171: Scott Berkun - Big Ideas For Curious Minds

Oct 30, 2016

Scott Berkun, bestselling author and creativity expert, shares insights from his rich background, including roles at Microsoft and WordPress.com. He emphasizes how sports honed his work ethic and goal-setting abilities. Scott dives into effective writing habits, offering tips on choosing evergreen topics and time-blocking for writers. He also addresses the balance between speaking engagements and writing, defining genius as earned through output rather than innate talent. Listeners can learn to pitch ideas effectively by understanding their audience's needs.

Ask episode

AI Snips

Chapters

Books

Transcript

Episode notes

ADVICE

Chunk Big Goals Into Daily Tasks

Break big goals into tiny, reliable tasks you can do consistently each day.
Scott Berkun wrote one paragraph at a time to build entire books and careers.

ADVICE

Write Evergreen Work, Not Headlines

Write about evergreen problems instead of chasing headlines to create lasting value.
Publish on a consistent schedule to build audience habits and steady growth.

ADVICE

Schedule Focused Writing Blocks

Carve out regular daily time blocks for focused work and protect them like appointments.
Scott schedules short morning sessions plus longer evening sessions and shows up every day.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Get the app

Episode 171: Scott Berkun - Big Ideas For Curious Minds

Scott Berkun is a bestselling author and popular speaker on creativity, philosophy, culture, business and many other subjects. He's the author of six books, including The Myths of Innovation, Confessions of a Public Speaker, and The Year Without Pants. His work has appeared, or been mentioned, in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, The Guardian, Wired magazine, Forbes, USA Today, Wired, Fast Company, National Public Radio, The Huffington Post and other media.

Born and raised in Queens, NYC, he studied philosophy, computer science and design at CMU, was a manager at Microsoft ('94-'03) and WordPress.com ('10-'12), taught creativity at the University of Washington, was a co-host of CNBC's The Business of Innovation TV show, is named on 5 U.S. patents, blogs for Harvard Business and BusinessWeek, and has appeared as an expert on various subjects on CNN, CNBC, NPR and MSNBC. He's also the MC and speaker coach for Ignite Seattle, a finalist in the Amtrak 2014 writer's residency program and the director of the short film We Make Seattle.

Episode 171: Scott Berkun - Big Ideas For Curious Minds

Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher Radio

The Learning Leader Show

"The first tip to pitching well: Learn about the other persons environment"

In This Episode, You Will Learn:

Having a sports background to learn a work ethic and set goals can lead to sustained excellence
The process for Scott to quit his job at Microsoft to become a full time writer/author -- And why he did it
Writing process
- #1 Don't chase headlines - Don't chase traffic... Write good content
- Write about evergreen topics that people will always want to read
- Consistently write and produce content -- Stick to a rigorous schedule (he released work Tuesday & Thursday)
Understand your habits over time -- Plan your day (when to wake up, eat, workout, write)
The topics he covers when he gives a keynote speech:
- Innovation and creative thinking
- Management/Leadership
Why he likes to prepare and not give the same speech over and over
Time spent on preparing vs. delivering = 10x1... Meaning he spends 10 hours to give a 1 hour talk
Teaching a creative thinking class at a University
The importance of "combining ideas"
"Passion is self perception of your interests... There is a need for self awareness"
Self discovery --> You need to try different things/ideas
Street smarts vs. Book smarts -- Can be a false dichotomy
"How to call BS on a Guru"
- Have higher expectations
- How you read - Every chapter stop and plan for situations. Apply what would I do differently
- Read with a different intent
- Have a willingness to experiment
Why Scott hates speed reading
"How to pitch an idea"
"How to run a brainstorming meeting" -- It's about volume. You must be very clear about intended results and action plans
- Have a good facilitator who says "Yes, and..."

"It's very important to understand that all ideas are made up of other ideas... We need to combine ideas like "Uber for Laundry.""

Continue Learning:

Read Scott's book: Mindfire: Big Ideas for Curious Minds
Read Scott's book: Confessions of a Public Speaker
Follow Scott on Twitter: @berkun
To Follow Me on Twitter: @RyanHawk12