Key points

Creativity isn't just about the starting idea; it's about the small insights throughout the process.

Combining four flavors challenged creativity, revealing potential for multi-combinational research.

For greater creativity, practice combining strange or "distant" concepts or ideas.

Psychologists have discovered that all creative ideas are combinations of existing ideas. A lot of the creativity exercises that I recommend in my book Zig Zag are ways to stretch your mind’s ability to combine ideas together. For example, the next time you’re in the kitchen, challenge yourself to combine two of the foods you have, but in a completely new way—a novel recipe that you’ve never made before. There’s a good chance that it’ll be horrible, like…I don’t know…cream cheese and meatlo

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