Joe: What if the secret to predicting the future isn't being an expert, but the opposite? What if your deep knowledge in one area is actually blinding you to what's coming next? Today, we're exploring a book that argues just that. Lewis: That’s a bold claim. You’re telling me the PhDs and the specialists are at a disadvantage? That feels completely backwards. Joe: It does, but that's the central premise of Non-Obvious: How to Think Different, Curate Ideas & Predict The Future by Rohit Bhargava. Lewis: Bhargava... I've heard his name. He's a big deal in the marketing world, right? Worked with brands like Intel and Coca-Cola? Joe: Exactly. And what's fascinating is that he's been publishing this book as an annual report for over a decade, constantly updating his trends. He's not just making one-off predictions; he's building a system. And it all starts with a specific mindset. Lewis: A system for seeing the future. That sounds ambitious. The book has had a pretty mixed reception over the years, hasn't it? Some people swear by it, others find it a bit... well, obvious. Joe: That's the perfect tension to start with. Because Bhargava argues the first step to seeing the non-obvious is to adopt what he calls a "Curator's Mindset," which is less about what you know and more about how you see.

Lewis: A curator's mindset? That sounds like something for a museum. What does that actually mean for, say, a business owner or just someone trying to understand the world? Joe: Well, it’s about cultivating five specific habits. Bhargava lists them as: being Curious, Observant, Fickle, Thoughtful, and Elegant. Now, some of those sound straightforward, but a couple are really counter-intuitive. Lewis: Hold on, fickle? Isn't being fickle a bad thing? It means you're unreliable, you change your mind all the time. How is that a good habit for a thinker? Joe: That’s the non-obvious part. For Bhargava, being fickle means you’re constantly collecting ideas without judging them or immediately trying to fit them into a box. You save articles, you jot down weird observations, you notice strange things, and you just let them sit. You don't analyze them to death right away. It’s about being open to everything, which is a habit that experts often lose. They become so good at filtering for what’s relevant to their field that they miss the interesting stuff happening just outside of it. Lewis: Okay, so it’s about resisting the urge to immediately categorize everything. You're building a collection of mental odds and ends. But does this actually work? It sounds a bit like intellectual hoarding. Joe: It works if you have the other habits, especially being observant. And Bhargava tells this incredible story that perfectly illustrates the power of this mindset, and it has nothing to do with business or technology. It’s about a couple named Herbert and Dorothy Vogel. Lewis: The Vogels. Never heard of them. Joe: You wouldn't have, and that's the point. Herbert was a postal worker. Dorothy was a librarian. They lived in a tiny, one-bedroom, rent-controlled apartment in New York City. And over the course of their lives, they used Dorothy's modest salary to build one of the most important collections of minimalist and conceptual art in the world. Lewis: Wait, a postal worker and a librarian? Not some millionaire collectors? How did they do that? Joe: By being curious and observant. They didn't have formal art training. They didn't have a lot of money. But they had passion. They would spend their weekends visiting artists' studios, talking to them, and learning. They bought pieces they loved, not pieces they thought would be a good investment. They bought art from young, unknown artists who later became giants, like Roy Lichtenstein. Their apartment became so full of art—we're talking over 5,000 pieces—that it was stacked to the ceiling, under the bed, everywhere. Lewis: That's incredible! So they weren't experts in the traditional sense. They were just... passionate observers. Joe: Exactly. They were curators in the truest sense. They saw value and meaning where the established art world hadn't yet. They weren't blinded by what was supposed to be important. They just followed their curiosity. When they eventually donated their collection to the National Gallery of Art, it was considered a national treasure. The Vogels prove Bhargava's point: the ability to see what others miss often comes from looking with fresh eyes, not expert eyes. Lewis: Wow. So the "Curator's Mindset" is really about being like the Vogels. It’s not about having all the answers, but about being relentlessly curious and paying attention to the details that don't seem to fit. Joe: Precisely. It’s about noticing the world with a sense of wonder. Like the story of the Viking, Bjarni Herjulfsson, who was blown off course and saw North America centuries before Columbus. His crew begged him to explore, but he was so focused on his original goal—getting to Greenland—that he refused. He saw it, but he didn't see it. He lacked curiosity. Later, Leif Eriksson heard his story, bought his ship, and went back to explore. Lewis: And Leif Eriksson gets all the credit! Bjarni had the observation, but not the mindset. That makes sense. So you need the habits, the mindset. But a mindset without a method is just a nice thought. How do you actually do it? Does Bhargava give us a real system?

Joe: He does, and this is where the book gets really practical. He calls it the "Haystack Method." And the name is very intentional. Most people think trend spotting is like looking for a needle in a haystack. You're searching for this one tiny, pre-existing thing. Lewis: Right, that sounds about right. Joe: Bhargava flips that idea on its head. He says trend curators don't look for the needle. They gather the hay—all the random, interesting, seemingly disconnected ideas—and then they stick the needle in the middle of it. They create the trend by giving meaning to the collection of ideas. Lewis: Okay, I like that reframe. It’s not about finding, it’s about making. So what are the steps? How do you go from a pile of hay to a sharp, predictive needle? Joe: There are five steps. First is Gathering. This is the Vogel part—collecting interesting ideas from everywhere. Read magazines outside your industry, watch weird documentaries, talk to people. Save everything. Second is Aggregating. You start grouping your ideas. You might have a cluster of stories about new payment apps, another about people sharing their expenses publicly, and another about pay-per-use services. Lewis: So you’re basically sorting your intellectual junk drawer. Joe: A very elegant way to put it. The third step is the most important: Elevating. This is where you look at your different groups of ideas and find a higher-level theme that connects them. What's the underlying human need or behavior shift that explains why all these different things are happening at once? Lewis: That sounds like the hardest part. It's where the real leap of insight happens. Joe: It is. The fourth step is Naming. You have to give your elevated idea a memorable, catchy name. A great name helps the idea spread. And finally, the fifth step is Proving. You go back and find more evidence, data, and stories to confirm that your named trend is a real, accelerating shift, not just a fad or a one-off. Lewis: That sounds great in theory, but can you walk me through a real example? How does someone go from reading a random article to identifying a major trend? Joe: Absolutely. Bhargava gives a great case study on how he curated the trend he called "Engineered Addiction." It started with the Gathering step. In early 2014, he saved a story about the ridiculously popular and frustrating mobile game, Flappy Bird. Lewis: Oh man, I remember Flappy Bird! That game was pure, infuriating magic. I think I deleted it three times. Joe: Exactly! So he saved that. Later, he came across a book by Nir Eyal called Hooked, which laid out a model for how to build habit-forming products. He saved that, too. Then he read an article about how food scientists for big corporations meticulously engineer junk food to hit a "bliss point" of salt, sugar, and fat to make it irresistible. Lewis: Okay, so we have a game, a business book, and food science. That's a pretty random pile of hay. Joe: Right. So next, the Aggregating step. He started to see a theme connecting them: the idea of 'Addictive Design.' But that felt a bit narrow. So he moved to Elevating. He looked at other clusters of ideas he'd collected—one about 'Gamified Learning' like the Khan Academy using badges to keep students engaged, and another about the science behind slot machine design in Las Vegas. Lewis: Hold on, so he saw a silly bird game and connected it to casinos and education? How does that leap happen? Joe: He realized the underlying idea wasn't just about design. It was about a deeper understanding of behavioral science and habit formation being intentionally used to create compulsive experiences. The game, the learning platform, the slot machine, the potato chip—they were all being engineered to hook us. Lewis: Ah, so it's not about the bird or the slot machine, it's about the behavior they both create. That's the 'non-obvious' part. Joe: You got it. So for the Naming step, he brainstormed a few options. 'Ubiquitous Addiction' was one, but it sounded a bit academic. He landed on 'Engineered Addiction' because it was punchy and clear. And finally, Proving. He went looking for more data and found research from MIT on the addictive nature of slot machines and a Harvard study on social media addiction. He had enough proof to validate it as a real, accelerating trend. Lewis: That's a fantastic breakdown. It makes the whole process feel less like magic and more like a discipline. You're not a psychic; you're a detective piecing together clues that are hiding in plain sight.

Joe: And that's the whole system. It's this beautiful loop. The Curator's Mindset we talked about with the Vogels—being curious and observant—fuels the Gathering step of the Haystack Method. And practicing the method, in turn, sharpens your mindset. It trains you to see those connections. Lewis: It really reframes the whole idea of "predicting the future." The book isn't about flying cars or asteroid collisions. Bhargava even jokes about a prediction that an asteroid has a tiny chance of hitting Earth in the year 2880, and he says, what are we supposed to do with that information? It's useless. Joe: Exactly. His argument is that the most reliable way to anticipate the future is to deeply understand the present. The trends that matter are the ones that describe an accelerating present—shifts that are already happening but that most people haven't named or connected yet. Lewis: So for anyone listening, the takeaway isn't to go out and predict the next big thing tomorrow. Bhargava's advice is simpler. Start by being more observant. Maybe just notice one thing on your commute you never saw before, or read an article from a field you know nothing about. Joe: Exactly. And ask yourself a simple question that Bhargava loves: 'What's the underlying idea here?' Don't just see the event; look for the behavior, the motivation, the shift behind it. That's the first step to thinking in a non-obvious way. Lewis: A great place to start. It’s about becoming a speed understander, not just a speed reader. Joe: I love that. A perfect summary. Lewis: This is Aibrary, signing off.