Smartcuts: The Breakthrough Power of Lateral Thinking

by Shane Snow

difference between rapid, but short-term gains, which I call shortcuts, and sustainable success achieved quickly through smart work, or smartcuts. Whereas by dictionary definition shortcuts can be amoral, you can think of smartcuts as shortcuts with integrity. Working smarter and achieving more—without creating negative externalities. Abagnale took shortcuts and regretted it. Franklin used smartcuts and got his face on a $100 bill.

All ten of the top ten presidents in C-SPAN’s survey were hackers. Only one, JFK, climbed a semblance of a traditional ladder; he served in both houses of Congress, but was a war hero and author of a Pulitzer Prize–winning book—clearly not the average ladder climber. Each of the men on this list worked hard in his career, learned and proved leadership through diverse experiences, and switched ladders multiple times. They continuously parlayed their current success for something more, and they didn’t give up when they lost elections (which most of them did).

“When interpreting their own failures,” Staats explains, “individuals tend to make external attributions, pointing to factors that are outside of their direct control, such as luck. As a result, their motivation to exert effort on the same task in the future is reduced.”

“20% Time” is not Google indigenous. It was borrowed from a company formerly known as Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing, aka 3M, which allowed its employees to spend 15 percent of their work hours experimenting with new ideas, no questions asked. 3M’s “15% Time” brought us, among other things, Post-it Notes. Behind this concept (which is meticulously outlined in an excellent book by Ryan Tate called The 20% Doctrine) is the idea of constantly tinkering with potential trends—having a toe in interesting waters in case waves form. This kind of budgeted experimentation helps

Love getting historical context like this

Financial planners say that this is why a surprisingly high percentage of the rapidly wealthy get depressed. As therapist Manfred Kets de Vries once put it in an interview with The Telegraph, “When money is available in near-limitless quantities, the victim sinks into a kind of inertia.” Wait—the victim? We’re calling the courtside

SOMETIMES BIGGER IS NOT better. Sometimes more of a good thing is too much. Sometimes the smartest next step is a step back.

simplification often makes the difference between good and amazing.

show that making lots of tiny choices depletes one’s subsequent self-control.

Apparently, patience and willpower, even creativity, are exhaustible resources. That’s why so many busy and powerful people practice mind-clearing meditation and stick to rigid daily routines: to minimize distractions and maximize good decision making.

Here’s a fact: Creativity comes easier within constraints. For example, what if I asked you to do the following exercise: Say something funny. Most of us freeze at such a broad challenge. Sure, there’s a lot of “freedom” in it, but somehow it’s tough to come up with something on the spot. Now, say I put a constraint on the exercise: Tell me a knock-knock joke.

Constraints make the haiku one of the world’s most moving poetic forms. They give us boundaries that direct our focus and allow us to be more creative.

“Less is more” and “small is beautiful” are common aphorisms in Finland, and Finnish schools injected them into the curriculum. While every other country added more tests, more homework, and more athletics—with decreasing academic results—Finland scaled back on all of the above.

the lack of in-school athletics allowed Finland to focus minds and resources and sprint forward academically. Kids can play intramural sports on their own and on the weekends, but they go to school to learn.

Geniuses and presidents strip meaningless choices from their day, so they can simplify their lives and think. Inventors and entrepreneurs ask, How could we make this product simpler? The answer transforms good to incredible.

President John F. Kennedy described the opportunity inherent in high-profile swings like these when he declared in September 1962 that the United States would put a man on the moon. “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard. Because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills.”

10x goals force you to come up with smartcuts.

That process of not spending all of your time shooting the arrows, but trying to reframe the problem . . . is really about bravery, about creativity.”

there’s more competition at the bottom of the tree than at the top. And competition in large numbers doesn’t just decrease general odds of winning. It creates underperformance.

nine principles comprise a framework for breaking convention that explains how many of the world’s most successful people and businesses do so much with less.

Edwards’s sideways ladder switch from the top of his industry—and the Sinatra-style credibility of having designed for Michael Jordan—that made PENSOLE successful so quickly.

he became a first-class noticer, a master of tiny details about how shoes are put together and how consumers on the street think about them. A

Edwards’s personal relationship with the deceased Jackie Robinson guided his life’s journey.

drew a shoe a day and asked for feedback at LA Gear.

platform was the one he built. PENSOLE allowed Edwards to scale himself, to reach, teach, finance, and place more talented kids in footwear design careers than he could before.

He was in the water before the wave came.

able to leverage star athletes like Carmelo Anthony to promote his shoe design contest, Future Sole, and eventually his PENSOLE academy.

didn’t start teaching because he was washed up; he left Nike when he was on top and still moving. That momentum helped him attract sponsors and supporters and launch his academy like a rocket.

constrained the class to just a few weeks’ time in order to instill urgency and focus on what’s core. There’s no conventional school busywork.

Edwards chuckles. “Change education and change the industry.” This huge vision gained him rabid support and forced him to teach his students more than just design, the deep life skills that they’ll need to thrive in the shoe industry. And this is what makes PENSOLE special.