Powers of Two: Finding the Essence of Innovation in Creative Pairs

I don’t mean dreamer to be pejorative. Many dreamer-type creators have enormous strength of character. They generate ideas, start new projects, inspire others to join them. They may also start things they can’t finish and break promises.

In fact, some clusters of society can be devilishly hard to penetrate. One key to fluid movement is what the psychologist Karen Fingerman calls “consequential strangers.” These are people outside your inner circle who have enough interest in you to make connections but enough distance from you to be exposed to interesting people in other spheres.

Psychologists call this “tacit knowledge.” Widely understood as a key to human interaction—maybe even the DNA of interpersonal exchange—it depends on firsthand observation and interaction: sifting through the slowly accruing sediment of mutual experience. It’s the inverse of explicit knowledge—things you can learn about someone from a resumé or Wik

“Imagine two people pulling on a rope,” said George Martin, “smiling at each other and pulling all the time with all their might. The tension between the two of them made for the bond.”

When you speak of what you want, and even one person hears, it may begin a generative loop.

But talent matters only when the talent shows up.

Coopetition in business—which the Financial Times defines as “combining the advantages of” cooperation and competition to create “a bigger market in complementary areas”—is common.

gave his brother something far more valuable than money: encouragement without condescension, taste without haughtiness.

identical twins from opposite ends of the globe.