856: How to Awaken Your Genius and Become Extraordinary with Ozan Varol

Pete Mockaitis
Ozan, welcome back to How to be Awesome at Your Job.

Ozan Varol
Thanks so much for having me back, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m so excited to dig into your latest work Awaken Your Genius: Escape Conformity, Ignite Creativity, and Become Extraordinary. All things I enjoy doing, so it seems like we’re in the right place here. And to kick us off, I was so intrigued by one of your bullets. I love the show The Office. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen them all a couple times, and you say there’s a surprising strategy that boost creativity, that the folks who wrote The Office used right off the bat. Can you tell us about this?

Ozan Varol
Absolutely. The Office is also one of my favorite shows of all time, and one of the things that’s extraordinary about that show is that they had, I think, over 200 episodes, but they were able to maintain the quality of the show throughout, which is really, really difficult to do. And so, they did have this strategy that I talk about in the book, which is, in the writers’ room, when they got stuck in a rut, when they’re, like, the ideas stopped flowing, they would play a game.

So, they would stop working on The Office and they would start putting together an episode for Entourage. And if you remember, Entourage is an HBO series about Vincent Chase, this actor who lives in Hollywood with a bunch of his friends. And so, the writers of The Office didn’t work on the show but when they found themselves in a creative rut working on The Office, they would say, “Okay, let’s play a game. Let’s put together an episode for Entourage.” And whenever they played this game, they only had one rule. The episode had to end with Vincent Chase, the main character, winning the Oscar for Best Actor. And with that constraint in place, they would play.

And so, they do this for about, I don’t know, half an hour or so, and then they would go back to working on The Office, and something interesting happened whenever they did this. By virtue of playing this game, and coming back to their own work, their creativity would dramatically increase, like the ideas that weren’t there before, all of a sudden, would start to flow.

And I mention that, or I talk about that story in the section of the book about the importance of playing. And so, for the writers of The Office, this is a way of setting their own work aside, and then playing with someone else’s show, someone else’s project. And when they went back to their own work of actually writing an episode for The Office, that playful mindset would carry over.

It was like it’s a way of warming up your creativity muscles before you start doing really heavy lifts. And having done that, yeah, it would be much easier for them to actually creatively write the episode for The Office that they were working on.

Pete Mockaitis
And what’s interesting about that play there is it’s not that wild. It’s not, like, “Okay, go grab some Play-Doh,” or, “Imagine how I would make a rocket out of Sharpies.” It’s like, “Okay, we’re still writing a TV show,” and yet it’s play in the sense that, I guess, there are no stakes there.

Ozan Varol
Yup, exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
Like, “We’re not going to be putting this out into the world, so be thinking just be whatever you want.”

Ozan Varol
Exactly. And you hit the nail on the head there. It’s very low stakes, there’s actually no stakes at all. Like, the episode for Entourage can suck and it’s not going to matter at all because it’s never going to air. And so, people listening to this might see that as a waste of time but, again, for creativity to happen, especially when you’re stuck in a rut, play becomes really important.

And you don’t have to be a writer to do this, by the way. So, say, you’re in the marketing world, and if you find yourself stuck in a rut, take 10 minutes and come up with marketing ideas for a competitor’s product, like put together a Super Bowl commercial for a competitor’s product, and then come back to your own work, and you’ll find that that playful mindset, that you just created by taking just 10 minutes to play with somebody else’s problem, somebody else’s product, will carry you over to the issue or the problem that you’re working on.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, that’s cool. Well, so you’ve got a number of these approaches in your book Awaken Your Genius. I’m curious to hear if there was a particularly striking, counterintuitive discovery you made that made you go, “Oh, wow, aha” along the way that’s really stuck with you.

Ozan Varol
One of the points that really stuck with me that I use probably on a daily basis is it goes back to something that my high school soccer coach would tell me, and then I came across a research study which essentially validated what he was saying all along. So, I’ll begin with what he would tell me, and then I’ll bring you to the research, and then share with you what I do on a day-to-day basis to implement this mindset.

He had this saying, he would say, “If you’re not in possession, get in position,” meaning if you’re not in possession of the ball, move to a different position on the field where you’re open to receive the ball. And it turns out that the same idea applies to you, regardless of the type of work that you do. And so, if you’re finding yourself stuck, if you’re finding yourself without the ball, if you’re finding yourself in a rut, move to a different position. So, physically move yourself away from the position that you’ve been sitting in into a different location.

What happens with the way that most of us work, we’re like sitting in the same position, in the same chair, looking at the same computer screen for hours and hours at a time, and that space we’re operating in gets associated with the same old thought patterns, traditional ideas, and so it becomes really hard to change the status quo and generate new ideas.

But the simple act of picking up your laptop and walking to a different location, it might be a café, or what I do at home is I walk to a different room in our house, with different decorations, different books on the shelves, different background, different everything, and when I do that, that space becomes this, like, blank canvass that I can project new ideas on, and because that space is not associated with the old though patterns that I’ve been operating under for a very long time.

This is why, by the way, research shows that smokers, for example, find it easier to quit when they’re traveling because the new location doesn’t have the same patterns associated with their smoking habit as their own home. And so, it’s really easy to implement in practice. If you’re finding yourself in a rut, pick up your laptop, move to a different place. Walking also helps. Research shows that walking significantly boosts creativity.

And walking, by the way, without audiobook, without podcast, without a phone call to keep you company, just you and your thoughts, there are so many stories of scientists, literally, walking themselves into the right answer. It seems like a really simple practice but it can really create a fundamental transformation in the quality and the quantity of the ideas that you might generate.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s really cool. And that context stuff, you mentioned smokers, that’s wild. I’ve heard that some war, maybe it’s Vietnam, maybe it’s multiple wars, soldiers from the US, a good chunk of them, engage in some hardcore drugs, like cocaine or heroine or something, when they’re off in the theater of war. And then they came back, and the vast majority of them just had no problem.

This is mind-blowing because it’s, like, among the most addictive substances in existence, and then it’s like, “Oh, well, hey, you know, different people, different country, different scenery, different activities, and hardcore narcotics are just not part of my life anymore.” Just like that. Mind-blowing stuff.

Ozan Varol
Amazing. Yeah, I hadn’t heard of that but it makes sense if you think about it. So much of our behavior, our habits, our ways of working in the world are just tied to the environment. And the moment you put yourself in a drastically different environment, it becomes much easier to change. And this is why, by the way, one of the things I love most is international travel.

When you go to a foreign country, your whole world becomes topsy-turvy, like the majority becomes the minority, surrounded by echoes of this language that you’ve never heard before. You return to infancy when your mother tongue was foreign to you. You become a young fool again. And so, everything is new and it becomes so much easier to generate new ideas and get out of old patterns of thinking simply by breathing foreign air, which is pretty remarkable.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool. All right. Well, we’ve got a number of fun strategies and ideas. Could you hit us with of the big idea, core thesis of the book Awaken Your Genius?

Ozan Varol
Sure. And I pick the word genius on purpose. So, genius, most often, is used to mean smartest, or the most intelligent, the most talented, and that’s not the way I used genius in the book. There’s a quote that opens the book from Thelonious Monk, he says, “Genius is the one most like himself.” Genius, in the Latin origin of the word, means the spirit attendant at birth in each and every person.

So, each of us is like Aladdin, and our genie, or our genius, is bottled up inside of us waiting to be awakened. And the core thesis of the book is this, no one can compete with you at being you.

Pete Mockaitis
“I’ll smoke them.”

Ozan Varol
You are the first and the last time that you’ll ever happen. And if your thinking is an extension of you, if what you’re building is a product of your inner wisdom, you’ll be in a league of your own. But if you suppress yourself, if you don’t claim that wisdom within, then it’s going to be lost. That genius is going to be lost both to you and to the world.

And so, at a time when so many people and so many businesses are looking externally for answers, outsourcing their thinking to algorithms, copying and pasting what their competitors are doing, I wanted to write a book to give people concrete tools to escape that culture of conformity and unlock original insights within their own depths and unleash their own unique genius.

Pete Mockaitis
So, if awakening the genius is what’s happening here, could you give us a cool story of a sleeping genius and how they awoke and what happened?

Ozan Varol
Yeah, the first name that popped to mind is Johnny Cash. In 1954, he walked into an audition room at Sun Records, and at the time he was a nobody. He was selling appliances door to door and playing gospel songs at night with two of his friends. He was broke. His marriage was in ruins. And for his audition, Cash picks a gospel song because that’s what he knew best, and gospel was really popular in 1954. Everyone else was singing it.

The audition doesn’t go as Johnny Cash plans. As Cash begins to sing this dreary slow gospel song, the record label owner, who’s name was Sam Phillips, he pretends to be interested for, like, 20 seconds before interrupting Cash. He says, “We already heard that song a hundred times, just like that, just like how you sang it. This song,” he says, “is the same Jimmy Davis tune we hear on the radio all day about your peace within, and how it’s real, and how you’re going to shout it.”

He looks at Cash, and he says, “Sing something different. Sing something real. Sing something you felt because that’s the kind of song that people want to hear. That’s the kind of song that truly saves people. It’s got nothing to do with believing in God, Mr. Cash,” he says. “It has to do with believing in yourself.” And that rant jolts Cash out of his conformist “Let me sing you some good old gospel” attitude. He collects himself. He starts strumming his guitar. And he starts playing the “Folsom Prison Blues” in that deep distinctive voice of his.

In that moment, he stops trying to become a gospel singer and he becomes Johnny Cash, all because he rejects the tendency to conform, and decides to embrace the genius within him. And I think that’s one of the best stories, the most memorable stories about how somebody who walks into that room as a sleeping conformist, and walks away by awakening the genius within him.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m curious, so Johnny Cash, he’s already got a pretty good sense at the time, I’m assuming, I’m not as familiar with the ins and outs of his story. He’s got a pretty good vibe that, “Music is the thing I care to do,” so he’s got a zone that he’s operating in. To your point about how we are one of a kind and the best at being us as we can be, so we want to be ourselves and tap into that fully.

I guess, I’m thinking, how do we even know where to start in terms of the zone that we’re going to be operating in if we’re not even at the point of Johnny Cash, “All right, I’m doing music”? I think many of us in a career, it’s like, “Well, I don’t know, I like helping people, I like figuring stuff out, I like communicating, and, I don’t know, I could do any number of jobs.” Where do we start?

Ozan Varol
Yeah, great question. I talk about a number of strategies in the book. I’ll share one of them here. One is to ask yourself, to look back on your life, and figure out what your useful idiosyncrasies are. And you might actually ask your partner or best friend about them, like, “What is it that makes me different from other people?” your superpower, the thing that you can do better than the average person, and see how you’ve used that power in the past. And I really encourage you to dig deep when you do this exercise.

So, for example, if you tell yourself, “Well, I’m really good at organizing events,” dig deeper into that. So, just because you’re a great event organizer doesn’t mean you can only be an event organizer. That means you’re great a communicating with people, that means you’re really good at rallying others, that means you’re really good at putting people together in a space and creating an informative entertaining event.

And so, the goal is to tease down those Lego blocks of your talents, interests, preferences, useful idiosyncrasies. And once you’ve got those Lego blocks figured out, then you can build other things with it, build other things with that you haven’t built in the past. And it might be staying within your current line of work, and switching from singing gospel to actually singing “Folsom Prison Blues.” It might also mean switching to an entirely different field.

But the first step is trying to figure out what your useful idiosyncrasies are. And this is really hard to do. It’s really hard to do in part because, at some point in your life, you were probably shamed for having those idiosyncrasies because they made you weird or different from other people. And so, we learn to conceal them, we learn to suppress our superpowers because they make us different from other people. But if you can figure out what those superpowers are and lean into what made you weird or different in the past in a useful way, that, in and of itself, can make you extraordinary.

Pete Mockaitis
I like that a lot. That phrase useful idiosyncrasies is way more useful in terms of surfacing the goods as oppose to “What’s your superpower?” which is a cool powerful useful question. I recommend interviewers ask it. Let’s understand that, hopefully, the interviewee has some self-knowledge to be able to disclose that. But if you’re kind of working towards that, useful idiosyncrasy is handy.

It’s funny, I’m thinking that when I was in high school, in the summer, I remember there were a few times, and I was ridiculed for this, I was hanging out with my friends for, yeah, a good long stretch of time, maybe six hours, and I thought, “You know what, I’d like to go home and read business books now,” and I’m, like, 15 and they didn’t care for that. They thought that was a little bit alienating, like, “You prefer to read business books than hang out with me.” I was like, “Well, we’ve been hanging out for a long time, and kind of…”

And so, this is a really fun job, getting to talk to people who write a lot of those such books. And so, yeah, that’s interesting, is that it’s useful and it did bring about modest ridicule from my friends there. Could you just lay it on us a bunch more examples of useful idiosyncrasies?

Ozan Varol
Sure. In my life, one of the useful idiosyncrasies has been storytelling. And if I look back, and this is also really useful, too, looking back at your middle school years, your high school years, before you became an adult, like you enjoyed reading business books, for example. I loved writing stories. Actually, from the first time I learned to read and write, I would type stories on my grandfather’s old typewriter.

And looking back on my life, that core ingredient, that useful idiosyncrasy, that basic Lego block has been there all along. So, I went into, for example, the practice of law. I was in rocket science first and then switched trajectories and went to law school, and became a practicing attorney. And as I was a practicing attorney, you’re writing briefs for the court, you’re in oral argument, which is essentially storytelling. You’re telling stories on behalf of your client.

And then I was in academia, and I was a law professor and taught these big classes filled with first year students who are taking these required classes, and many of them did not want to be in the classroom and so I had to come up with ways of telling engaging stories to that audience to get them excited and energized to be in the classroom.

And so, that core ingredient has been there all along, that ability to tell stories, but the recipe that I’ve made with it has changed over time. And so, now I use storytelling in my writing, in the books that I write, in terms of telling stories that are going to make principles stick in a way that, like, simply dry-listing something is not going to.

And so, that’s another example of a useful idiosyncrasy. And we all have them, and the beauty is they’re all different for each of us. So, people listening to this may not have storytelling as one of their Lego blocks, they may not have the desire to read business books for fun as one of their useful idiosyncrasies. But if you look back on your life and go back to the very beginning, before the world told you what you should be doing, what you were actually excited to do, you’ll begin to notice these themes and trends and core ingredients of useful idiosyncrasies that have carried over time.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s fun. As I’m thinking about my kids now, my son Johnny, who just loves to make some kind of a drawing, and there might be stickers or whatever, and then put it in an envelope and seal it, and then write “Mama, Dada,” whatever on it. So, he’s five and he can write a few words, and I just think it’s so funny because this happens almost every day.

And it’s funny because you think, “Oh, what a precious gift from my child.” And it was like, “Well, yeah, but I’ve got dozens and dozens of them, and I don’t know what I’m supposed…” It feels wrong to throw them away. It’s like, “Should I curate?” But it’s funny, he just keeps bringing it, and he loves giving these creative gifts to us. And I just wonder if that is a fad, a passing fancy, or if that’s going to be a core thing and where that will land.

Ozan Varol
Sure. It’s amazing that he does that, though.

Pete Mockaitis
It is.

Ozan Varol
If you think about it, it’s not like he learned that from anywhere. It’s just naturally coming to him. It’s so cool that he’s sharing that gift with you, and that you’re leaning in.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. It does. It feels good, like, “Oh, this is for me. Thank you.” Okay. So, we’ve got storytelling, we’ve got business books. I’d love to hear a few more just for people to see themselves in that.

Ozan Varol
Sure. For me, another one was programming, like, I fell in love with computers at a very young age, and I was definitely shamed for it. I was the president of my high school computer club, and that did not bode well for my dating life but it gave me crucial skills that I could use later on in life. And so, even now as a writer, I lean into technology in a way that most writers don’t.

And I think those rare combinations can also be really helpful. So, there’s really nothing novel about a singer who can dance, but a lawyer who can also do computer programming, or a doctor who knows something about the law, for example. Those rare combinations of ingredients, useful idiosyncrasies, can be really powerful because you can use those tools from very different fields to create things in your field that no one else can because they don’t have the depth of knowledge that you do.

So, they honestly can be anything. It could be effectively communicating with other people. It could be simplifying really complex things. So, some people are amazing at taking a really complicated thing and then explaining it to somebody who’s a complete beginner in language that they can understand. Really, really rare but extremely powerful skill.

Empathy is another one. People who can read the energy in the room can see what other people are feeling. Say, you’re marketer or a salesperson, and you can actually see the tension. You can see that the pitch you just gave to the potential client isn’t really resonating, it’s not really sitting well. The ability to recognize that in the moment, and then tailor your pitch accordingly, to lean in and get curious about the client’s perspective, is also a superpower that a lot of marketers don’t have.

And so, think about those skills that have been there from a very young age, and see what they might be. And then you can take those and build new things as you go along.

Pete Mockaitis
I like that a lot. It’s funny, I’m also thinking now about, I guess, another idiosyncrasy is that I just do an excessive amount of product research in terms of buying something just because I really like optimizing, in general, or finding the best toenail clipper. It’s like, “I’m only going to get one, so why don’t I just get the best one that there is, and you feel that decadent luxury because I’m not going to have the fanciest house or car in the world, but I could get the most high-performing nail clippers.”

And that’s also paid off in terms of guest selection. So, Ozan, not to toot your horn, but we do a boatload of careful prep, and research, and thought in choosing each guest, and it’s a blessing having tons of incoming pitches to be able to be so choosy. And it’s paid off in terms of show growth, and quality, and engaged listeners, and all that kind of thing.

Ozan Varol
I love that. And the example you just gave is a perfect one because you’re applying it in very different contexts. You’re applying it to selecting products that are going to be useful for you, but you’re also applying it to selecting podcast guests. And so, that useful idiosyncrasy of curation can be applied in very different contexts, so it’s not just limited to one. It can be applied to so many different areas.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, Ozan, I’ve got just a few random things I want to know about because your table of contents and pitching things really intrigue me, but I want to give you the floor first. Is there anything that’s just so critical we must know about awakening genius that you want to make sure to get out there?

Ozan Varol
I think we already talked about the crux of the book, but I just want to add one thing. I think it goes back to the comment or the discussion we just had about useful idiosyncrasies, which is that there’s this desire to try to appease everybody, to appeal to everyone. And when people do that, you end up appealing to nobody. You actually reduce the force of your strength because you become ordinary, you become like every other gospel singer in the world.

And we notice things because of contrast, so something stands out because it’s different from what surrounds it. If there is no contrast, no anomaly, no fingerprints, no idiosyncrasy, you become invisible, you become the background. And the only way to step into your genius is to actually embrace, not erase, your idiosyncrasies, your useful idiosyncrasies.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, I love that. Now, that’s making me think of Bo Burnham, if you know the comedian-musician.

Ozan Varol
Yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
Like, I’m a little late to the game but I just saw his special “Inside,” which I just thought was so brilliant. And as compared to most comedy specials, we have a form we’re expecting: a stage, an audience, some jokes, a microphone. But then he does this thing where it’s all inside with different creative tidbits. And it has stuck with me like no comedy special ever has.

I’m thinking about it again and again, and it does feel all the more genius, and I’ve recommended it many times, and I guess, hey, and on the show. That contrast is powerful. And I’m sure it’s not for everybody, “This is really kind of weird,” and tune out but those it’s connecting with just go gaga for it, and share it, and grow it, and all kinds of good things happen.

Ozan Varol
Yeah, that’s exactly right. Because then you’re setting up this light beam and you’re attracting people to that light beam who really want what you’re offering. And I think a lot of people don’t do that. We’d rather fail singing the same gospel song that everybody else is singing than risk failing individually. Another talented person, an extraordinary person that comes to mind who did just that is Bruce Springsteen.

I recently saw him in concert, and I was blown away. Like, it was my first Bruce Springsteen concert, and here’s this 73-year-old guy who’s like jumping and dancing and sliding across stage, and pulling off all of these moves that would put people in their 30s to shame. And as I was watching him on stage, I was reflecting on how he’s had this sort of longevity that he had. He’s been doing this since 1965.

And it’s not his voice. So, his voice is not amazing, and he readily admits that. And he can play the guitar but, as he writes in his book, Born to Run, which is excellent, by the way, he says, “Look, the world is filled with great guitar players, and many of them my match or better.” But the thing he did, instead of trying to out-sing or outplay other musicians, he leaned on the one useful idiosyncrasy that made him different from everybody else, which was his ability to write song lyrics.

So, he became a sensation for writing lyrics that capture the blue-collar spirit, and tell the gap between the American dream and the American reality. And this man, who was initially dismissed by agents and bandmates and critics, just about everyone, eventually became rock and roll sensation because he leaned into the one quality, the one useful idiosyncrasy that actually made him different from other people.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s great. Thank you. All right. You’ve got a few teaser bullets I just got to know about. You say our most scarce resource is not time or money. What is it? And how does it matter for awakening your genius?

Ozan Varol
It is your attention because attention doesn’t scale. You can pay attention to only one thing at a time, and your reality on a moment-to-moment basis is defined by what you pay attention to. So, if you pay attention to junk, your life becomes junk. If you’re paying attention to useful sources of information, then your life becomes more colorful.

And so, I think, as they say in the movies, with the gun, like, “Be careful where you point that thing,” be careful where you point your attention because it’s going to fundamentally shape your reality. And there was a time in my life where, four or five years ago, I would wake up and the first thing I did in the morning was to grab my phone, immediately check email, immediately check the news, immediately check Instagram, and it was the digital equivalent of gorging on a bucket of M&Ms for breakfast every morning.

I would immediately pollute my mind, and then my mind and my output, by the way, would turn to junk because that’s what I was taking in, that’s what I was paying attention to. So, if you want to change your reality, start by changing what you’re paying attention to.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s so good. Well, now I got to know, what do you read in the morning now instead?

Ozan Varol
I don’t read anything in the morning.

Pete Mockaitis
There you go.

Ozan Varol
My mornings now are reserved for creating. So, one of the first things I do in the morning is to journal, to free-write. So, not journalism, like I’m describing what I’m going to do or what I did the day before, but what kept me up at night, or an idea that keeps bugging me, something that has just been top of mind for me, and I just sit down and I write it. I do this thought dump in the morning, and that’s how I start my morning. And then I write in the morning.

And everyone is different, but for me, the morning is my most creative time. And so, I now reserve that morning for creation as opposed to consumption.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, that’s cool. Now, how does detecting BS help us awaken our genius, and how do we do it?

Ozan Varol
Awakening your genius isn’t just about that inner journey of finding the wisdom within. It’s also about the outer journey, which is getting information from outside sources but, crucially, figuring out which sources are useful and which ones are not, filtering out low quality or sources of information that might mislead you. And I have an entire section of the book dedicated to providing readers with a toolkit for doing just that.

But one of the simple ways to do this, which most people don’t do, is to actually read the article. It’s become so prevalent to just read the headline and then jump to a conclusion based on the headline, hit the retweet button based on the headline. Just reading the original article is something that so few people do.

But if you just take a few minutes and read the actual source of the thing where that headline came from, and if you want to go down the rabbit hole, then actually go back to the primary source, which, again, most people don’t do. But that one thing is going to set you apart from other people, and you’re going to find things, little nuggets of information that people miss because they are just so focused on the headline.

And I’ll mention one more thing. There are ten strategies in the book on this. Pausing and asking yourself, before you accept what you read, a simple question, which is just, “Is this right? Is this right? How can I poke holes in a curious way?” So, skeptical curiosity, not just being skeptical of what you’re reading but approaching it with curiosity is such an important skill that most people don’t have.

And one of the examples I give in the book is from this Mars mission that I worked on where it was reported by a journalist in a tweet that one of the two rovers that I worked on, its final transmission to Earth was “My battery is low and it’s getting dark.” And it got retweeted like millions of times, a bunch of media sources picked it up, and the story is false.

Before the rover died, it sent back to Earth a bunch of routine code that included, among other things, its power levels and the outside light reading. And then a journalist, who didn’t let facts get in the way of a good story, then took a short section of that random code, paraphrased it into English, and then tweet it to the world that these were the rover’s final words, and then millions of people hit the retweet button, and a bunch of media outlets published stories all without pausing and asking, “How does a remote-controlled space robot spit out fully formed English sentences designed to tug at people’s heartstrings?”

It’s so useful to ask, step back, and ask, “Wait a minute. Is this right? How does a reporter know what the rover said?” And then that would lead to additional questions, like, “Well, how does a Martian rover communicate with Earth in the first place? Does it use fully formed English sentences? Like, how do we know what the rover is doing at any moment?” Those questions are guided by a skepticism of the reporter’s claims but, more importantly, by curiosity about the underlying truth. And questions like that will lead you to places that few others dare go.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And what’s your strategy for asking better questions?

Ozan Varol
One of the ways you can do this is to ask what I call a soliciting question, and it solicits a more insightful answer. I’ll give you an example from my life when I was a law professor. I would pause during class from time to time, and ask, “Does anyone have any questions?” Nine times out of ten, no one will raise their hands, and I’d move on, confident that I’d done an amazing job of explaining the material.

Well, I was wrong, there were plenty of students who were not getting it. The exam answers made that clear. So, I decided to run an experiment. Instead of saying, “Does anyone have any questions?” I began to say something like, “The material we just covered was really confusing. I expect many of you to have questions. Now is a great time to ask them.”

The number of hands that went up increased dramatically. And I realized in hindsight that “Does anyone have any questions?” was actually a stupid question. I’d forgotten how hard it was for a student to raise their hand around, like, hundred of their friends and admit that they didn’t get something or they didn’t understand something.

The way that I reframed that question normalized confusion. It made it easier for students to raise their hands and admit that they didn’t get it, they didn’t understand it, because I made it clear that this material was really difficult. And I think we ask stupid questions all the time outside the classroom as well.

So, if you’re a manager and you ask a team member, say, during a quarterly review, “Are you facing any challenges?” most people will say no. They will say no because they might fear that admitting that they’re facing a challenge is going to be seen as a weakness by their boss. But as a manager, if you say something like, “We just finished a really tough quarter. Everyone is facing significant challenges. I’d love to hear about yours.”

Now you’re much more likely to get a more honest, insightful response because, now, you’ve normalized challenges. Now, you’re saying, “Look, everybody in the company, everybody on the team is facing challenges. I’m just curious about the specific challenges that you’re facing.” And so, phrased that way, it becomes easier to create psychological safety and for people to open and give you a far more insightful answer than the one that you, otherwise, would’ve gotten.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, beautiful. Thank you. And now could you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Ozan Varol
I love this quote from Rumi, “As you walk on the way, the way appears.” The implication being that the way is not going to appear until you actually start to walk. I think most people ignore the fundamental tenet of that quote and they want perfect information about the precise destination and all the twists and turns that are going to get them there, but life doesn’t work that way.

Life has a way of lighting the path ahead only a few steps at a time. And as you take each step, you go from not knowing to knowing, from darkness to light. And the only way to know what comes next is to start walking before you think you’re ready.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Ozan Varol
There was a study I came across where they put students in a room, they took all of their devices away, and they were given the option of either doing nothing or administering themselves an electric shock. And I don’t remember the precise figures but a shockingly high percentage of people chose to shock themselves, and it was painful, rather than just sit there for 15 minutes just by themselves and their thoughts.

I like this research study because we’ve lost this ability to just sit and be with our thoughts without reaching for the nearest available distraction, whether it’s a shock from an electric device or a shock from your smartphone. And there’s so much value in putting yourself on airplane mode, and just sitting there with you and your thoughts, and letting yourself daydream.

That’s where the best ideas come from, and that’s why you get your best ideas in the shower is because it’s that few moments in your day where you’re actually completely free of notifications and distractions. It’s just you and your thoughts. Imagine the types of ideas that you might be able to generate if you replicate those shower-like conditions more frequently throughout the day.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite book?

Ozan Varol
Well, I have so many favorite books but the one that popped to mind is How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan. It just opened my eyes into this whole new world. Well, actually, it was an older world because the research was done back in the ‘60s and ‘70s by using psychedelics for therapeutic purposes. And he goes back to the research and brings it back alive. And it just opened my eyes to these alternative forms of healing that I knew nothing about.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

Ozan Varol
I love Roam Research for taking notes. When I mentioned free-writing and journaling before, that’s something that I journal in and write in. I keep it open on my browser throughout the day, and I just jot down whatever is coming up. And I have this setup in there where I can go back and review notes that I took three months ago, six months ago, and a year ago.

And I find that review process really helpful, to go back and what I was thinking about a year ago, or six months ago, because when you spot these same themes emerge, same ideas, same thought patterns keep repeating themselves, it becomes harder to ignore them.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite habit?

Ozan Varol
I already mentioned it, but I’ll come back to it. Favorite habit is putting myself on airplane mode. So, just sitting with just a notepad and a pen and nothing else, or going out for a walk, no podcast, no audiobook, nothing, just me and my thoughts. And those moments in the day where it seems like nothing is happening end up being the most productive moments because that’s when my best ideas come.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And could you share a favorite resonant nugget, something you share that people seem to latch onto, retweet often, etc.?

Ozan Varol
“Creativity isn’t produced; it’s discovered,” is a quote that gets retweeted a lot, or gets repeated a lot, because we have this industrial-age mentality that we bring to knowledge work. Like, if you’re just sort of nose-to-the-grindstone is the best way to generate ideas, and that’s not accurate. Ideas actually come in moments of slack, not moments of hard labor.

Like, if you’re trying to innovate, you’re not going to do that by trying to hit inbox zero. They happen when you step away. And taking your foot off the pedal every now and then can actually be the best way to accelerate.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Ozan Varol
You can get Awaken Your Genius wherever books are sold. If you go to GeniusBook.net, there’s a special bonus that you can get there for ordering the book, which says free mini course that you can watch in less than 30 minutes with 10 life changing insights from the book, similar to the ones you heard here today.

And if you like to keep in touch with me, I’m not active on social media just because my attention, I found, is better pointed in other directions. So, the best way to keep in touch with me is to join my email list. I have one email that goes out every Thursday to over 45,000 subscribers, and that you can read in less than three minutes. And you can sign up for that by heading over to my website, which is OzanVarol.com, that’s O-Z-A-N, V as in victor, A-R-O-L.com.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Ozan Varol
I think just recapping what we covered so far, embrace your useful idiosyncrasies, spend time on airplane mode, and be careful where you point your attention.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Ozan, this has been a treat. I wish you much fun and moments of genius.

Ozan Varol
Thanks so much, Pete. Thanks for having me on.