How to boost creativity? My tried-and-tested methods and the science behind them
In my book Świadomy Lider (The Conscious Leader) I give examples of activities that stimulate my creativity. It turns out that almost all of them work through the same mechanism: they increase the number of connections between distant areas of knowledge, switch the brain from task-execution mode to reflection mode, or supply new stimuli for forming associations. Let us look at my methods in detail.
1. Pursuing passions and hobbies
Mechanism: “remote associations”
Creativity very rarely consists in inventing something out of nothing. Far more often it is a combination of two or more seemingly unrelated ideas. Every hobby builds a new “store of patterns” and experiences in the brain. Stamp collecting teaches you to notice detail and history, coin collecting shows you economics and the evolution of states, travel develops curiosity about the world, photography trains observation, and mentoring helps you understand people. The more such areas you accumulate, the more material your brain has for building new connections.
My consulting ideas come not only from my experience with clients but also from history, travel, psychology, aviation, sport and music.
2. Travel as something much more than a way of relaxing
Mechanism: expanding the library of patterns and forming remote associations
Travel, especially abroad, is one of the most powerful tools for developing creativity. Every journey supplies the brain with new patterns, images, human behaviours, ways of organising work, architecture, culture and customer service. Creativity very rarely consists in inventing something out of nothing. Most often it is the result of combining two seemingly unrelated ideas. The more varied the experiences we accumulate, the larger the “store of inspiration” our brain has.
Over more than 600 trips abroad, I have many times observed solutions that I later used in business. I did not copy them directly. Rather, I carried certain principles over from one industry, culture or country into a completely different business environment. This is exactly the mechanism that scientists call analogical transfer.
Travel has one more enormous advantage. It pulls us out of our daily routine. When we leave familiar surroundings, the brain stops running on autopilot. It becomes more attentive, more curious and more open to new associations. That is exactly why so many good ideas come while walking around an unfamiliar city, watching people at an airport or talking to people from completely different professions and cultures.
From a leader’s point of view, then, travel is neither a cost nor a luxury but an investment in a broader perspective. Every new country, company, museum, restaurant or conversation with an interesting person increases the number of connections between distant areas of knowledge. And it is from just such connections that innovative ideas are most often born.
That is why I have been saying for years that we develop creativity not only by working harder but, above all, through a greater variety of experience. Travel is one of the best ways of building that variety.
3. Self-reflection – an underrated source of a leader’s creativity and effectiveness
Mechanism: turning experiences, and observations of your own emotions and those of the people around you, into knowledge, new models of thinking and effective action
Over the years I have become convinced that one of the most important habits supporting a leader’s development is self-reflection. I do not treat it as passively thinking about myself, but as an active process of observing my own emotions, decisions, beliefs, successes, mistakes and reactions to the world around me.
Self-reflection allows me to pause for a moment between actions. It is in this space that the most interesting conclusions and ideas are often born. Thanks to it, I analyse not only what is happening around me but also the way I myself interpret reality. I ask myself: “What am I still not seeing?”, “Which assumption have I taken for granted?”, “Is there another explanation for this situation?”
It is precisely this way of thinking that stimulates creativity. It makes it possible to combine experience from different areas of life – travel, business, psychology, finance, leadership – into new solutions for clients. For creativity is not the art of inventing something out of nothing. Most often it consists in noticing new connections between things that previously seemed unrelated.
Self-reflection also helps me understand myself better. The greater your awareness of your own strengths, limitations, habits and beliefs, the easier it is to make sound decisions. A leader who does not understand what drives their own behaviour often does not understand the behaviour of their employees, customers or business partners either.
In my work as a consultant I also see what an enormous effect self-reflection has on company results. Very often the source of an organisation’s problems is not its processes, finances or strategy but the unconscious beliefs of the owner or the team. Only once these have been noticed does the way to real change open up.
That is why I consider self-reflection one of the most “profitable” habits a leader can have. It increases awareness, stimulates creativity, improves the quality of decisions, speeds up personal development and helps achieve better results. It is thanks to self-reflection that experience turns into knowledge, knowledge into wisdom, and wisdom into effective action.
4. Taking notes and making mind maps
Mechanism: “external working memory”
Human working memory is very limited. When you write your thoughts down, you relieve the brain of having to store them. As a result, instead of remembering facts, it can analyse the relationships between facts. Mind maps are particularly effective because they resemble the natural way the brain works. The brain does not think in lines. It thinks in networks. That is why a mind map works like a visualisation of neural connections.
When you go back to notes from a few months ago, you create new combinations of old ideas that you did not see before. You can also check whether an AI summary of a conversation is correct.
5. Reading books that broaden your horizons
Mechanism: “cognitive plasticity”
The brain develops fastest when it encounters information that is not obvious. That is why a book on quantum mechanics can stimulate creativity even if you understand only part of it. The brain is forced to leave behind its own simplified models of reality. Every such “collision with the counter-intuitive” makes thinking more flexible. Autobiographies, world history and the stories of great companies play a similar role. They show alternative ways of solving problems. You learn not only the content of the book but new ways of looking at the world.
6. Writing books
Mechanism: the “generation effect”
Psychologists have long known that we learn most not when reading but when creating. When you write a book, you are forced to analyse, compare, criticise, synthesise and organise knowledge.
It is one of the most demanding cognitive processes there is. That is why, after writing a book, you see many subjects more clearly than before. Not because you have read more, but because you have created your own model for understanding the world.
7. Watching good documentaries
Mechanism: “simulated experience”
The brain treats a well-told story almost as its own experience. A documentary lets you live through decades of history, or complicated events, in a few hours. In this way you accumulate other people’s real experiences without having to take part in them physically.
You enlarge the stock of patterns of behaviour – of people, organisations and states – on which creativity later draws.
8. Getting up early in the morning
Mechanism: “fresh working memory”
During sleep the brain puts in order the information gathered the previous day. Sleep is something like a librarian’s night shift: it sorts knowledge and creates new connections. In the morning, working memory is at its least overloaded. This makes it easier to see solutions to problems that seemed insoluble the evening before.
Some problems you solve not in the morning but at night, in your sleep, by tidying up your brain’s “hard disk”.
9. Listening to experts from different fields
Mechanism: “analogical transfer”
This is one of the most powerful methods of creative thinking. Many innovations arise from transferring a solution from one field to another. An airline pilot, a surgeon, a head chef or a ship’s captain solve organisational problems similar to those found in business. A creative brain is able to see these analogies.
For example, checklists for airline pilots become checklists used in a similar way in business.
10. Arguing with opponents in your head
Mechanism: “simulation training”
The brain does not fully distinguish a real debate from a well-conducted mental one.
By constructing arguments for and against, you exercise logical thinking, the anticipation of counter-arguments and cognitive flexibility. It is a kind of gym for the intellect. Most important of all, though, is that you allow for the possibility that you yourself are wrong. That is precisely what increases creativity.
11. Writing witty pieces
Mechanism: unexpected associations (Bisociation Network Activation)
This is one of the most creative processes in the brain. It consists in combining two or more concepts that are far apart and do not normally occur together. Humour is a veritable laboratory for this kind of thinking. When you write a witty piece, a situational joke or a poem set in a specific business, family or social context, your brain has to activate many neural networks at once: memory, language, imagination, association and the ability to detect patterns. It then searches for a surprising connection that the audience does not expect.
For example, when you make up a joke about cash flow, mentoring or management, you have to connect the world of finance or business with something seemingly unrelated: an everyday situation, a journey, an animal, a human relationship or the absurd. It is exactly the same mechanism that lies behind innovation and creative problem-solving.
From a neurobiological point of view, the areas responsible for detecting new patterns are particularly active at such times, as is the brain’s Default Mode Network, which creates new connections between previously accumulated experiences. The more often you practise creating humour, the better your brain learns to spot unconventional relationships in business too.
12. Comments on LinkedIn
Mechanism: “micro-essays”
To write a worthwhile comment, you have to read, analyse, evaluate and add your own perspective. It is a miniature version of writing an article. In effect, you practise synthesising information every day.
Comments are to the brain what short sprints are to a runner.
13. Admiring views of nature and open space
Mechanism: “soft fascination”
This is a concept from environmental psychology. The sight of a forest, mountains, the ocean or a city skyline engages the attention gently. It does not demand focus. The brain rests from concentrating and switches to a freer way of processing information. That is why so many ideas come during a walk, while looking out of the window, or on a sunlounger on holiday.
14. Listening to classical music, jazz and… punk rock
Mechanism: “breaking predictability”
The brain likes to predict. Jazz and avant-garde music constantly break those predictions. They change rhythm, harmony and structure. As a result, the areas responsible for detecting patterns become more active. Punk rock, on the other hand, serves a different function. It lets you release emotional and cognitive overload. It is a kind of reset for the system.
15. Running, walking and physical effort
Mechanism: “movement sets thinking in motion”
During exercise, blood flow through the brain increases. So does the production of BDNF, often called “fertiliser for neurons”. At the same time, rhythmic movement encourages a state of gentle mind-wandering. That is exactly why many entrepreneurs have their best ideas not at their desk but while walking, exercising or running.
16. Contemplating silence
Mechanism: “mental defragmentation”
For the brain, silence is the equivalent of a blank sheet of paper. Modern people are constantly bombarded with stimuli. In silence, the brain can put information in order and create new connections. Many studies show that even a few minutes of silence increase the capacity for concentration and reflection.
17. AI as a sparring partner
Mechanism: the neurobiology of cognitive friction (Cognitive Friction Amplification)
This is not yet a formal scientific term, but it describes very well what happens in my case when I work with AI. The brain develops creativity most intensively not when it receives confirmation of its own views but when its model of reality collides with alternative perspectives. In neurobiology this is associated with the simultaneous activity of the areas responsible for generating ideas (the Default Mode Network), for critical evaluation (the Executive Control Network) and for detecting new stimuli and inconsistencies (the Salience Network).
First I form my own hypothesis, based on my experience as a CEO, consultant and mentor. Then I test it against AI, asking for counter-arguments, other perspectives and analogies from aviation, psychology, sport or AI.
At that moment my brain does not passively accept the answer. It compares its own model of reality with the new proposal. A cognitive tension arises:
“Is my interpretation complete?” “What have I overlooked?” “Is there a better explanation?”
It is this tension that stimulates the formation of new neural connections and increases the likelihood of new ideas emerging. It works particularly strongly for me because, for me, AI is not just a source of knowledge but a catalyst for synthesis. I carry thousands of experiences in my memory: more than 600 journeys, hundreds of consulting projects, my time as CEO of Nike and Telepizza, mentoring entrepreneurs, observing how people behave.
AI supplies me with new perspectives, but it is my brain that does the most important work: it connects them with a vast store of earlier experience. Travel, for example, gives me material for building new ideas, self-reflection puts experience in order, and AI creates the cognitive friction that forces my brain to discover new connections and question its own assumptions.