This short talk (YouTube video transcript) explains the idea of a "purposeful tangent": intentionally spending a portion of your time learning from other fields to drive innovation. The speaker gives the Houston "Pumps and Pipes" example — cardiologists collaborating with gas-pipeline engineers to translate blood-clotting/coagulation solutions into pipeline crack-sealing — and recommends allocating about 10–30% of one’s time to study adjacent but different domains (examples: neuroscience, sports performance, magic) to spark new ideas.
Chapters
In the last few videos, we talked about shifting your mindset and why expertise is the enemy of innovation. And today I want to talk about probably my favorite example. There is a group in Houston called Pumps and Pipes. Pumps and Pipes. These are a group of cardiologists who get together on a regular basis with people from the gas pipeline industry. And what they do is they share what they know about the cardiovascular system and, and how it would apply to the transmission of gas and vice versa. Now, think about it. These are not two random groups. These are purposefully brought together. They share something in common. It is all about the transmission of a fluid through a tube. So these are purposeful groups. And if you think about the types of things that could be solved through these types of alliances and have been solved, think about gas pipeline. A big problem in the gas pipeline industry is they crack, they break, they leak. Trying to find the cracks and seal those cracks as very expensive. But you get a paper cut, you don't run to the doctor. The body seals itself. And based on studying the body, they've now created coagulant ingredients that can go inside of gas pipelines to seal cracks. I call this a purposeful tangent. A purposeful tangent. Two groups coming together. Now think about how you spend your time. I guess that most people, most of you, spend 100% of your time studying your areas of expertise, whether it's your functional expertise, like hr, finance or sales, or your industry expertise like hospitality, banking or manufacturing. You go to training classes, you read books, you socialize with people who are also experts in your area of expertise. I would encourage you to take a percentage of your time, 10%, 20% of your time, and create a purposeful tangent. Spend time learning from people who aren't in your industry or aren't in your function, but are connected to what you do. So, for example, I've spent the last 25 years focused on innovation. I've found lately that in the world of innovation, there's not a lot of innovation anymore. So I don't go to a lot of innovation conferences unless I'm asked to speak. But I do spend a lot of my time now studying neuroscience, sports, performance, and even magic. Magic is one of my favorites because magic is first of all about understanding the brain and misdirection, which is what we need to do in order to innovate. We need to screw up the brain, make it think differently, but it's also about making the impossible possible. And if you think about a typical innovator, we struggle just to make the possible possible. Magicians can make the impossible possible all the time. So think about how you spend your time and take 10%, 20%, or 30% of your time focused on a purposeful tangent. Learn from a different area of expertise.
