Exploration as an Expression of Our Humanity with Adam Steltzner
The Unmistakable Creative Podcast
Srinivas Rao
4.8 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 25 January 2016
⏱️ 52 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Adam Steltzner, an engineer from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory joins us to discuss his new book the Right Kind of Crazy and lessons in creativity from landing spacecrafts on Mars.
HIGHLIGHTS
- Going to the edges of what we might be capable of
- Making a significant internal identity shift
- Searching for what’s wrong to find what’s true
- Managing fear in high-stakes situations
- The power of bringing in outside perspective
- The right kind of crazy vs the wrong kind of crazy
- Why our fear of failure is more debilitating than the failure itself
- Establishing objective distance from your ideas
- Rebuilding your confidence after a significant failure
- Why exploration is a gesture of who we are
Quotes
I want to make sure I don’t stop trying for fear of failing
In an organization it’s very important to separate the ideas from the people who hold them.
Books
For 10 years, Adam Steltzner led a team of engineers inventing, designing, testing and retesting the revolutionary “sky crane” landing system that successfully placed the Mars rover, Curiosity on the Martian surface in 2012. Since then, he’s been awarded honors ranging from the Smithsonian’s American Ingenuity Award in technology, to GQ magazine’s Spaceman of the Year.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | And so the beginning of the brainstorming process is throwing ideas out and logging them. |
| 0:07.0 | Getting everybody's ideas. You don't know where the ideas are going to come from. In an organization, this is something I learned |
| 0:15.0 | from the laboratory. In an organization, it's very important to separate the ideas |
| 0:21.0 | from the people who hold them. That separation is important because you want to |
| 0:26.5 | be able to criticize the ideas without having the people feel that they are being criticized. |
| 0:34.7 | And so there's a sort of objective distance that is optimal, where someone can bring an idea |
| 0:41.9 | into play, but then allow it to be criticized or maybe even |
| 0:46.6 | criticize it themselves. I'm Srenny Rao and this is the unmistakable Creative Podcast where you get a window into the stories and insights of the most innovative and creative minds who started movements, built thriving businesses, written best selling books, and created |
| 1:04.8 | insanely interesting art. |
| 1:06.3 | For more, check out our 500 episode archive at unmistakable Creative.com. dot com. your |
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