El Podcast

E155: Special Ops Tactics for Breakthrough Creativity - Dr. Angus Fletcher Explains

Episode Summary

Dr. Angus Fletcher, a neuroscientist and professor at Ohio State, helps the military, big companies, and schools unlock creativity. He explains why kids lose creativity in school, how to break free from the “right answer” mindset, and why intuition, imagination, and asking better questions matter more than data for real innovation.

Episode Notes

Neuroscientist explains why school crushes creativity—and how to fix it—teaching “primal intelligence” and special-operations tactics you can use at work, at home, and in the classroom to think and innovate better.

Guest Bio: Dr. Angus Fletcher is a neuroscientist and professor of Story Science at The Ohio State University. He studies how intuition, imagination, emotion, and common sense work in the brain and advises U.S. Special Operations, Fortune 50 firms, and schools on creativity and resilience. His new book is Primal Intelligence: You Are Smarter Than You Know.

Topics Discussed:

• Creativity decline starting ~3rd grade; standardized testing & sit-still schooling
• Data vs. volatile reality; limits of AI/logic vs. human neural tools
• Special Operations creativity pipeline; training vs. selection
• “Why”-free inquiry (who/what/when/where/how) to deepen relationships & learning
• Unlearning dependency on external answers; experiential learning
• Personal story as plan/plot; fear, anxiety, and outsourcing your story
• Jobs, Shakespeare, and intensifying uniqueness; innovation beyond “grind” and “hack”
• “Eat your enemy”: learning asymmetrically from competitors
• Medication, signals, and growth; tuning anxiety as a sensor
• Myths like left-brain/right-brain; labels vs. open-ended growth

Main Points:

• Schooling often conditions “there’s a right answer and the teacher has it,” which suppresses creativity and initiative.
• Data predicts yesterday; real life is volatile. Human neurons support non-computational tools—intuition, imagination, common sense—vital for innovation.
• Creativity can be trained: Special Ops methods and experiential learning reliably build it.
• Skip “why” in discovery conversations to avoid premature judgments; stay curious with who/what/when/where/how.
• Reclaim your personal story; fear pushes people to borrow others’ plans, which erodes meaning.
• Innovation strategy: identify exceptions and intensify them (Jobs), and “eat your enemy” by absorbing rivals’ unique strengths.
• Emotions are signals; meds can be triage, but durable growth comes from engaging hard experiences.
• Left/right-brain personality labels are misleading; biological growth thrives on branching diversity.

Top Quotes: 

• “School trains kids to solve math problems, not life problems.”
• “Skip the ‘why’—the moment you jump to why, you stop learning.”
• “Your story is your plan. Fear makes you outsource it.”
• “Anxiety is a calibrated sensor, not a flaw.”