 39:10   Subscribe on iTunes   Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkRKLu6uMdY   Find Tiffani on social: Facebook Twitter LinkedIn   Find Josh online: Twitter LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Josh’s Website   Josh’s Books

Josh Linkner is somebody with lots of range who wears a lot of different hats and is not afraid to step into these different parts of himself. He calls himself a “creative troublemaker.” He passionately believes that all human beings have incredible creative capacity. He’s on a mission to unlock inventive thinking and creative problem solving to help leaders, individuals, and communities soar. At his core, Josh cares deeply about helping, impacting, and influencing people in a positive way, and he does so through speaking and writing. He’s written 4 books, he’s a keynote speaker, and he’s been the founder and CEO of 5 tech companies (which have sold for a combined value of over $200 million). He’s invested in and/or mentored over 100 startups and is the founding partner of Detroit Venture Partners. Josh is passionate about his hometown and it’s influenced him in a variety of ways, including how much he’s obsessed with, and interested in, and loves jazz. Today, Josh serves as Chairman and co-founder of Platypus Labs, an innovation research training and consulting firm. He’s twice been named Earns and Young Entrepreneur of the Year, and is the recipient of the United States Presidential Champion of Change Award. In this episode, we discuss Josh’s upbringing and the role of music in his life (5:45), what it was like being exposed to so many cultures through jazz in Detroit (7:44), what it was like for him having his parents get divorced when he was very young (9:00), his siblings (9:53), when business became something he was interested in (10:31), if he’s more like his mom, his dad, or someone else in his life who nurtured him and helped to shape him (11:50), if there is a downside to saying “I’ll show you” when someone says they don’t believe in you (15:51), what motivates him today (16:44), how to unlock creativity in people (18:41), his favorite techniques to unlock creativity (20:15), how constraints can drive creativity (23:51), nurturing creativity in children (26:56), if he had 24 hours to live, what he would do to fill that day (34:11), why he continues to be involved in the business world and what his relationship is with business (35:31), what he looks for when he’s hiring people (36:45), what he looks for when investing in people and companies (40:28), arrogance (43:22), what he’s learned about writing and what his process is like (48:43), what he does to set his mind before going on stage for a speaking event (51:43), what makes a good mentor (53:06), why he’s so passionate about Detroit (54:49), and how he makes sure he’s setting his mind to be the best version of himself every day (57:28). You can check out Josh’s new book, “Big Little Breakthroughs,” as well as his full website here. Additionally, feel free to send him an email at josh@joshlinkner.com. Thanks so much to Josh for coming on the podcast! I wrote a book called “Shift Your Mind” that was released in October of 2020, and you can order it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Additionally, I have launched a company called Strong Skills, and I encourage you to check out our new website https://www.strongskills.co/. If you liked this episode and/or any others, please follow me on Twitter: @brianlevenson or Instagram: @Intentional_Performers. Thanks for listening.

Learn about making your website available to ALL customers, focusing on the little things to bring out creativity, and a restaurant known for its - Instagram page?! Bite-Sized Delight From the Episode: • Design Experiences for ALL of Your Prospects and Customers - Innovative tools like Accessibe (which makes websites ADA and WCAG compliant) allow you to create positive experiences for a variety of people in an easy and efficient way. • Innovation Keeps Experiences Fresh - Josh Linkner’s new book Big Little Breakthroughs shows how micro-innovations all you to tackle tough challenges and seize transformational opportunities. • Fun Messaging Creates Fun-Loving Fans - El Arroyo’s playful signage, when displayed on Instagram, takes a fun in-person signage experience and expands it into the world-wide, digital arena. Are You Looking for Things We Referenced? • Accessibe •  Big Little Breakthroughs: How Small, Everyday Innovations Drive Oversized Results - by Josh Linkner • Solvvy - The Next-Gen Chatbot • Instagram for El Arroyo Restaurant in Austin, Texas Find a full transcript of the show at: http://ExperienceThisShow.com. See you next week!

 When thinking about experiencing oversized results in business, most of us believe that we need to have a big creative or innovative idea. But history show’s us that this isn’t the case. In fact, it’s small everyday innovations that drive oversized long-term results. In this episode, I am talking with Josh Linkner. Josh is the author of the book titled, Big Little Breakthroughs. Throughout our conversation, Josh explains how we can set ourselves up for long-term success by focusing on small daily innovations and creative actions!For resources and additional content visit: https://creatingabrand.com/094

New York Times Best-Seller Josh Linkner discusses his new book "Big Little Breakthroughs" and how small everyday innovations drive results. Josh has been the founder and CEO of five tech companies, which sold for a combined value of over $200 million, and is the author of a number of books including the New York Times Bestsellers, "Disciplined Dreaming" and "The Road to Reinvention". Listen for three action items you can use today. Host, Kevin Craine Do you want to be a guest? Do you want to be a sponsor?

Hello there, my wise friends and welcome to The Collective Wisdom Podcast. This week's guest has so many great achievements to his name, but the thing that drew my attention to his work is his mission to help everyday people become everyday innovators. Josh Linkner has just released his latest book, Big Little Breakthroughs, how small everyday innovations drive oversized results. Josh has poured all of his own creative skills into it to drive home his message that creativity is an inherent skill that all human beings have, but we have a tendency to grow out of it not into it. You'll also hear about the giant act of simple kindness that brought this interview about and his belief that if you pour out love and abundance into the world, it comes back to you in so many strange ways. He also shares wisdom that we can all act on every day.   Big Little Breakthroughs: How small everyday innovations drive oversized results by Josh Linkner https://joshlinkner.com/big-little-breakthroughs/   Song: Giant Steps by  John Coltrane   Wisdom: Always be in a state of reinvention.

Josh Linkner is a brilliant expert on creativity and innovation. He is the founder and CEO of five tech companies that sold for a combined value of over $200 million. He is a highly respected business leader, venture capitalist, keynote speaker and even a gifted jazz guitarist. He is also the New York Times bestselling author of several books. His latest, Big Little Breakthroughs, is now available for purchase. Josh joined host Robert Glazer on the Elevate Podcast to discuss his winding career path, how each of us can achieve daily creative breakthroughs, and how companies can unlock their collective creativity. Three Key Things You'll Learn How each person can tap into their vast reservoir of creative potential. What the 20-hour rule is, and how it can help you quickly develop expertise. Why you might want to create a fictional rival for yourself, or your organization.

Our guest this week is Josh Linkner, author of the new book Big Little Breakthroughs. We talk about how to apply his principals of creative thinking for business to all areas of your life.Follow up with Josh at his website.Special thanks to our sponsor Rocket MortgageAnd check out our new online store for all things John Tesh and Intelligence For Your Life.You can now BUY A SIGNED COPY OF JOHN’S BOOK, RELENTLESS. Help make it a best seller and order today.Own the journals that Gib uses: The Full Focus Planner and a blank Moleskin.And you can sign up for our newsletters at tesh.com to get Intelligence For Your Life right to your inbox.As always, if you like our podcast, Rate, Comment and Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. And tell your friends! If you don’t like our podcast, then keep it quiet, I guess.Our Hosts:John Tesh: Instagram: @johntesh_ifyl facebook.com/JohnTeshGib Gerard: Twitter: @GibGerard Instagram: @GibGerard facebook.com/GibGerard

Creativity and innovation are important elements of all Thermostat Cultures and opportunities to stimulate progress are all around us. Jason Barger chats with New York Times bestselling author, innovation expert, and author of the new book Big Little Breakthroughs, Josh Linkner. For full show notes visit https://jasonvbarger.com/podcast Connect with us on social: https://www.facebook.com/jasonvbarger/ https://twitter.com/JasonvBarger https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonbarger/ https://www.youtube.com/user/OneLovePublishers https://www.instagram.com/jasonvbarger/

Many people are stuck with exciting ideas that could cause significant changes but cannot bring them to the surface because of the lack of resources, funding, and motivation. But by embracing creativity and doing even the smallest, everyday innovations, you can finally realize your full potential. John Livesay is joined once more by Josh Linkner, the author of Big Little Breakthroughs, this time to share how the best concepts always start with lousy drafts and several revisions, all fueled by that single spark just waiting to grow. Josh also discusses how jazz music taught him to become creative in real-time and as fast as possible. Furthermore, he talks about his concept of "dinner mint," which is all about making a huge impact even with just the smallest yet interesting effort. Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share! Here's How » Join The Successful Pitch community today: JohnLivesay.com John Livesay Facebook John Livesay Twitter John Livesay LinkedIn John Livesay YouTube

Many people are stuck with exciting ideas that could cause significant changes but cannot bring them to the surface because of the lack of resources, funding, and motivation. But by embracing creativity and doing even the smallest, everyday innovations, you can finally realize your full potential. John Livesay is joined once more by Josh Linkner, the author of Big Little Breakthroughs, this time to share how the best concepts always start with lousy drafts and several revisions, all fueled by that single spark just waiting to grow. Josh also discusses how jazz music taught him to become creative in real-time and as fast as possible. Furthermore, he talks about his concept of “dinner mint,” which is all about making a huge impact even with just the smallest yet interesting effort.Wanna Host Your Own Podcast?Click here to see how my friends at Brandcasting You can helpGet your FREE Sneak Peek of John's new book Better Selling Through Storytellinghttp://sellingsecretsforfunding.us9.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=655c123123cd21ff7a24d914e&id=6f12bc74af John Livesay, The Pitch WhispererShare The ShowDid you enjoy the show? I'd love it if you subscribed today and left us a 5-star review!Click this linkClick on the ‘Subscribe' button below the artworkGo to the ‘Ratings and Reviews' sectionClick on ‘Write a Review'Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share!Here's How »Join The Successful Pitch community today:JohnLivesay.comJohn Livesay FacebookJohn Livesay TwitterJohn Livesay LinkedInJohn Livesay YouTube

Josh Linkner shares why tiny innovations can yield oversized results for business development professionals and how small experiments can lead to game-changing breakthroughs. Learn why you should never forget the dinner mint when interacting with prospects and clients, how to run mini experiments, and how to boost your business development efforts with a little dash of creativity.   Mo asks Josh Linkner: What is your big idea on how listeners can focus on business development, grow their book of business and relationships, and grow their careers? Josh’s big idea is actually a little idea. We don’t need to bet everything on a single idea because innovation isn’t restricted to billion dollar ideas that change the world. When we think of creativity as small little acts or micro innovations it becomes more accessible, less risky, and actually builds additional skills over time. Many professionals struggle with doing any business development at all. The work always seems to get in the way and breaking it down to little acts makes it much more likely you will get things done and see actual results. Little acts of innovation could be changing up the form of your prospecting email or experimenting with the way you run a sales meeting. It’s small adjustments or counter intuitive acts of creativity that unlocks big results. Josh tells the story of how his relatively small business landed a $30 million contract by a simple act of innovation and everyday kindness. Look for anything you can test within your business processes because business development isn’t a mysterious skill you need to learn; it’s just a series of small experiments. One of the techniques that Josh uses to initiate innovation is the Judo flip. Look at the prevailing approaches in your industry and think about what the polar opposite might be.   Mo asks Josh Linkner: How can professionals use the concepts of Big Little Breakthroughs to close more business? In the research for the book, Josh uncovered eight core mindsets of everyday innovators. One mindset in particular is called “Don’t forget the dinner mint.” For a business development person, adding a little creative flourish to each interaction you have in the course of business. A small 5% increase in effort can generate disproportionate outcomes. If you’re pitching your services to a prospect, before you hit the send button, think about what extra you can add that is unexpected. It could be an extra feature or shorter delivery time. Every single touchpoint or interaction with a prospect is an opportunity to add a little extra. Every extra touch can drive a significant impact in terms of your overall results. It doesn’t always have to take the form of an extra service; it could also take the form of a unique experience. The dinner mint strategy can also help differentiate your business from other service providers. Another idea has to do with the notion of experimenting being very provocative. What if every week you ran five little experiments in your business processes? This is how you can find tiny innovations without risking too much, and if you land on a winner, you can expand it out once you have enough data to justify it. Instead of thinking you need to come up with one idea to transform your business, what if you came up with three smaller ideas each week? When you break them down into smaller bets, it’s much less risky and you increase the odds of winning over the long-term. Your creativity is more like your weight than your height. You can adjust your weight with your behavior and your creativity works the same way.   Mo asks Josh Linkner: How do we use the Big Little Breakthrough concepts to deepen relationships? Creativity and innovation are tools that we use to focus on product development or marketing, but they also apply to relationships. In a relationship setting, think about the other person’s big problem and about how to solve their issue. The more you fall in love with your client’s problems, and the more they view you as someone who is aligned with them, the relationship becomes transformed. Mo had a similar experience with a lawyer friend he had where he had to have a difficult conversation with her but the end result was that it completely changed her career trajectory. Feedback is a gift. If you care about somebody you have to be willing to have hard conversations with them. If you do, you demonstrate that you care about them and that deepens the relationship. Failure is a part of life, in terms of relationships, those are opportunities to deepen relationships. Owning your mistakes and doing what it takes to make it right is how you show integrity in relationships. Doing a feedback session after a loss sets up the next win. Even when you win, there is an opportunity to ask for feedback on how to improve. This shows that you are always working on your game and are committed to over delivering. This takes your relationship from transactional to one of substance.   Mo asks Josh Linkner: How can we hack our habits with Big Little Breakthroughs? The short-term tends to scream the loudest, to the detriment of the long-term. Over the next 12 months, if all you do is what you’ve done before, you're likely to fall about 30% short of the results you could have achieved. Too often we overestimate the risk of trying something new and underestimate the risk of standing still. Think of your effort, time, and energy in the same way that you do as your stock portfolio. You wouldn’t take all your money and invest it entirely in one stock. The same principle has to apply to your time. It’s important to carve out some of your schedule to be strategic and think about the future. Some day a company will come along and put you out of business, it might as well be you. A constant stream of reinvention allows you to control at least some of the inevitable disruption that will happen to your business. The first thing is to try a 5% adjustment. Carve out just two hours each week for the next four weeks where you’re not going to do anything tactical and only focus on heads-up strategic thinking. Josh has issued this challenge to thousands of people around the world and found they experienced a 0% decline in productivity but by the end of the 30 day period, most people report that those two hours are the most productive time they spend. Use your creativity to solve your short-term problem and it will, in turn, solve your long-term problem. The first thing you need to do is challenge the assumption that it’s impossible to be more efficient or to find space to commit to head-up thinking. Creatively rebalancing your calendar and creating an untouchable day or untouchable morning can make a huge difference. If we want certain desired outcomes, it’s the rituals and rewards that will support them. If you need help saying no, make a list of things you are going to stop doing. Having a simple framework (Think, Do, Feel) can help you benchmark things against so you will make better choices.   Mo shares his insights from the habits of Josh Linkner. Don’t forget the dinner mint. Don’t forget to add an element of surprise and delight for each interaction you have with a prospect or client. That tiny amount of extra effort often has an outsized impact on the end result. There was a study that showed the effect of different ways of adding dinner mints to people’s meals and they found some pretty interesting results. Little good things have a big weight because they are unexpected. When you add up the little surprises and delights, they can outweigh the inevitable bad experiences. The most valuable things you can do are things that help your client succeed, both on a professional level and a personal level. These could be little ways to innovate the delivery or make the experience a little more unique. You could also improve the process or offer them additional information or connections. Tweaking the way you do things and measuring the results can lead to incredible breakthroughs. One example is the way that Mo offered webinars and follow up content. One simple tweak led to 10x times the result. Small, low risk experiments in each area of your business will yield some incredible results. Not everything will succeed, but that’s why they’re small. Fall in love with the problem, not the solution. What can you deliver that will be streamlined and effective, but also unique? A simple improvement would be to describe what you do in your client’s language instead of your own. A little extra effort in the delivery and presenting the solution in the client’s own language will make it feel completely unique to them and create a much more memorable experience with your business.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com biglittlebreakthroughs.com

Josh Linkner shares why tiny innovations can yield oversized results for business development professionals and how small experiments can lead to game-changing breakthroughs. Learn why you should never forget the dinner mint when interacting with prospects and clients, how to run mini experiments, and how to boost your business development efforts with a little dash of creativity.   Mo asks Josh Linkner: What is your big idea on how listeners can focus on business development, grow their book of business and relationships, and grow their careers? Josh’s big idea is actually a little idea. We don’t need to bet everything on a single idea because innovation isn’t restricted to billion dollar ideas that change the world. When we think of creativity as small little acts or micro innovations it becomes more accessible, less risky, and actually builds additional skills over time. Many professionals struggle with doing any business development at all. The work always seems to get in the way and breaking it down to little acts makes it much more likely you will get things done and see actual results. Little acts of innovation could be changing up the form of your prospecting email or experimenting with the way you run a sales meeting. It’s small adjustments or counter intuitive acts of creativity that unlocks big results. Josh tells the story of how his relatively small business landed a $30 million contract by a simple act of innovation and everyday kindness. Look for anything you can test within your business processes because business development isn’t a mysterious skill you need to learn; it’s just a series of small experiments. One of the techniques that Josh uses to initiate innovation is the Judo flip. Look at the prevailing approaches in your industry and think about what the polar opposite might be.   Mo asks Josh Linkner: How can professionals use the concepts of Big Little Breakthroughs to close more business? In the research for the book, Josh uncovered eight core mindsets of everyday innovators. One mindset in particular is called “Don’t forget the dinner mint.” For a business development person, adding a little creative flourish to each interaction you have in the course of business. A small 5% increase in effort can generate disproportionate outcomes. If you’re pitching your services to a prospect, before you hit the send button, think about what extra you can add that is unexpected. It could be an extra feature or shorter delivery time. Every single touchpoint or interaction with a prospect is an opportunity to add a little extra. Every extra touch can drive a significant impact in terms of your overall results. It doesn’t always have to take the form of an extra service; it could also take the form of a unique experience. The dinner mint strategy can also help differentiate your business from other service providers. Another idea has to do with the notion of experimenting being very provocative. What if every week you ran five little experiments in your business processes? This is how you can find tiny innovations without risking too much, and if you land on a winner, you can expand it out once you have enough data to justify it. Instead of thinking you need to come up with one idea to transform your business, what if you came up with three smaller ideas each week? When you break them down into smaller bets, it’s much less risky and you increase the odds of winning over the long-term. Your creativity is more like your weight than your height. You can adjust your weight with your behavior and your creativity works the same way.   Mo asks Josh Linkner: How do we use the Big Little Breakthrough concepts to deepen relationships? Creativity and innovation are tools that we use to focus on product development or marketing, but they also apply to relationships. In a relationship setting, think about the other person’s big problem and about how to solve their issue. The more you fall in love with your client’s problems, and the more they view you as someone who is aligned with them, the relationship becomes transformed. Mo had a similar experience with a lawyer friend he had where he had to have a difficult conversation with her but the end result was that it completely changed her career trajectory. Feedback is a gift. If you care about somebody you have to be willing to have hard conversations with them. If you do, you demonstrate that you care about them and that deepens the relationship. Failure is a part of life, in terms of relationships, those are opportunities to deepen relationships. Owning your mistakes and doing what it takes to make it right is how you show integrity in relationships. Doing a feedback session after a loss sets up the next win. Even when you win, there is an opportunity to ask for feedback on how to improve. This shows that you are always working on your game and are committed to over delivering. This takes your relationship from transactional to one of substance.   Mo asks Josh Linkner: How can we hack our habits with Big Little Breakthroughs? The short-term tends to scream the loudest, to the detriment of the long-term. Over the next 12 months, if all you do is what you’ve done before, you're likely to fall about 30% short of the results you could have achieved. Too often we overestimate the risk of trying something new and underestimate the risk of standing still. Think of your effort, time, and energy in the same way that you do as your stock portfolio. You wouldn’t take all your money and invest it entirely in one stock. The same principle has to apply to your time. It’s important to carve out some of your schedule to be strategic and think about the future. Some day a company will come along and put you out of business, it might as well be you. A constant stream of reinvention allows you to control at least some of the inevitable disruption that will happen to your business. The first thing is to try a 5% adjustment. Carve out just two hours each week for the next four weeks where you’re not going to do anything tactical and only focus on heads-up strategic thinking. Josh has issued this challenge to thousands of people around the world and found they experienced a 0% decline in productivity but by the end of the 30 day period, most people report that those two hours are the most productive time they spend. Use your creativity to solve your short-term problem and it will, in turn, solve your long-term problem. The first thing you need to do is challenge the assumption that it’s impossible to be more efficient or to find space to commit to head-up thinking. Creatively rebalancing your calendar and creating an untouchable day or untouchable morning can make a huge difference. If we want certain desired outcomes, it’s the rituals and rewards that will support them. If you need help saying no, make a list of things you are going to stop doing. Having a simple framework (Think, Do, Feel) can help you benchmark things against so you will make better choices.   Mo shares his insights from the habits of Josh Linkner. Don’t forget the dinner mint. Don’t forget to add an element of surprise and delight for each interaction you have with a prospect or client. That tiny amount of extra effort often has an outsized impact on the end result. There was a study that showed the effect of different ways of adding dinner mints to people’s meals and they found some pretty interesting results. Little good things have a big weight because they are unexpected. When you add up the little surprises and delights, they can outweigh the inevitable bad experiences. The most valuable things you can do are things that help your client succeed, both on a professional level and a personal level. These could be little ways to innovate the delivery or make the experience a little more unique. You could also improve the process or offer them additional information or connections. Tweaking the way you do things and measuring the results can lead to incredible breakthroughs. One example is the way that Mo offered webinars and follow up content. One simple tweak led to 10x times the result. Small, low risk experiments in each area of your business will yield some incredible results. Not everything will succeed, but that’s why they’re small. Fall in love with the problem, not the solution. What can you deliver that will be streamlined and effective, but also unique? A simple improvement would be to describe what you do in your client’s language instead of your own. A little extra effort in the delivery and presenting the solution in the client’s own language will make it feel completely unique to them and create a much more memorable experience with your business.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com biglittlebreakthroughs.com

Josh Linkner shares why tiny innovations can yield oversized results for business development professionals and how small experiments can lead to game-changing breakthroughs. Learn why you should never forget the dinner mint when interacting with prospects and clients, how to run mini experiments, and how to boost your business development efforts with a little dash of creativity.   Mo asks Josh Linkner: What is your big idea on how listeners can focus on business development, grow their book of business and relationships, and grow their careers? Josh's big idea is actually a little idea. We don't need to bet everything on a single idea because innovation isn't restricted to billion dollar ideas that change the world. When we think of creativity as small little acts or micro innovations it becomes more accessible, less risky, and actually builds additional skills over time. Many professionals struggle with doing any business development at all. The work always seems to get in the way and breaking it down to little acts makes it much more likely you will get things done and see actual results. Little acts of innovation could be changing up the form of your prospecting email or experimenting with the way you run a sales meeting. It's small adjustments or counter intuitive acts of creativity that unlocks big results. Josh tells the story of how his relatively small business landed a $30 million contract by a simple act of innovation and everyday kindness. Look for anything you can test within your business processes because business development isn't a mysterious skill you need to learn; it's just a series of small experiments. One of the techniques that Josh uses to initiate innovation is the Judo flip. Look at the prevailing approaches in your industry and think about what the polar opposite might be.   Mo asks Josh Linkner: How can professionals use the concepts of Big Little Breakthroughs to close more business? In the research for the book, Josh uncovered eight core mindsets of everyday innovators. One mindset in particular is called “Don't forget the dinner mint.” For a business development person, adding a little creative flourish to each interaction you have in the course of business. A small 5% increase in effort can generate disproportionate outcomes. If you're pitching your services to a prospect, before you hit the send button, think about what extra you can add that is unexpected. It could be an extra feature or shorter delivery time. Every single touchpoint or interaction with a prospect is an opportunity to add a little extra. Every extra touch can drive a significant impact in terms of your overall results. It doesn't always have to take the form of an extra service; it could also take the form of a unique experience. The dinner mint strategy can also help differentiate your business from other service providers. Another idea has to do with the notion of experimenting being very provocative. What if every week you ran five little experiments in your business processes? This is how you can find tiny innovations without risking too much, and if you land on a winner, you can expand it out once you have enough data to justify it. Instead of thinking you need to come up with one idea to transform your business, what if you came up with three smaller ideas each week? When you break them down into smaller bets, it's much less risky and you increase the odds of winning over the long-term. Your creativity is more like your weight than your height. You can adjust your weight with your behavior and your creativity works the same way.   Mo asks Josh Linkner: How do we use the Big Little Breakthrough concepts to deepen relationships? Creativity and innovation are tools that we use to focus on product development or marketing, but they also apply to relationships. In a relationship setting, think about the other person's big problem and about how to solve their issue. The more you fall in love with your client's problems, and the more they view you as someone who is aligned with them, the relationship becomes transformed. Mo had a similar experience with a lawyer friend he had where he had to have a difficult conversation with her but the end result was that it completely changed her career trajectory. Feedback is a gift. If you care about somebody you have to be willing to have hard conversations with them. If you do, you demonstrate that you care about them and that deepens the relationship. Failure is a part of life, in terms of relationships, those are opportunities to deepen relationships. Owning your mistakes and doing what it takes to make it right is how you show integrity in relationships. Doing a feedback session after a loss sets up the next win. Even when you win, there is an opportunity to ask for feedback on how to improve. This shows that you are always working on your game and are committed to over delivering. This takes your relationship from transactional to one of substance.   Mo asks Josh Linkner: How can we hack our habits with Big Little Breakthroughs? The short-term tends to scream the loudest, to the detriment of the long-term. Over the next 12 months, if all you do is what you've done before, you're likely to fall about 30% short of the results you could have achieved. Too often we overestimate the risk of trying something new and underestimate the risk of standing still. Think of your effort, time, and energy in the same way that you do as your stock portfolio. You wouldn't take all your money and invest it entirely in one stock. The same principle has to apply to your time. It's important to carve out some of your schedule to be strategic and think about the future. Some day a company will come along and put you out of business, it might as well be you. A constant stream of reinvention allows you to control at least some of the inevitable disruption that will happen to your business. The first thing is to try a 5% adjustment. Carve out just two hours each week for the next four weeks where you're not going to do anything tactical and only focus on heads-up strategic thinking. Josh has issued this challenge to thousands of people around the world and found they experienced a 0% decline in productivity but by the end of the 30 day period, most people report that those two hours are the most productive time they spend. Use your creativity to solve your short-term problem and it will, in turn, solve your long-term problem. The first thing you need to do is challenge the assumption that it's impossible to be more efficient or to find space to commit to head-up thinking. Creatively rebalancing your calendar and creating an untouchable day or untouchable morning can make a huge difference. If we want certain desired outcomes, it's the rituals and rewards that will support them. If you need help saying no, make a list of things you are going to stop doing. Having a simple framework (Think, Do, Feel) can help you benchmark things against so you will make better choices.   Mo shares his insights from the habits of Josh Linkner. Don't forget the dinner mint. Don't forget to add an element of surprise and delight for each interaction you have with a prospect or client. That tiny amount of extra effort often has an outsized impact on the end result. There was a study that showed the effect of different ways of adding dinner mints to people's meals and they found some pretty interesting results. Little good things have a big weight because they are unexpected. When you add up the little surprises and delights, they can outweigh the inevitable bad experiences. The most valuable things you can do are things that help your client succeed, both on a professional level and a personal level. These could be little ways to innovate the delivery or make the experience a little more unique. You could also improve the process or offer them additional information or connections. Tweaking the way you do things and measuring the results can lead to incredible breakthroughs. One example is the way that Mo offered webinars and follow up content. One simple tweak led to 10x times the result. Small, low risk experiments in each area of your business will yield some incredible results. Not everything will succeed, but that's why they're small. Fall in love with the problem, not the solution. What can you deliver that will be streamlined and effective, but also unique? A simple improvement would be to describe what you do in your client's language instead of your own. A little extra effort in the delivery and presenting the solution in the client's own language will make it feel completely unique to them and create a much more memorable experience with your business.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com biglittlebreakthroughs.com

Mo shares his insights from the habits of Josh Linkner. Don't forget the dinner mint. Don't forget to add an element of surprise and delight for each interaction you have with a prospect or client. That tiny amount of extra effort often has an outsized impact on the end result. There was a study that showed the effect of different ways of adding dinner mints to people's meals and they found some pretty interesting results. Little good things have a big weight because they are unexpected. When you add up the little surprises and delights, they can outweigh the inevitable bad experiences. The most valuable things you can do are things that help your client succeed, both on a professional level and a personal level. These could be little ways to innovate the delivery or make the experience a little more unique. You could also improve the process or offer them additional information or connections. Tweaking the way you do things and measuring the results can lead to incredible breakthroughs. One example is the way that Mo offered webinars and follow up content. One simple tweak led to 10x times the result. Small, low risk experiments in each area of your business will yield some incredible results. Not everything will succeed, but that's why they're small. Fall in love with the problem, not the solution. What can you deliver that will be streamlined and effective, but also unique? A simple improvement would be to describe what you do in your client's language instead of your own. A little extra effort in the delivery and presenting the solution in the client's own language will make it feel completely unique to them and create a much more memorable experience with your business.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com biglittlebreakthroughs.com

I'm super excited to dive in today with our guest Josh Linkner. Josh is a creative troublemaker. He passionately believes that all human beings have incredible capacity and he's on a mission to unlock inventive thinking and creative problem solving to help leaders, individuals, and communities soar. He has been the founder and CEO of five tech companies which sold for a combined value of over 200 million dollars and is the author of four books including the New York Times best seller's Discipline Dreaming and the Road to Reinvention. He has invested in and/or mentored over a hundred startups and is the founding partner of Detroit Venture Partners. Today Josh serves as chairman and cofounder of Platypus Labs, an innovation research training consulting firm. He has twice been named the Ernst & Young entrepreneur of the year and is the recipient of the United States Presidential Champion of Change award. Josh is also a passionate Detroiter, the father of four, a professional level jazz guitarist, and has a slightly odd obsession for greasy pizza. His upcoming book, Big Little Breakthroughs will hit the shelves April 20th.

Mo asks Josh Linkner: How can we hack our habits with Big Little Breakthroughs? The short-term tends to scream the loudest, to the detriment of the long-term. Over the next 12 months, if all you do is what you've done before, you're likely to fall about 30% short of the results you could have achieved. Too often we overestimate the risk of trying something new and underestimate the risk of standing still. Think of your effort, time, and energy in the same way that you do as your stock portfolio. You wouldn't take all your money and invest it entirely in one stock. The same principle has to apply to your time. It's important to carve out some of your schedule to be strategic and think about the future. Some day a company will come along and put you out of business, it might as well be you. A constant stream of reinvention allows you to control at least some of the inevitable disruption that will happen to your business. The first thing is to try a 5% adjustment. Carve out just two hours each week for the next four weeks where you're not going to do anything tactical and only focus on heads-up strategic thinking. Josh has issued this challenge to thousands of people around the world and found they experienced a 0% decline in productivity but by the end of the 30 day period, most people report that those two hours are the most productive time they spend. Use your creativity to solve your short-term problem and it will, in turn, solve your long-term problem. The first thing you need to do is challenge the assumption that it's impossible to be more efficient or to find space to commit to head-up thinking. Creatively rebalancing your calendar and creating an untouchable day or untouchable morning can make a huge difference. If we want certain desired outcomes, it's the rituals and rewards that will support them. If you need help saying no, make a list of things you are going to stop doing. Having a simple framework (Think, Do, Feel) can help you benchmark things against so you will make better choices.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com biglittlebreakthroughs.com

Mo asks Josh Linkner: How do we use the Big Little Breakthrough concepts to deepen relationships? Creativity and innovation are tools that we use to focus on product development or marketing, but they also apply to relationships. In a relationship setting, think about the other person's big problem and about how to solve their issue. The more you fall in love with your client's problems, and the more they view you as someone who is aligned with them, the relationship becomes transformed. Mo had a similar experience with a lawyer friend he had where he had to have a difficult conversation with her but the end result was that it completely changed her career trajectory. Feedback is a gift. If you care about somebody you have to be willing to have hard conversations with them. If you do, you demonstrate that you care about them and that deepens the relationship. Failure is a part of life, in terms of relationships, those are opportunities to deepen relationships. Owning your mistakes and doing what it takes to make it right is how you show integrity in relationships. Doing a feedback session after a loss sets up the next win. Even when you win, there is an opportunity to ask for feedback on how to improve. This shows that you are always working on your game and are committed to over delivering. This takes your relationship from transactional to one of substance.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com biglittlebreakthroughs.com

Mo asks Josh Linkner: How can professionals use the concepts of Big Little Breakthroughs to close more business? In the research for the book, Josh uncovered eight core mindsets of everyday innovators. One mindset in particular is called “Don't forget the dinner mint.” For a business development person, adding a little creative flourish to each interaction you have in the course of business. A small 5% increase in effort can generate disproportionate outcomes. If you're pitching your services to a prospect, before you hit the send button, think about what extra you can add that is unexpected. It could be an extra feature or shorter delivery time. Every single touchpoint or interaction with a prospect is an opportunity to add a little extra. Every extra touch can drive a significant impact in terms of your overall results. It doesn't always have to take the form of an extra service; it could also take the form of a unique experience. The dinner mint strategy can also help differentiate your business from other service providers. Another idea has to do with the notion of experimenting being very provocative. What if every week you ran five little experiments in your business processes? This is how you can find tiny innovations without risking too much, and if you land on a winner, you can expand it out once you have enough data to justify it. Instead of thinking you need to come up with one idea to transform your business, what if you came up with three smaller ideas each week? When you break them down into smaller bets, it's much less risky and you increase the odds of winning over the long-term. Your creativity is more like your weight than your height. You can adjust your weight with your behavior and your creativity works the same way.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com biglittlebreakthroughs.com

Never before has it been more important to be an everyday innovator. With the world effectively hitting a collective reset through the pandemic, now is the time for us to use our creativity to build back better. But how do we do it? In this episode we’re lucky to hear from Josh Linkner, the author of the Big Little Breakthroughs and one of the best innovation speakers in the business as he shares actionable tips to boost creativity and innovate. From all aspects of our personal lives to wherever our career may take us, we are all creatives. Big Little Breakthroughs helps us harness our creativity and put it to work.  Learn more about Big Little Breakthroughs here To learn more about Eric's work visit erictermuende.com

Mo asks Josh Linkner: What is your big idea on how listeners can focus on business development, grow their book of business and relationships, and grow their careers? Josh's big idea is actually a little idea. We don't need to bet everything on a single idea because innovation isn't restricted to billion dollar ideas that change the world. When we think of creativity as small little acts or micro innovations it becomes more accessible, less risky, and actually builds additional skills over time. Many professionals struggle with doing any business development at all. The work always seems to get in the way and breaking it down to little acts makes it much more likely you will get things done and see actual results. Little acts of innovation could be changing up the form of your prospecting email or experimenting with the way you run a sales meeting. It's small adjustments or counter intuitive acts of creativity that unlocks big results. Josh tells the story of how his relatively small business landed a $30 million contract by a simple act of innovation and everyday kindness. Look for anything you can test within your business processes because business development isn't a mysterious skill you need to learn; it's just a series of small experiments. One of the techniques that Josh uses to initiate innovation is the Judo flip. Look at the prevailing approaches in your industry and think about what the polar opposite might be.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com biglittlebreakthroughs.com

Mike Montague interviews Josh Linkner on How to Succeed at Big Little Breakthroughs.   In this episode: The best attitude, behavior, and technique on how to succeed at big little breakthroughs Innovations aren't just for people wearing lab coats and hoodies Playing it safe is risky If it's not broken, break it Reach for weird How to practice creativity every morning Don't put Legos together with the directions Creativity isn't wizardry The bad idea brainstorm Get 5% more creative   Podcast: https://howtosucceed.libsyn.com/ iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/how-to-succeed-podcast-by/id1097591566 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/00JoVzRtMzmQB5Ae5RWWQZ   The How to Succeed Podcast is a public and free podcast from Sandler Training, the worldwide leader in sales, management, and customer service training for individuals all the way up to Fortune 500 companies with over 250 locations around the globe.   Find white papers, webinars, and more in our free Sandler E-Learning Library: https://www.sandler.com/sell   Don't forget to subscribe and leave us a comment!

Mike Montague interviews Josh Linkner on How to Succeed at Big Little Breakthroughs.   In this episode: The best attitude, behavior, and technique on how to succeed at big little breakthroughs Innovations aren't just for people wearing lab coats and hoodies Playing it safe is risky If it's not broken, break it Reach for weird How to practice creativity every morning Don't put Legos together with the directions Creativity isn't wizardry The bad idea brainstorm Get 5% more creative   Podcast: https://howtosucceed.libsyn.com/ iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/how-to-succeed-podcast-by/id1097591566 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/00JoVzRtMzmQB5Ae5RWWQZ   The How to Succeed Podcast is a public and free podcast from Sandler Training, the worldwide leader in sales, management, and customer service training for individuals all the way up to Fortune 500 companies with over 250 locations around the globe.   Find white papers, webinars, and more in our free Sandler E-Learning Library: https://www.sandler.com/sell   Don't forget to subscribe and leave us a comment!

Josh Linkner is an awesome and prolific speaker, author, venture capitalist investor, jazz guitarist, and host of the Creative Troublemakers podcast!  Josh is an innovation expert, New York Times best-selling author, 5-time tech entrepreneur, and lover of greasy pizza. He loves to talk about how to unlock your creativity and spur explosive growth in your life and business. Most people think that creativity and innovation are only for a select few. Big bosses, scientists wearing lab coats, billionaire inventors. But what if every single person at your organization became an innovator? Each team member using creative problem solving to tackle challenges and tapping inventive thinking to fuel growth. Think how powerful your company can become if everyone innovates, every day.Get Josh's latest book, Big Little Breakthroughs at: https://joshlinkner.com/big-little-breakthroughs/In this episode, you'll hear:- Joke of the Week- How Josh plays for a living and helps others do the same- How to have the most fun in your life and work- If Josh can win the Wheel of Weird in a faceoff with MikeThe show is brought to you by Playful Humans. If you need a little more fun, flow, and fulfillment in your life, join our club where we transform the burned out and bored quantity-seekers into energized and engaged playful humans focused on their quality of life.Take the free playfulness quiz or join the club at https://www.playfulhumans.com.Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Spotify, or YouTube, and leave us a 5-star review!Theme Music:Chasing the Sunshine by Pink Zebra - Licenced at Envato ElementsSupport the show (https://paypal.me/mikedmontague)Support the show (https://paypal.me/mikedmontague)

Discussing Data, Innovation, and Creativity with Josh Linkner talks about using little creativity spurts to use for disruption. He sheds light on how organizations could embrace creativity and use little creative innovation to help stir for big breakthroughs. She shared lots of example of big little breakthroughs. Bio: He has been the founder and CEO of five tech companies, which sold for a combined value of over $200 million. He's the author of four books including the New York Times Bestsellers, Disciplined Dreaming, and The Road to Reinvention. This guy just loves starting and building companies. He's the founding partner of Detroit Venture Partners and has been involved in the launch of over 100 startups. Today, Josh serves as Chairman and co-founder of Platypus Labs, innovation research, training, and consulting firm. He has twice been named the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year and is a recipient of the United States Presidential Champion of Change Award. Josh is also a passionate Detroiter, the father of four, a professional-level jazz guitarist, and has a slightly odd obsession for greasy pizza Josh's Book: Big Little Breakthroughs https://amzn.to/3usFCLm Josh's Recommendations: Think Like a Monk: Train Your Mind for Peace and Purpose Every Day https://amzn.to/3bzvyYh Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World https://amzn.to/37K4PqW Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know https://amzn.to/37MepcR Discussion Timeline: TIMELINE Some questions we covered: 1. Starter: Give your starter pitch 1 point that Big Little Breakthroughs points to: 2. Vishal briefly introduce Josh 3. What are you seeing the role of innovation in the middle of firefight[pandemic] 4. What is the state of enterprise investments to promote innovation? 5. What are some easy to fix bottlenecks to get enterprises to keep on innovating 6. What are some misconceptions about innovation and its adoption 7. Explain your journey to your current role? 8. Could you share something about your current role? 9. What does your company do? 10. Explain your journey to this book? 11. Why write this book? 12. Why are you so passionate about helping everyday people become everyday innovators? 13. What's the most misunderstood thing around human creativity? 14. What's your favorite brainstorming technique? 15. From doing the research for your new book, Big Little Breakthroughs, what surprised you the most? 16. What are 1-3 best practices that you think are the key to success in your journey? 17. Do you have any favorite read? 18. As a closing remark, what would you like to tell our audience? About TAO.ai[Sponsor]: TAO is building the World's largest and AI-powered Skills Universe and Community powering career development platform empowering some of the World's largest communities/organizations. Learn more at https://TAO.ai About FutureOfData: FutureOfData takes you on the journey with leaders, experts, academics, authors, and change-makers designing the future of data, analytics, and insights. About AnalyticsWeek.com FutureOfData is managed by AnalyticsWeek.com, a #FutureOfData Leadership community of Organization architects and leaders. Sponsorship / Guest Request should be directed to info@tao.ai Keywords: #FutureofData #Work2.0 #Work2dot0 #Leadership #Growth #Org2dot0 #Work2 #Org2

It is tempting to look at innovation as the province of big minds, big corporations and their ilk, but each of us has the capacity to tap into our creative powers and do little breakthroughs every day. There is no better time than now to look inside, to see what we can bring forth to evolve our world into a better place. Joining Katherine Twells on the show to awaken this tremendous creative capacity within us is the creative troublemaker himself, Josh Linkner. Josh is a keynote speaker and bestselling author of a number of books on creativity and innovation. Right now, he is working on his latest creation: Big Little Breakthroughs – an opus that democratizes the concept of innovation and empowers ordinary people like you and I to achieve dramatic results through simple, creative tweaks. Listen in and learn how our little light bulb moments can actually save the world and how we can build that creative muscle inside of us to become more intentional in coming up with those moments.Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share!Here's How »Join The Coca-Cola CMO Leadership Summit Podcast community today:cokecmosummit.comFacebookTwitter