implementation

To avoid impulsively “just shipping it,” he introduces deliberate friction through cooldown periods when reviewing designs or providing feedback. This intentional pause allows ideas to mature, fostering more thoughtful and meaningful responses.

But what are the three emails you regularly get from Uber? “It is now cheaper than it was before” (lowered inhibiting cost), “There are now more drivers on the road” (lowered inhibiting wait time), and “We can now go somewhere we couldn’t before” (lowered inhibiting range). Uber’s entire business is based on reducing inhibiting pressure.

When we are being inclusive, we never forget that all of our senses are constantly in play. We don’t let them drive our emotions and decisions. Instead, we actively enlist their help—as Holmes does with both boot and letter—and learn to control them instead.

It’s what’s known as the classic cocktail party effect: one mention of your name, and neural systems that were sailing along snap into action. You don’t even have to do any work. Most things don’t have such nicely built-in flags to alert you to their significance. You need to teach your mind to perk up, as if it were hearing your name, but absent

evolutionary advantages don’t always occur slowly, accidentally and incrementally. We’ll learn they can be identified rapidly, applied systematically and that their impacts can be transformational.

Creativity can be taught. It is just like another muscle—attention, self-control—that can be exercised and grow stronger with use, training, focus, and motivation. In fact, studies have shown that creativity is fluid and that training enables people to become more creative:

Nonlinear systems with real chaos were rarely taught and rarely learned.

And then, of course, there is that final piece of the puzzle: practice, practice, practice.

One of the tricks that helped sustain his remarkable creativity and productivity? None other than visualization. As he once told psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, whenever a task proves difficult or takes time or doesn’t have an obvious answer, “I pretend I’m in jail. If I’m in jail, time is of no consequence. In other words, if it takes a week