The Myth of the Garage: And Other Minor Surprises

by Chip Heath

In other words, companies aren’t born in garages. Companies are born in companies.

Research tells us that brainstorming becomes more productive when it’s focused. As jazz great Charles Mingus famously said, “You can’t improvise on nothing, man; you’ve gotta improvise on something.”

So don’t think out of the box. Go box shopping. Keep trying on one after another until you find the one that catalyzes your thinking. A good box is like a lane marker on the highway: It’s a constraint that liberates.

Our world is populated by watch people and wine people and coffee people and jeans people. You are, it seems, what you blow a lot of money on.