Rachel: I want you to think back to third grade. You’re in art class, making a horse out of clay. Justine: Oh no, I know this feeling. I’m already getting a pit in my stomach. This is not going to end well for the horse. Rachel: Exactly. A classmate leans over, looks at your creation, and says, "That’s terrible. That doesn’t look anything like a horse." What do you do? Justine: You crush it. You immediately wad that clay horse into a ball, throw it back in the bin, and probably decide you’re just ‘not an art person.’ And you never touch clay again. Rachel: You just described what researcher Brené Brown calls a "creativity scar." And it’s shockingly common. In her studies, about a third of people she interviewed could recall a specific, searing moment just like that, where they were told they weren't creative. Justine: Wow, a third of people. That’s a huge number. It’s like we’re a population of creatively wounded people walking around, pretending we’re only good at spreadsheets. Rachel: And that’s precisely the wound that our book today is trying to heal. We’re diving into Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All, by brothers David and Tom Kelley. Justine: Ah, the Kelley brothers. These guys are legends in the design world, right? Rachel: They really are. David Kelley founded the global design firm IDEO and the Stanford d.school. And to give you a sense of his impact, one of his early projects at IDEO was designing the very first computer mouse for Apple. He’s been at the heart of tangible, world-changing innovation for decades. This book is basically their attempt to bottle that magic and give it to the rest of us.

Rachel: The book starts right where we did, with that feeling of fear. The authors tell the story of David’s best friend in third grade, Brian, who was the one making that clay horse. After that one cutting remark, David never saw his friend attempt a creative project again. Justine: That is heartbreaking. And it feels so true. We learn very early to divide the world into two camps: the "creatives" and the "non-creatives." And once you decide which camp you’re in, you stay there for life. Rachel: It’s a self-imposed sentence. But the Kelleys argue that this is a myth. Creativity isn't a rare gift; it's a skill. And more importantly, the fear that holds us back can be systematically dismantled. They point to the work of a Stanford psychologist, Albert Bandura, who did something that sounds completely unrelated but is key to this whole book: he cured people of lifelong phobias. Justine: Phobias? Like fear of spiders or heights? What does that have to do with being afraid to pitch an idea in a meeting? Rachel: Everything, it turns out. Bandura worked with people who had a debilitating fear of snakes. These weren't people who were just a little squeamish; these were people whose lives were limited by this fear. His method was called "guided mastery." He wouldn't start with a lecture on why snakes are harmless. He started with action, but in tiny, manageable steps. Justine: Okay, I’m intrigued. What kind of steps? Rachel: First, he’d have the person just look at a snake through a one-way mirror. That’s it. They could handle that. Then, maybe they’d stand at the open door of the room with the snake. Still manageable. Then, they’d put on a heavy leather glove and touch the snake for a second. Each step was a small, achievable success. Justine: So he’s building their confidence brick by brick. Rachel: Precisely. And after a few hours of these escalating mini-successes, these people who started the day terrified were able to let a boa constrictor slither in their lap. But here’s the truly incredible part. Curing the phobia had a ripple effect. These people suddenly felt more confident in every area of their lives. They started taking up public speaking, asking for raises, going on adventures. One woman even dreamed a boa constrictor was helping her wash the dishes. Justine: That is wild. So, by conquering one specific, tangible fear, they rewired their belief about what they were capable of in general. Rachel: Exactly. Bandura called this building "self-efficacy"—the belief in your own ability to succeed. And the Kelley brothers argue this is the exact same process for building creative confidence. You don’t start by trying to solve world hunger. You start with a small, manageable creative act, a "small success," and you build from there. You overcome your fear of the blank page, or the "stupid idea," the same way you overcome the fear of the snake. Justine: That makes so much sense. It’s not about waiting for a lightning bolt of inspiration. It’s about taking one tiny, non-scary step. It’s about proving to yourself, "Okay, I can hold the gloved snake. I can sketch one bad idea on a napkin." Rachel: And once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again. It’s a flip from a fixed mindset—"I'm not creative"—to a growth mindset—"I can develop my creativity."

Justine: Okay, so I've built up a little courage. I'm no longer terrified of my own clay horse. I’ve touched the proverbial snake. But what do I do now? It’s one thing to have a mindset shift, but it’s another to actually create something. Rachel: That is the perfect question, because it leads directly to the book's second major idea: the leap from planning to action. The Kelleys argue that the biggest trap for newly confident people is getting stuck in analysis and planning. True innovation comes from a bias toward doing. Justine: A bias toward doing. I like the sound of that. It sounds energetic. Rachel: It is. And they have this fantastic story to illustrate it. It’s about two Stanford graduate students, Akshay Kothari and Ankit Gupta. They were in a class that required them to start a real company in just one quarter. Justine: Ten weeks? To start a company? That’s insane. The pressure must have been immense. Rachel: It was. They decided to create a news reader app for the brand-new iPad. But instead of writing a 50-page business plan, they did something radical. They set up their "office" in a local coffee shop in Palo Alto. Justine: Why a coffee shop? Rachel: To be close to their potential customers. They would literally walk up to people, show them rough mockups of their app on Post-it notes, and ask for feedback. Akshay would do the research while Ankit, the coder, would be furiously building a new version based on what they just learned. They were making hundreds of tiny iterations every single day. Justine: So they were prototyping and testing in real-time, with real people. No focus groups, no big market research budget. Just Post-it notes and caffeine. Rachel: Exactly. They minimized planning and maximized action. And at the end of the ten weeks, they launched their app, Pulse News. It was so elegant and user-friendly that Steve Jobs himself showcased it at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference. It went on to be downloaded by over 20 million people, and a few years later, LinkedIn acquired their company for a reported $90 million. Justine: From a coffee shop and Post-it notes to a $90 million acquisition. That is an incredible story. It really drives home the point that you don't need a perfect plan. You just need to start. Rachel: And to show the flip side of that, the book brings up the cautionary tale of Kodak. Justine: Oh, the classic giant that fell. Rachel: A giant that knew exactly what was coming. They invented the first digital camera back in 1975! Their own internal reports predicted the decline of film and the rise of digital. They had all the knowledge, all the insight. But they were trapped in what the book calls the "knowing-doing gap." Justine: They were too afraid to act on what they knew, because it would mean disrupting their incredibly profitable film business. They were paralyzed by planning and fear. Rachel: They couldn't leap. And that failure to act, that lack of a bias toward doing, is what ultimately led to their decline. It's a powerful contrast. You have two students in a coffee shop who just do, and you have a global behemoth that just knows. The book makes it clear which one wins in the end. It’s not about having the best idea; it’s about your willingness to experiment and bring that idea to life, one messy prototype at a time.

Rachel: And that brings us to the final piece of the puzzle. Once you, as an individual, have embraced this bias for action, the next question is, how do you make it contagious? How do you build a whole team of people who aren't afraid of the clay horse? Justine: Right, because innovation at any real scale is a team sport. You can't have one person running around with Post-it notes while everyone else is stuck in meetings about synergy. Rachel: Exactly. And the Kelleys have a wonderfully disarming analogy for how to build a creative team culture. They call it "Karaoke Confidence." Justine: Karaoke Confidence! I love that. I am a terrible singer, but I will absolutely get up and belt out a cheesy 80s power ballad with a group of friends. Rachel: And why is that? Why are you willing to be objectively bad at something in that context? Justine: Well, because it's fun. Nobody expects you to be a professional singer. There's a sense of camaraderie, everyone is in it together, and you're building on each other's energy. It’s low-stakes, and judgment is deferred. You’re just there to have a good time. Rachel: You just perfectly described the ideal conditions for a creatively confident team. Humor, camaraderie, deferred judgment, building on others' energy, and minimizing hierarchy—nobody cares if the CEO is a worse singer than the intern. The book argues you can apply these same principles to a work environment. Justine: That’s a brilliant way to frame it. It makes the idea of "fostering an innovation culture" feel less like a corporate mandate and more like just creating a space where people feel safe enough to be a little silly and experiment. Rachel: And they tell the story of how Intuit, the company behind TurboTax and QuickBooks, did just this. In the mid-2000s, their growth was slowing. They needed breakthrough ideas, not just incremental improvements. So they launched an initiative called "Design for Delight." Justine: Sounds nice, but also like a corporate slogan that could easily mean nothing. Rachel: It could have. And at first, it struggled. But then a leader there named Kaaren Hanson created a small, grassroots group called the "Innovation Catalysts." These weren't executives; they were a handful of passionate design thinkers who acted as coaches. They didn't just tell people to be innovative; they worked alongside teams on real projects, showing them how. Justine: So they were like the friends who drag you up on the karaoke stage and sing the first verse with you. Rachel: The perfect analogy! One of their early successes was an app called SnapTax. The team observed how painful filing taxes was, and they rapidly prototyped a mobile app where you could literally take a picture of your W-2 and file your taxes from your phone in minutes. It was a huge hit. Justine: That's amazing. They took one of the most dreaded tasks and made it delightful. Rachel: And that success, and others like it, started to build momentum. The Catalyst group grew. The principles of D4D—deep customer empathy, rapid experimentation—started to spread. It wasn't a top-down order; it was a cultural shift driven by small, tangible, and fun wins. They were building Karaoke Confidence at a company-wide scale. Justine: This sounds incredible for a tech company in Silicon Valley. But what about a more traditional workplace, like a law firm or a hospital? How do you create 'Karaoke Confidence' when the stakes feel so high? Rachel: The book suggests starting small. It’s about the language you use. Instead of saying "that will never work," you ask, "How might we make that work?" It’s about celebrating the learning from a failed experiment, not just the success of a final product. It’s about creating rituals that break down hierarchy, even for an hour. It’s about finding those small ways to make it safe for people to get on the stage and sing, even if they’re a little off-key at first.

Justine: When you lay it all out like that, it feels so logical. It’s a three-step journey. First, you have to do the internal work to flip your own mindset from fear to courage. Rachel: Right, you have to heal your own creativity scar by realizing fear can be managed through small, guided steps. Justine: Then, you have to channel that new courage into a bias for action. You have to stop planning and start doing, even if it’s messy. You have to be more like the Pulse News guys in the coffee shop and less like Kodak in the boardroom. Rachel: And finally, you make that confidence contagious. You build a team culture that feels more like a karaoke night than a formal review, where people feel safe enough to experiment and build on each other's ideas. Justine: So it’s not about waiting for some lightning bolt of inspiration or being born a "creative genius." It’s a deliberate process of building a muscle. Rachel: It really is. The book's core message is that creative confidence isn't about becoming an artist. It's about reclaiming your innate ability to create change. Steve Jobs once said the most important thing you can learn is that life is malleable. You can "poke it," and something new will pop out the other side. This book is essentially a manual for how to start poking. Justine: I love that. It’s so empowering. It’s not about some grand, intimidating act of creation. It’s just about having the courage to take the first poke. Rachel: So maybe the question for everyone listening is: what’s one small experiment you can run this week? What’s one tiny poke you can make? What's your version of the clay horse you can try to sculpt again, just for yourself? Justine: A powerful question to end on. It’s a call to action for all of us. Rachel: This is Aibrary, signing off.