267. Alan Gregerman | The Wisdom of Ignorance

Hello, Book Thinkers family, and welcome to our personal development podcast, Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books. During each episode, we interview one of the world's top authors, and as a listener, you can expect to discover new books, new mentors, and new resources that you can use to achieve more and live better.

Hello, Book Thinkers family, and welcome to our personal development podcast, Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books.

In today's episode, we have the pleasure to interview Alan Gregorman, author of The Wisdom of Ignorance: Why Not Knowing Can Be the Key to Innovation in an Uncertain World. Alan is an award-winning author, keynote speaker, and internationally recognized innovation strategist. He's the president and chief innovation officer of VentureWorks Inc., where he's helped hundreds of teams create meaningful breakthroughs, often by unlocking the hidden genius in people who aren't He's been featured in major outlets from the Wall Street Journal to CNN and is known for turning curiosity into real-world results. In this episode, you'll learn how to use enlightened ignorance to spark better ideas, a simple new hire clipboard exercise that surfaces game-changing insights on day one, and why 99% of great ideas come from outside your industry, including in nature, and how to adapt to them fast. Now get ready to learn and enjoy this incredible conversation with Nick Hutchison. Alan Gregorman.

Alan, welcome to the Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books Podcast. How are you feeling today?

Oh, I feel great. Thanks for inviting me.

I'm excited. We've been talking for the last 15 minutes or so about our love of sports, and you have so many fun stories, but that's not what we're here to talk about. We're here to talk about your brand new book, The Wisdom of Ignorance, which I think is such a fun title. How the heck did you come up with that?

Well, no. So I love— I have to be honest, I love this book, but I, I'm an innovation consultant. I spend a lot of time helping companies around the world think about how to be more innovative. And what was dawning on me prior to writing this book was the simple idea that companies and a lot of us rely on our expertise and we believe that's what's going to carry the day and make us innovative. And it turns out actually Expertise is actually one of the reasons why most companies and organizations aren't innovative. They tend to rely on the things they already know when the world is moving so fast, they should be focused on the things they don't know. Hmm.

That's already such an amazing paradigm shift, and it's so clear why expertise stifles innovation when you put it that way.

Yeah. So think about it. If I know a lot about something, I can make it better. I know what doesn't work so well. I can add some features. I can make the user experience a little bit better. But if I don't know a lot about something, I look at everything with a sense of possibilities, and I can imagine a more remarkable way to do something. So expertise limits our kind of aperture. Not knowing— if we not know, if we not know in the right way, allows us to kind of cast a wide net. in our search for solutions.

I'm taking a shot in the dark here, but my guess, based on everything I know about you, is that the show Ted Lasso is a wonderful example of this, where an American football coach goes over and starts coaching soccer. But because he doesn't have a deep expertise in the sport of soccer, he can look for possibilities to innovate. I mean, is that a— are you a fan of that show?

Well, I love the show Ted Lasso. I'm not sure— I'm also a huge fan of the English Premier League. I'm not certain someone like Ted Lasso would in the real world survive.

Fair enough.

And you need to know a fair bit about soccer. But the reality is what that show shares with me is the idea that if you understand people and can motivate them and unlock the brilliance in people, you have a chance to be successful. And I think all of us would love to work in an organization where they actually thought of us as kind of the raw materials for doing awesome things.

Yeah, fair point. I mean, all of us in our personal lives have situations where we're so focused or we're so embedded into a situation that it's hard to see objectively what everybody else can see from a third-party perspective. And what you're saying is that that applies to business, that so many of us, we get pigeonholed into a certain way of doing things, whereas a little bit of fresh blood, a little bit of a different perspective could be really useful.

Well, I think what businesses don't realize is that the world is changing right outside their windows as they sit with their heads down doing more and more of the same stuff. And the only exposure they typically have to the world changing is when they hire new people. So think about it. We tend to think of new people as, can you just get with the program and learn more stuff? And I like to think of new people as like this jolt of fresh air, this excitement. And if we tap that excitement, then they bring into our organization really a compelling sense of what's possible.

So, if somebody's sitting in an interview, Alan, and they say, what is your greatest strength? The interviewer says that to the interviewee. And the interviewee says, I don't know a lot. That's not a great way to answer that question. But they're on to something. What's a better way to answer that question?

Oh no, no, no. That's a remarkable thing, but right. It's not the only thing. So here's how I might suggest that they do it. I would say, I've spent a fair amount of time learning about your business and learning about the industry that you're in. It strikes me that here's a problem or a challenge, which if you could solve it, you guys would be absolutely awesome. I don't know a ton about it, but I'm absolutely determined to help you figure out how to solve it. So that's a whole different way. It says, I don't know a lot. But what it also says is your organization, in a low-key way, doesn't know a lot about what we're trying to do. And we can figure it out. It's worth knowing about. So we have to do a bit of homework. Of course, we have to show them that we care and that we understand them, that it's not just an interview to us. But then I think we can be honest and say, as long as we have a target, I don't know a ton, but I'm super excited about trying to figure this out and work with my new colleagues to make it happen.

You know, I think back to the early days of starting my business, Book Thinkers, and what struck me immediately when I got into the world of book marketing, Alan, was that these big publishers, the big traditional publishers, they wouldn't touch social media. They didn't know anything about social media. They were so focused on traditional Advertising, traditional book marketing, that they didn't see any value in it. And I came in and I thought, okay, I understand these social media platforms. I have an interest in book marketing. And so I applied sort of innovative thinking to what was at the time a very stale industry, and I had a lot of success with it. Now, so I think that's an example of what you're talking about.

Well, yeah, no, I'd love everybody listening to understand something which people don't understand about innovation. And that is 99% of all new ideas are based on someone else's thinking or something found in nature. So what you took is actually that rule and you applied it. So you said, here's the world of book marketing. Outside of the world of marketing is this idea of social media. And what if we combine those 2? What if we connect those dots? Then suddenly we can change the way that books get marketed and shared with a broader audience of people. Similarly, I'd love everybody listening to think about what if they found an idea out there? Because they don't have to rack their brains for an original idea. There are plenty of ideas out there. Our challenge is to find the right ones and adapt them to the situation we're in. So you're like a classic case. But the truth of the matter is, you know, think about it. Probably everybody listening uses Uber. Okay. Why didn't taxicab companies realize that there was something called GPS or GIS? Right. Why didn't they realize that they could actually bring their cars to the people that needed a ride? And it took 2 guys who had never been in the taxi business, who couldn't find a cab in Paris on a winter evening to kind of bring this idea together. It was people who, like you said, this isn't a really good way to kind of run this business or an airline. We can use technology. Social media is technology. We can use technology to change the equation.

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How do you recommend somebody in the audience goes about brainstorming ideas to be creative If they've just joined a company and they're tasked with, hey, we're, you know, you're here to help us think differently, to innovate. What are some practical strategies that somebody can go through?

Okay, good. Well, here's the thing that I'd love people to think about is most companies and organizations, when they want to innovate, they bring their brightest people or most expert people in a room. And they say, you know, our backs are to the wall. We've got to come up with a brilliant idea. Does anyone have an out-of-the-box idea? And then they have a whiteboard. whiteboard or they hand out blank sheets of paper. It's as though we can turn on a part of our brain that's the innovative part that we show up each day and we're not innovative. The reality is that makes no sense. If you go back to the 99% rule, the smartest thing anyone listening can do to actually come up with a brilliant idea is leave their office or leave their dining room table and go out and wander around, whether it's Boston or another— New York. Or another city or Paris or London, just looking for brilliant ideas. I wander around every single day with a journal and I write down ideas that catch my attention. A new business with a new business model, a new neighborhood with a lot of energy, something I see in a museum, someone I meet, a stranger. And I write down those ideas and then I use those ideas as the starting point for thinking brilliantly. So find ideas you like and then use those ideas to start to stretch your thinking. Don't start with a blank sheet of paper. That never helps. So get out, be curious, think about the world around you, connect with strangers who are different than you. You want different ideas? Talk to people who have different ideas. We tend to hang out with our friends. Our friends think like we do. Not that that's bad, but it's not good enough.

Right. I agree. It's not good enough. When, when reflecting on your statement there or your answer to the question, I think back to where has all of the innovation come from in my own business? And it's usually after I attend some type of conference and it could be completely unrelated to book marketing. But when I'm around the energy of other people who are thinking big and doing things differently, I take little bits and pieces from their philosophies. I apply them to my own, and usually on the plane ride home, I just journal. I just think about all the notes that I've taken. I reflect, I visualize, and I come up with something unique. I apply it to my business, and then I usually fall back into the day-to-day. But it's those moments of novelty, it's where I experience something differently, that all of the magic tends to happen.

Well, because that's where you get ideas that push your thinking, right? So, I'd even suggest to people listening that once a year, They should go to a conference or an event that has absolutely nothing to do with what they do.

That's fun.

And I regularly suggest that to our customers is just go someplace where people are thoughtful, but they think in different ways than you do and they solve problems in different ways than you do. Hmm.

Do you have any funny examples of a conference that you've attended or that a client has attended that's totally outside of the box?

Well, yeah. So I worked with a customer to help them to reimagine the way they package their products. They wanted to do 2 things. one, reduce costs, but second, be more sustainable. And so I actually took them to a conference of folks who are in the produce distribution business. And so we went to this conference because I wanted them to think about how people drive around produce, natural things in a way that protects it, but gets it there. Then I took them to a produce market and I gave them each $20 and I said, I want you to buy everything you find here. That actually protects itself really well because a lot of these things come from really far away. We bought all these things, we brought them back to the conference room. We didn't whiteboard that. And then we took apart this produce and we imagined how it protected the things that were inside. And we rethought about the way they packaged their product. And the result was $155 million a year in savings based on the way that nature protects things.

Wow, that is fascinating. I love that example, and I can see where you provide value to companies like that. You mentioned nature. What's another example of something in nature that you have observed that you've been able to apply to a business or something like that?

Well, so I use all types of examples, but I know that you're a dog— I won't say you're a dog owner, you have a dog as a family member. But think about this. So Probably everybody listening, if they have a raincoat or an umbrella or something else, has used Velcro. And they probably think about, were there like brilliant kind of scientists or researchers in a lab coming up with Velcro? Velcro was designed by a guy walking his dog through the Alps, and he noticed that his dog was covered with burrs. Now, we've probably had that experience, and we simply said burrs are a nuisance. Like you brush against them and they stick to you. Why would, why would we wanna walk here? Well, this guy, Georges de Mestral, he took some of these burrs home, looked at them under a microscope, and was ecstatic about the fact that they had little hooks that could attach to fur or a pant leg. He imagined all the ways he could use hooks to improve the quality of life, and his imagination led to the creation of Velcro. Not a brilliant scientist, but a guy who took his dog for a walk. I'd like people to think about, we can just pay attention and take walks with our dog or walk through cities or walk through museums, and we can see other ideas that are particularly powerful. And nature's kind of an awesome thing. There's a whole field called biomimicry, which is people trying to figure out processes and things they find in nature that they can apply to business.

Hmm. It seems like a big through line for your way of thinking, Alan, is just to be present, to look up from your devices and slow things down, observe your surroundings, take note of things that might stick out to you that you find interesting, and then go home and think about how you might apply them to the world of business.

Oh, absolutely. You know, so think about it, you know, and again, I go back to this idea that I don't need to come up with original ideas. I need to take ideas that already exist and come up with an original way to add value. You know, the folks at Chipotle didn't invent eating and they didn't even invent fresh food. What they did was think about a 1,000-year-old idea or several thousands of years. That's called a potluck in our culture and in lots of different cultures in which people brought food that was fresh and put it on a table. And I kind of walked across the table and decided what I want. So now I'm making my burrito and I want whatever protein I want, and I want lettuce and tomato and corn and salsa and maybe too much sour cream to make it a 4,000-calorie burrito. But the folks at Chipotle didn't invent anything other than they figured out how to take things that existed and create a package that makes teenage boys really excited about eating there, or maybe people older than teenage boys.

Yeah, me. I'm always a fan of eating there. And, and, you know, one of the messages in your book and one of the messages, um, that you teach, Alan, that I think is important to reference here is that it's not just about sitting back and observing and being creative, but you say that initiative makes a really big difference here too. So you have to put in the work. You can't just sit and observe and watch an idea magically fall into your lap. And then all of a sudden you're a billionaire or something like that. You're not just going to make Velcro because you think about Velcro. You also have to apply what you observe and take some initiative.

Well, so I think I want everybody to think about the simple notion that we're most successful and most innovative when we're purposeful. And so what do I mean by purposeful is we have something that's a target. It's either an opportunity, a business opportunity, or it's a problem we're trying to solve. And that energizes me to be what I call enlightened ignorant. And that is, I'm ignorant in a way in which I want to solve that problem. Now, what I have to do, of course, is I have to take initiative. But think about it. If I don't take initiative in my career, I get stuck with whatever assignments I get. But if I go into an organization and say, I've taken some initiative, I've been paying attention to the world around us, we need to have a different user experience. Or we need to offer our products in different ways, or we need to support our products in different ways. I want to try and figure that out. Then suddenly I become really valuable. I'm energized and purposeful and curious about how I can do something different. So I want people to really think about the idea that of course we need to take initiative, but taking initiative is actually a lot of fun. It sure beats sitting at your desk doing the same old whatever.

Yeah, absolutely it does. Now, I think you've given a lot of great advice for an employee, somebody looking to make a difference in a company that they work for or work with. What about as a business owner or business leader? How do we cultivate more of this energy, this innovative thinking, this ignorance for our teams?

Okay, perfect. Yeah, so I like to think about— and the book shares 6 ideas that I think are really powerful for leaders of organizations. The first, again, not unlike a human, is as an organization, we need to be purposeful. We need to be clear about what we're trying to accomplish and the value that it creates. And then we need to inspire all of our people to be excited about it too, to be really agents of kind of purpose and innovation. But then leaders need to say, you know, I don't know all the answers or I don't have the best answers, but together we can figure those answers out. And so leaders need to kind of come clean in a way with people and say, don't expect me to know everything. The world is changing. We've got to change with it. And we all have to be part of that. So leaders need to be purposeful. Then they need to be curious and say, we don't know, but we're going to figure out the answer. They need to be humble. Leaders need to say, you know, what's going on in the world that we need to know better? Because I'm really not an expert. Let's be honest. Information is changing so fast. The world is changing so fast. It would be presumptuous to think that any leader could know all the things they need to know. And so, why not be honest and say, that's okay, we'll figure out the right stuff together. We don't need to know everything, but we need to know certain things. Then leaders need to be respectful. And what I say by respectful is leaders need to be open to the ideas of not just people who've been there a long time, But people who are new, they need to say, hey, you came from somewhere else. What did you guys know that we didn't know? I have this wonderful exercise I do with our customers, and every leader can simply do it. They just need to go to Staples and buy a bunch of clipboards and some blank sheets of paper. A new hire comes, give them a clipboard and say, we don't have an orientation that's formal. We're not going to suck the brain out of you and teach you everything we know. Instead, we're going to try and tap what you know. We want you to wander around the business, talk to people, ask questions. And then on the left-hand side of the page, we want you to write down everything you think we're doing that you go, wow, I'm really lucky to be here. And on the right-hand side of the page, we want you to write down everything you see us doing. You go, are these people living in like the Stone Age? Don't they know what's going on in the world? And then we want you to present this to our leadership team. Suddenly what happens is 2 things. First, We get a lot of input from the outside world. And second, we start to engage people in making them believe from day one they actually matter to us. So leaders need to be respectful of everybody. Then I think leaders need to raise the kind of banner of we're going to survive in the future. And the stuff we do today is great, but it's not everything we need to do to make it to the future. And so let's go on a journey to figure out what the future is going to be like. And then the last thing, which I have to be honest, my wife was not super excited about this in the book, is I believe we all, and leaders in particular, need to be paranoid. And so think about that. Paranoia is generally a bad word. But the truth is we all need to be paying attention to what's behind us. Okay? The reality is in your company or organization, you're likely not to be disrupted by folks who are like you. You're likely to be disrupted by folks who've never been in your industry who come up with a different business model or a different idea.

Wow, Alan, that was worth the price of admission right there, my friend. That's a mic drop. Extremely actionable, very different than anything I've ever heard somebody do during an orientation. And I will 100% implement that at BookThinkers. And even if it's done virtually because my entire team is spread across the US, You can still meet with everybody, get a tour of what they do, and do the same kind of 2 different columns exercise that you've suggested.

Now, we're all, I think, or most of the people listening are pretty good working virtually. And so, the reality is we have tools and we've figured out how to do an awful lot of the things we could do when we're together. I believe periodically we should get together. But the times we're away, there's no excuse for not doing the same thing, not connecting with people, not asking questions, and then not comparing the world that I now land in in an organization with the world outside and trying to figure out how to make us better.

Yeah.

Wow!

I love that. So, on the left side, what is this organization doing that makes you think, wow, I am lucky to be here? And on the right side, what is this organization doing That's missing the mark, right? That they're living in the Stone Age.

Like, yeah, you guys are clueless, you know? And the truth of the matter is, we as leaders don't want to hear that, but we need to hear that, you know? Otherwise, the world passes us by and we miss all these opportunities to be awesome.

Hmm. What a brilliant preview for the book and what you can expect to learn in the 6 keys there. Shifting gears a little bit, I'm curious, Back in the day when I interviewed Robert Greene, the author of The 48 Laws of Power, I asked him a similar question to the one I'm about to ask you. I said, what did you apply from the book to your book launch to make it successful? And so the same question for you, Alan. What have you applied from other industries or other business cases or other areas of nature or the world to this book to make it successful? Does anything come to mind?

Well, so a lot of things come to mind, and you mentioned one of them. So, you know, I've written 3 other books, and I wrote those books in a time when social media was starting to happen, but still traditional media was the way to go. And so I clearly understand the power of social media and all these kind of new frameworks, um, that are influencing the way that people consume information and the way they kind of buy books or kind of get access to books. So I'm kind of keen on that idea that simply knowing how to engage the world very differently. I used a very different publisher, and that was all part of this idea of being open-minded about doing something different. My first 3 books were all huge major publishers. As you expressed some frustration with how publishers marketed books, As an author, I had the same frustration. So I said, I need a different world. I need to be operating in a world in which a publisher is way more savvy about how to get a book out. So that was an important thing. So I'm regularly thinking about that the world is changing. And then just fundamentally, you know, I have 3 kids who are 25, 28, and 32, and they keep me kind of fresh because I try to be as big a part of their lives as I can. And so I try and realize that their world is very, very different. And so the book reflects my understanding that the future of work and the future of genius is new people coming into the marketplace. And so I've really written this book thinking about people who have to make a difference. You know, we also have so many challenges and so many opportunities in the world that we haven't solved yet, and we haven't solved it with the stuff we already know. So why wouldn't we try not knowing? as the way to try and solve it.

Yeah, there are— I can think of a million different scenarios for, or a million different situations where there is room for improvement. And clearly a lot of very smart people have been trying to solve these problems for a very long time unsuccessfully. And so a little bit of ignorance could probably help them.

Well, I think a lot of people with a lot of expertise, and we've relied on their expertise, and there certainly are fields in which expertise really matters. But the reality is there's so many kind of what we think of as intractable problems that really require us to step back and take a fresh look. And so that's what I'm challenging everybody to do is say, find something that matters to you and then be willing to take a fresh look, cast a wide net, be curious about all different ways that people, not just in our industry, but in other industries and more broadly in the world have thought about these things. It's not like there aren't brilliant ideas that are our starting points, but we need to be open to those.

Yeah, there's, uh, I love this line of thinking, and there aren't many people talking about it. One of the only times I've really read an author talking about something this innovative, uh, was James Altucher in a book called Choose Yourself. And he had a concept in there called idea sex. Pardon my language, where he would say, take 2 completely different ideas from different worlds and journal about how you could combine them. And then that, that influenced something that I call book sex, Alan, where maybe I'm reading a book about intermittent fasting and I'm also reading a book about management. And so I combine them together and I say, okay, intermittent delegation, where you delegate tasks once a week to your team. in a group instead of every single day throughout the day disrupting their workflow. Maybe that works, maybe it doesn't, but I'm combining something from the world of health and nutrition with my business, and therefore it's a little different than the normal way of thinking.

No, but I love that way of thinking. I mean, I can think of all kinds of ways in which I would use the notion of intermittent. I think about customer service and how I really only need to provide intermittent customer service in certain ways. as long as customers feel they can kind of do stuff on their own. So I love that idea, but there's so many ideas. I mean, think about this. My wife is from Sweden, and Sweden has what is kind of talked about in not great ways in America as socialized medicine. But if you think about it differently, in Sweden, because they pay for healthcare, the government, they have a really big incentive to keep us healthy. So how many people listening to your show would rather be healthy or use a lot of healthcare? Okay, so my guess is most people would rather be healthy. The Swedish government subsidizes aerobics instructors to go to every city in Sweden and run free aerobics classes to keep people healthier. That's kind of an interesting idea. Now let's apply it to business. What if we thought about business from the framework of let's make sure our customers are as healthy and as thriving as possible. Suddenly that's a whole different framework. And it's all based, as you suggest, on a totally different way of looking at the world. Something that appears to be random suddenly is compelling if I think about it in new ways.

Yeah, I have a lot of thinking to do.

We all have a lot of thinking to do, but that's kind of exciting. It would be really boring if we didn't keep looking for cool ideas and then imagining That they could help us solve a problem.

Yeah. One of the beautiful, uh, parts of my job, Alan, is that every time I read another book, I realize there's this entire area of life that I know nothing about and that I'll never become an expert in. But just dipping my toe in the water and realizing that there are so many amazing things out there to learn, it just keeps me curious, which is one of those 6 keys that you talk about.

Well, I think you can dip your toe in the water enough to say, that was kind of interesting. Maybe I can learn something from that. And then, of course, I need to learn more about it. But then learning more about it lets me apply those ideas. So I would love for people listening to say, part of what I need to do to navigate my career is regularly experiment, regularly dip my toe in the water. Some of those times I'll dip my toe in the water. I won't come up with an idea, but other times I'll come up with an idea and say, I'm gonna bring it to the company I'm in, or I'm gonna use it to start my own venture, or I'm gonna look for a place where this idea is something they're excited about.

Yeah. So good. So good. I wanted to ask you about your personal brand. Colorful glasses, colorful outfits. I think I've met with you 3 times and every time you are equally as vibrant. And eccentric. And so where did your personal brand and the color kind of stem from? Was it something that you had observed somewhere else in a different industry and kind of adapted to yourself?

Yeah, so there's so many places, but I've always loved color. I remember as a child being enamored with the color purple. I mean, there's a book called The Color Purple, but I love the color purple. In fact, I picked my college because their color was purple. So I was kind of excited about that. And so I've always thought like life is filled with color. If you go outside and you pay attention, you know, I talk about getting out and wandering around. We've actually taken companies exploring 22 cities around the world. And one of the exciting things is as we look around, the world is a lot more colorful if you pay attention than we realize. And so that was exciting to me. Then I had an incident a few years ago which reinforced my desire to be colorful. I actually had a really rare stroke in which I lost the ability to see and speak. Kind of not so great for a professional speaker or an author. I had to stop writing this book, and it took me 18 months of therapy— speech and vocational and vision therapy— to be able to have those abilities again. In the early months when I started to see again, I didn't see very well. And because I had a stroke, I won the right to be on blood thinner, and so I wasn't allowed to walk by myself. I decided to start wearing really bright colored shoes so that when I could walk by myself, I could look down and always know where my feet were and then see them in comparison to something I might trip over so I didn't trip and fall and start to bleed. But I just like color. I think the world is full of color. To me, it symbolizes a world of different possibilities and different people. And so I'm just kind of keen on it, and I'm going to be wearing bright colors as long as they let me.

As long as they let you. Yeah, you really stand out. It makes me think of Seth Godin's book, The Purple Cow, or Purple Cow, where if you look at an entire field of cows but one of them is purple, that cow stands out. And so you really stand out amongst the sea of authors and speakers. And I'm sure at the Book Thinkers event here in November, you're going to stand out a lot as well. I wanted to mention something that you said. I thought this was fun just for the audience. Maybe you'll find this interesting. A while back, as I was preparing to get into different endurance sports, while I would go for runs, each time I'd go out for a run, I would choose a new color. And so I would say, today I'm looking for things that are yellow. Or today I'm looking for things that are pink or orange, just in my normal neighborhood running route. And it was amazing the things that I would filter for and the things that I would find. You're totally right. The world is so much more colorful than I think our default senses are picking up. And just such a great suggestion on your part.

Well, no, so that's kind of cool that you did that. And I would even use that exercise with everybody listening, but they can pick a lot of things. They can pick a color or something else that matters to them. in their work. I work with another large company that's in the security business. And so one day I took their team of people wandering through Washington, D.C., and I said, here's the filter I'd like you to have. I'd like you to look for everything that goes on in the world in which people are trying to protect something.

Hmm.

Traffic lights, bottles of Tylenol, security guards, all kinds of things. And it suddenly got them thinking about all the different ways they might think about security. So if I'm going out and looking for things, and there are a lot of yellow things on the bookshelf behind you, a lot of yellow books, it's kind of popular. I don't know if there's a lot of teal-colored books, but I'm hoping there aren't. I'd like to stand out on the new nonfiction table. But go out each day looking— oh, I love that book. Thank you.

Thank you.

Go out each day looking for something, you know, have in your mind, because I think what it'll get you to realize is we go out every day and we don't We don't realize all the colorful things that are around us, all the people that are around us. We go out each day. I can't tell you how many people I see are out, and as they're walking through cities filled with ideas, they're on their cell phone. And so the reality is we're missing so much. So just think about it. Start by focusing yourself on what can you see in some way, and then suddenly you'll start seeing all kinds of things.

Well, this has been a wonderful conversation. You are a lot of fun to talk to, which I'm sure the audience has picked up on either through the video version of this show or just audio only. You have a great voice and a great way that you articulate your thoughts. And so thank you so much for the wonderful conversation. For people that are interested in getting a copy of your brand new book or just learning about you, your consulting, your speaking, et cetera, Where can they go? What can they do?

Well, so I like to say the book is available wherever thoughtful books are sold. So I, you know, people have a different preference. If you like to buy books online, of course, it's available through all the online retailers. If you like to go to a bookstore and they don't have it, ask your local bookseller to stock the book. Reach out to me on either allangregorman.com or connect with me on LinkedIn. And connect with me. Don't just follow me. You know, I'm eager to figure out what other people are up to. So please connect with me. I guarantee you I will respond. I like to do that. I sit late at night responding, drinking my favorite IPA. And so it's all good. And yeah, no, so please do that. But you can find me, send me an email, whatever way you want to connect. Let me know what you think of the book. Follow me on LinkedIn because I'm posting a lot, and I hope some of the ideas, not unlike what we've talked about today, are helpful. Thanks for the conversation. I've loved the chance to talk with you.

Amazing. Well, I have one final question for you, and then I'll let you off the hook.

Oh no, that's fine.

If this book, The Wisdom of Ignorance, was deleted and all of the podcast interviews that you've done were deleted, but you could leave the world with just one actionable message from this book, What comes to mind?

The main idea I'd like to leave with people is don't stop sharing your genius because you don't think you're smart enough. You know enough to get started in doing something remarkable. So please do that. Please find something you're passionate about, whether it's in business or making the world a better place, and just get started figuring it out because the journey of figuring it out is going to let you and your colleagues do something remarkable.

Beautiful way to wrap up today. Thank you, Alan.

Thanks.

That is a wrap. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books. It would mean the world to us if you could write a review and share this episode with a few of your friends. I mean, these books truly have the power to change people's lives, and by reviewing or sharing our podcast, you're helping us make an impact. If you have any recommendations for future guests or any constructive feedback for us on how we can improve our show, please feel free to submit a form on our website, www.bookthinkers.com, or send us a direct message on Instagram @bookthinkers. With that, I am signing off, and I hope you have a wonderful day. Don't forget, Go read something.