Shay Grewal and Paul Sloane on BBC London Radio - full interview

Time to turn our attention to a book that we all need, The Art of Unexpected Solutions: Using Lateral Thinking to Find Breakthroughs. We're often told to expect the unexpected, and as somebody who likes to plan, that is not an easy thing to do. Well, the book is out and available now, and I'm joined in the studio with international bestselling author Paul Sloane to get more of an understanding of how we can use some lateral thinking to find breakthroughs. Paul, it's great to have you on Radio London.

Lovely to be here.

Um, it's not easy, if I was to think of my own personal life, to be somebody who can be, you know, unprepared but also use lateral thinking and think everything's going to be okay, this is going to pan out. As somebody who likes to plan all of the time, doesn't— life doesn't work that way, does it? Talk to me more about your book.

We like to think we can plan our lives and be in control and everything will go according to plan. But in fact, for most people, if you look back, some of the most important things that happened in your life came out of the blue. They were unexpected.

True. I couldn't agree with you more. I could not agree with you more because— and that could be personal relationships, it could be work. When I think about myself, you know, I had a plan, as most of us do when you're 18.

Absolutely.

A to Z, this is what's going to happen. None of that.

There you go.

Paul, it hadn't panned out the way I thought it would. And I suspect the same has been for you in your life. But what was the kind of meaning or reasoning for you wanting to write this book? Is it to kind of share The ways in which we can become more comfortable with those unexpected moments.

Well, I've always been interested in lateral thinking and innovation. And I noticed that many, many innovations come about in an unexpected way, through accident, through a failure. And there are many examples in the book.

Yes.

And I got interested in how we can actually harness serendipity and the unexpected and whether we can foster the conditions in which we'll get more of it and we can exploit it. And that's all in the book.

Well, chapter 21, I don't know if this is meant to be, I've literally opened it and it It says serendipitous collaborations.

Yes.

What does that mean?

It means meeting someone that you didn't think you could, you'd meet and getting on well with them and doing something unusual. And, you know, it's a sort of Simon and Garfunkel type of thing that, uh, it's, it's the people that you collaborate with very often, you know, 2 and 2 can make 5 when it comes to collaborations.

I'm just looking at one of the, the examples that you use in the book and, uh, you know, sure, it was serendipitous, but my goodness, were they made, uh, to work together. John Lennon and Paul McCartney met at a church fate in Liverpool. And, um, you talk about the way in which that kind of fate, you know, then revolutionized the popular music that we all love.

Fate in 2 senses of the word. Yes. Uh, and of course, they didn't get on that well at times. There was contention. And if you go on really well with— in a team, a creative team should have some contention. If they all get on really well together, they're not that creative. You don't want strong disagreements, but you want people who will challenge each other and, and, uh, rub up against each other just a little bit.

Nobody wants a yes man. That's what's coming across to me, you know. Um, and I am 22 years neck deep into a relationship, and I must tell you, my husband Sonny and I, we are polar opposites. And for everything he'll say yes, I'll say no, and everything I say yes, he says no. So I can understand what you mean around, you know, ensuring that there is just a little bit of edge.

A little bit, not too much.

How does one apply that in the world of work, of business, or perhaps even self-improvement?

Well, there are a lot of tips in the book. But the sort of thing I say is you've got to become more curious. When you were a child, you were very curious. You're asking questions all the time, and not taking things for granted, and delving in, trying to really understand the world. Now, we tend to go through the world in a— almost in sleepwalking. We follow a routine, a pattern. We do the same things every day, every week. And I'm urging you to break that pattern, to do something different every day, something unusual, maybe something even bizarre.

Hmm.

And that will introduce more of the unexpected into your life. And as you get more of the unexpected, you'll get some opportunities. And the really smart people take advantage of the unexpected. They don't say, this is annoying, it's bad luck. They say, there's an opportunity here. So in 1990, a young woman was on a train journey from Manchester to London. It was delayed for 4 hours. Most people would say, that's really bad luck, it's really unfortunate, so annoying. She didn't have a pen. She normally makes notes, and she was too shy to ask everyone for a pen. So she just sat there and used her imagination. And that woman was J.K. Rowling, and she created Harry Potter because of a train delay. And she constructed the whole personality, the characters, the plot, the environment in her head. And she said afterwards, because I didn't have a pen, my imagination could run wild.

Isn't that what we should all be doing every day?

Yes.

Is turning those rather negative moments like being stuck in the tube because there are still leaves on the tracks— we've all been there— um, or being stuck in London traffic.

But you know what we do when we're stuck on the Tube now? We get out our mobile phones. Everyone does. They get reaches for their smartphone. And one of the chapters in the book is to encourage productive boredom, where you actually have some downtime.

I'm literally on this. Accept productive boredom. I wanted to ask you what this means. How can boredom be productive?

Well, precisely. And yet very often it's when you're not concentrating on the problem, you're letting it marinate, you're walking, you're in the shower, that your best ideas come along. It's not when you're on the smartphone. It's not when you're looking at a screen. It's when you're, uh, active, just a little bit bored, and the brain is relaxed, and then you're chewing over, you've got some issue, some problem in the background, and you come up with a great idea. And there are many examples of that.

Can you share one?

Lin Miranda, who wrote, uh, Hamilton, uh, was just on holiday, and he was, uh, relaxed, and he was thinking about Hamilton and all these, and he suddenly thought, why don't I try to do a hip-hop musical about it? And, you know, Mary Shelley was, um, in Geneva with, uh, Percy Shelley, her brother, and Lord Byron, and they had a competition. to see who could write the best novel. And it— there was a very severe storm, thunderstorm that night, very, very dark and, and, um, thunderous. And she wrote Frankenstein. And not only was it a great novel, it was the first science fiction book ever written.

Ever written.

By a woman. And she created a whole new genre because of the circumstances, because of the accidental circumstances that she found herself in. If it had been a bright sunny day, she might have written a nice happy romance, but she wrote Frankenstein.

So within accepting boredom and trying, if you can, to be productive, I mean, I get that it shouldn't be forced is what's coming across to me as you're talking, Paul. So it's got to be natural.

Yes.

So you've got to enjoy it.

I'm not saying throw out all planning. There should be some planning. But what I'm saying is, okay, introduce more of the random, more of the bizarre, more of the unusual into your life, and then opportunities will come up. And mix with different people. The people you mix with generally are similar to you.

Yeah.

And they have— you talk about the same things every week. I go to the golf club, I speak to the same guys, we have the same sort of conversations about football and golf. But occasionally you've got to go out and meet somebody completely different, completely new. And last week we went into an art gallery, we met the art gallery owner. He'd come over from South Africa, he told us his life story. I learned something new.

Do you think as we get older we become complacent in life?

Absolutely. And we, we Most of us fall into a comfortable rut, a comfortable routine.

Sure.

And it's easy, but it's dull. And if you want more interest in your life, do more unexpected things.

But I mean, it's a fine line, Paul. I can only take so much spontaneity in my life until I start pulling my hair out. I'm being very frank with you. You know, there is, there is, um, there is beauty and comfort in planning for me. And I think many Londoners will feel the same way. Knowing what I'm doing this time next week, knowing who I'm meeting in 2 weeks' time, planning for what what the summer's going to be. I know part of that is my mum brain because I've got to figure out what my daughter's doing, and then obviously I have to remind the husband what he's got coming up. You know, a lot of that does become diary management. But here you are saying sometimes it's nice just to have fun in the unexpected.

I'm not saying throughout the diary. I'm not saying make a big chaotic— I'm saying occasionally introduce something completely unexpected. Take your husband somewhere and don't tell him where you're taking him, or vice versa.

Well, yeah, well, yes, that— I mean, the whole idea of surprises is something I've, I've, I do love. When it's done for me, not the other way around. But there there is a chapter in your book I think is going to be contentious for some people. It's chapter twenty-eight. AI can aid the unexpected and innovation.

Yes, it can.

I mean, I the last twelve months anyone I speak to has just been saying AI's taking all our jobs, and here you're saying no no no no.

It can do the creative stuff.

This can be nice. It can aid us.

It can aid us. So I've I've composed songs and poems and stories. using AI, helping AI as an aid, not getting— doing all the work, but doing the heavy lifting.

Okay.

And it's quite remarkable. You know, if you started writing a novel, and one of the things I say to people to do is write— everyone's got a book in them— write the first chapter and then see what you think. All right, you can stop, but write the first. And if you write a chapter and you say John met Jane and they went out and, and then they got married and so on, and then you can put it into AI and say, what could happen next? And because it's read a million books, it will say, well, he could murder her, he could bury the body, the mobile phone could be discovered by the police, and, and, and her ex-boyfriend and, and A son that she gave up for adoption suddenly turns up on the doorstep. It will come up with a whole bunch of ideas. And then you can choose one, you can go a bit further down, and then you can say, what happens next? And then you can say, I don't know how a woman would react in this. Describe for me how a nervous woman would react in this situation, and it will write it for you. And then you can change it. So AI can be very creative with art, with music, with literature, uh, and with business.

We need to embrace it more is what you're saying.

Absolutely.

And not be scared of it.

Correct.

Because it can be, um, well, it can be blood pressure inducing for some people, frankly.

Well, we say not to be scared, but it can be scary too. Yes.

Is there a moment in your own life, if you were to think of, that fundamentally changed your course of life? And it was, as you say, unexpected. It was that moment that you could have never planned for.

There've been several. I mean, I, I went to a dance the first week I was at university. I met a young, uh, woman from, uh, a girl from Manchester. And we've been married for 53 years now.

How beautiful!

So yes, first week at Cambridge and I met her. I bumped into an old friend and he offered me a job and I got a change of career that was very good. We were on holiday, we met this family that were very interested in lateral thinking puzzles and we shared a lot of them. I went back and collected more and I wrote my first book based on that family that I'd met on holiday and the conversations we'd had. So looking back, many and many of the turning points in my life Yeah. Have been serendipitous, have been chance events coming out of the blue.

I mean, I have to share with you, seeing as how we're talking about serendipitous moments, uh, there is a fantastic broadcaster. Her name is Nikki Beatty, and she's a dear friend of mine. And 16 years ago, um, I did an interview with her, and on the radio she said, gosh, Shay, you've got a, you've got a voice for radio. And I jokingly laughed and said, are you offering me a job? Little did I know. 12 to 14 months later I'd be working at the BBC.

Excellent.

And that's always stayed with me because I can still remember that moment when she said it to me on air and, and thinking, oh, I hadn't thought of that.

No shame. People have said something similar to me. People have said, Paul, you've got a face for radio.

Listen, it's all visual now. There's cameras in here. Everyone can see you. Um, what's the one key takeaway you'd like for people with this book? Because I think there'll be people who will want to read this because a lot of what they are doing is controlling things. I wouldn't say I am necessarily a control freak. It may come across that way from all I've shared with you in the last 10 minutes, Paul. But it feels like this is almost like the art of letting go, of embracing those moments in life. Indeed.

So anyone who's just interested in a good read, I think, will enjoy this book. Well, absolutely.

Of course.

And it's full of examples and stories. Many of them are happy. Many of them are to do with business. Many to do with art and other areas. Some of them are very, very serious. You know, Franz Ferdinand's car took a detour in June 1914. He went down the wrong street and he just happened to bump into an assassin, Princip, who tried earlier that day to throw a bomb at the car, who shot him. And that triggered the First World War, which led to the Second World War, all because a car took a wrong turning. Günter Schabowski was a middle-ranking German politician who gave a press conference in 1989, and he got his— he was given a piece of paper, something to announce. He got it wrong, and he implied that anyone could leave East Berlin that day. And he was supposed to say, there's a new regime coming in, you need different approvals. But he only read part of the release. People flooded to the border. The border guards were told it had been on the radio and it was an official announcement. They let them out. The Berlin Wall fell because of a mistake made by a middle-ranking official. So some of these little things are massive in society and in our lives. And we should give the unexpected more credit than we do.

Mm-hmm.

And we should be prepared for it and be prepared to exploit it. And this book, The Art of Unexpected Solutions, helps you to do that.

I think that's why many people right now are going to be clicking to buy this because it's available in all good bookstores and of course on Amazon as well. People can find you on Paul Sloane 3 on X, formerly known as Twitter. Also on, um, uh, sorry, it's Paul Sloane on Twitter and then Paul Sloane, uh, 3 on Instagram for more details.

And on YouTube.

And on YouTube. It's The Art of Unexpected Solutions out now and available. I feel like there's going to be lots of people doing what I do with highlighting this book with tons of notes to take away. Um, what a beautiful chat. Thank you for coming in today, Paul.

My pleasure, Shay.