Three Visionary Scientists Who Embraced Limitations to Have Creative Outbursts

Many procrastinators have claimed that ever-closer deadlines help them focus and enforce creativity. There may be something to that. Not quite the procrastination, but the forced wall of immovability restricting them that gets gears going. For proof, get your hands on a copy of The Five Obstructions, a documentary where experimental Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier inflicts five restrictions on his filmmaking mentor and friend Jørgen Leth, pushing him to make the same short film five times in different ways, driving him to the edge of creativity (and of his sanity).

Janna Levin, professor of physics and astronomy at Barnard College at Columbia University and author of Black Hole Blues, believes that it’s the restrictions in science that help scientists get more creative. It’s these limits that give scientists something to work against, or with, and force them to move forward.

Albert Einstein himself, who was recently proven right about gravitational waves after 100 years, had his own limits that aided him in science. Einstein believed that light travels at a certain speed; no faster, no slower. He believed that anything else might change, anything else could be just a theory so long as the speed of light remained the same. Because he had this one constant, the speed of light, he went on to break new ground with the theory of relativity, black holes, and the shape of space. Despite having the restriction of something that could not be changed, Einstein arrived at multiple theorems still being proved true today.

Heisenberg had a similar creative burst from his own uncertainty principle. He said one can’t know exactly where a particle is. This doesn’t really add up to how we typically think about things – we can usually tell where an object is. But a particle’s momentum and the path of its motion are too complicated, especially after we’ve disturbed it. Because of this, he says we just can’t know where the particle is. And with this constant uncertainty, Heisenberg went on to discuss quantum physics in a new way.

Levin’s final example of limitation leading to creativity is Kurt Gödel. Gödel’s theory of limitation was complicated, in that he wanted to prove that not everything can be proven. His theory, considering everything including basic arithmetic, states that not everything can be proven true or false, not everything can be known in the mathematical proven state. But this idea propagated further creativity, including the invention of the computer and artificial intelligence. It was the limitations of the unknown that helped Alan Turing complete the very machines that were the building blocks of the high-tech, cutting-edge device that you’re reading these words on right now. Three cheers for limitations!

3 Tips to Succeed at Business Negotiations from an FBI Hostage Negotiator

Mirroring is a phenomenon frequently observed between two people in conversation. When a person is mirroring who they talk to, mimicking their body language and enthusiasm, it is a signal that the two people are at ease with each other and have taken a similar point of view.

Mirroring starts in infancy as babies learn about the world by imitating the behavior of those around them. This imitative behavior continues through life, from adolescence into adulthood, and if used consciously, mirroring may subconsciously influence others: many artists who claim to be hypnotists or psychics, such as Long Island Medium Theresa Caputo, use mirroring.

Chris Voss, a former FBI Negotiator and current CEO of the Black Swan Group, is an expert on mirroring. If your goal is to better position yourself in a negotiation, mirroring is a technique you can use to choose your language carefully. By repeating the other person’s last few words, just one to three of them, you can indicate that you are listening. Not only that, but it pushes the conversation forward as the person feels free to delve in deeper.

Repeating someone’s last words also gives you time to think about your own place in negotiation. After your short reply repeating them, most people will expand on what they mean. Voss says that the small delay caused by repeating those one to three words can in the long run save much time, and help things to go your way.

Chris Voss's book is Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended On It

How to speak so that people want to listen

Have you ever felt like you're talking, but nobody is listening? Here's Julian Treasure to help. In this useful talk, the sound expert demonstrates the how-to's of powerful speaking — from some handy vocal exercises to tips on how to speak with empathy. A talk that might help the world sound more beautiful.

Julian Treasure is the chair of the Sound Agency, a firm that advises worldwide businesses -- offices, retailers, hotels -- on how to use sound. He asks us to pay attention to the sounds that surround us. How do they make us feel: productive, stressed, energized, acquisitive?

Treasure is the author of the book Sound Business and keeps a blog by the same name that ruminates on aural matters (and offers a nice day-by-day writeup of TEDGlobal 2009). In the early 1980s, Treasure was the drummer for the Fall-influenced bandTransmitters.

Draw your future - Take control of your life

Patti Dobrowolski

A nationally acclaimed comic performer, high-performance business consultant, speaker, strategic illustrator and newly minted author, Patti Dobrowolski spends her time focused on new neuroscience discoveries that leverage the power of imagination and visuals to actualize a vision of the future. Dobrowolski works with teams and leaders of Fortune 500 companies and nonprofits around the world to inspire them to create new and different strategies while literally capturing the organization’s vision in a 4′ x 8′ illustration.
A veteran change agent, Dobrowolski spent her early consulting years on the front line listening to and inspiring teams to re-engage following a reduction in force or merger and acquisition. After she witnessed an artist drawing a real-time picture of the company’s new direction, she added this powerful visual aspect to her work. She now works as a change agent at Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to engage the entire staff in extensive cultural shifts. Dobrowolski received her master’s in psychology with an emphasis in drama therapy from California Institute of Integral Studies. She is a member of the National Speaker’s Association, won the Association of Women in Communications Woman of Achievement award in 2004, and in 2008 her former company, Alchemy: The Art of Transforming Business, became an awardee of the Make Mine a Million $ Business program.

The global business next door "The world is your neighbour"

About this talk: When you think “global company,” what do you imagine? A massive conglomerate? A far-reaching tech corporation? Scott Szwast reveals that our image of the global business is wrong – 98% of US exporters are in fact companies with less than fifty employees. And yet, this only includes 1% of all US businesses. He explains why so many companies hesitate to leap across the border - and why they need to make the jump.

With a palpable passion for the unpredictability of global trade, Scott Szwast has spent the last 25 years supporting international transportation. For 10 of them, he worked with an ocean freight line, helping to import and export goods. The last 15 years he has spent with UPS, deep diving into distribution, transportation, technology, trade compliance, and the countless other aspects of cross-border trade. Today, he is a marketing director for UPS, where he works closely with companies expanding into new markets to understand the particular needs of growing organizations and to develop the solutions to support them.

Arianna Huffington on Brain Maintenance

Arianna Huffington discusses the importance of a well-rested mind and body. Huffington is the author of Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder (http://goo.gl/RXaa5b).

Arianna Huffington is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post, a nationally syndicated columnist, and author of fourteen books. Her newest book, Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder was published by Crown in March 2014 and debuted at #1 on the New York Times Bestseller list.

Since launching in 2005, The Huffington Post has become one of the most widely-read, linked to, and frequently-cited media brands on the Internet. In 2012, the site won a Pulitzer Prize for national reporting.

Huffington has been named to Time Magazine's list of the world’s 100 most influential people and the Forbes Most Powerful Women list. Originally from Greece, she moved to England when she was 16 and graduated from Cambridge University with an M.A. in economics. At 21, she became president of the famed debating society, the Cambridge Union.

She serves on several boards, including HuffPost’s partners in Spain, the newspaper EL PAÍS and its parent company PRISA; Onex; The Center for Public Integrity; and The Committee to Protect Journalists.

Organizations and the Power of Human Nature

Bestselling author Marcus Buckingham discusses organizations and the power of human nature, and his new book,