In this episode of the SuperCreativity Podcast, James Taylor interviews Dr. Joseph Jebelli, neuroscientist and author of The Brain at Rest and In Pursuit of Memory. Together, they explore how rest isn’t laziness but a neural necessity that unlocks creativity, productivity, and mental clarity.

Discover the neuroscience behind the brain’s default mode network (DMN), why overwork accelerates aging and burnout, and practical strategies for harnessing rest to spark creative insights. Dr. Jebelli also shares actionable tips on micro-rest practices, the surprising cognitive power of nature, and why doing “nothing” could be the most productive thing you do today.

Perfect for entrepreneurs, creatives, leaders, and anyone looking to work smarter—not harder.

• Rest is a productivity tool: Rest activates the brain’s default mode network, boosting intelligence, memory, and creativity.

• Burnout rewires the brain: Chronic overwork shrinks the hippocampus, enlarges the amygdala, and accelerates cognitive aging.

• Micro-rest techniques work: Short breaks, naps, and even just staring into space can enhance problem-solving and creative thinking.

• Nature fuels creativity: Spending as little as 20 minutes in green or blue spaces significantly improves creativity, memory, and immune health.

• Cultural mindset shift needed: From hustle culture to embracing rest as a key driver of performance and well-being.

“People often succeed in life not despite their inactivity but because of it.” – Dr. Joseph Jebelli

“Rest isn’t powering down; it’s your brain switching states and forming new connections.” – Dr. Joseph Jebelli

“Nature is full of what psychologists call soft fascinations—things that hold your attention effortlessly and calm the brain.” – Dr. Joseph Jebelli

“The more you rest, the sharper and more creative your brain becomes.” – Dr. Joseph Jebelli

• 00:00 – Introduction to Dr. Joseph Jebelli and his work

• 01:32 – Personal story: How overwork led to insights about rest

• 05:07 – The statistics behind burnout and its neurological effects

• 08:29 – The cultural roots of overwork and the Protestant work ethic

• 13:36 – The brain’s default mode network explained

• 17:31 – Why naps grow your brain (literally)

• 20:27 – Creativity, the shower effect, and hypnopompic states

• 24:26 – The importance of green and blue spaces for brain health

• 28:49 – Micro-rest practices for everyday life

• 33:22 – The connection between place, nature, and creativity

• 41:24 – Favorite quotes and reflections on solitude

• 44:09 – Why boredom sparks creativity

• 45:46 – Rituals vs. apps for better rest and productivity

• 47:27 – Book recommendation: The Expectation Effect by David Robson

• 49:00 – How to connect with Dr. Jebelli

• Dr. Joseph Jebelli’s Website: drjosephjebelli.com

• Book: The Brain at Rest

• Book: In Pursuit of Memory

• Recommended Read: The Expectation Effect by David Robson

In this solo episode, James Taylor shares his favorite listening game—Only Questions—and shows how strategic curiosity can unlock trust, insight, and innovation. You’ll learn the science of the curiosity gap (why a good question makes the brain restless until it gets an answer), the three reasons leaders suppress curiosity (ego, speed, fear), and a practical playbook for asking better follow-ups, spotting surprises, and building a personal “question bank.” Includes a Zurich-to-Dubai story where one question turned into a keynote-worthy insight.

• Play “Only Questions.” Make it your mission to learn as much as possible about the other person—without talking about yourself. It sharpens listening and builds trust fast.

• Use the Curiosity Gap. As behavioral economist George Loewenstein described, the gap between what we know and what we want to know pulls attention like gravity—great communicators open that gap on purpose.

• Why curiosity gets suppressed: Ego (signal expertise), speed (rush to ship), and fear (looking uninformed). Naming these helps you counter them.

• Questions change rooms. “What problem are we actually trying to solve?” and “What if we flipped the approach?” surface constraints and reveal blind spots.

• Follow-up is where the gold is. Ask “Why is that important to you?” or “What’s been the biggest challenge so far?” to go deeper.

• Train your curiosity muscle. Listen for surprises, keep a running list of great questions, and practice in low-stakes settings (planes, breaks, 1:1s).

• Pro travel tip: Bring chocolates for cabin crew—they often know the stories behind the seats.

• “Only Questions is a deliberate exercise in curiosity.”

• “In leadership, innovation, and creativity, curiosity is a superpower—and it’s massively underused.”

• “Some of the biggest breakthroughs didn’t come from the right answers; they came from better questions.”

• “The most valuable insight you hear this month might come at 35,000 feet—starting with two words: What’s interesting?”

• 00:09 — The game: How Only Questions works and why James plays it on long-haul flights.

• 01:xx — Outcomes: Building trust, mapping context, and collecting insight—while revealing almost nothing about yourself.

• 03:xx — The Curiosity Gap: Why questions hook attention and keep people engaged.

• 04:xx — The blockers: Ego, speed, and fear—how they shut down inquiry in business.

• 05:xx — Questions that shift strategy: “What problem are we actually solving?” and “What if we flipped it?”

• 06:xx — Zurich→Dubai story: A finance conversation that became a keynote-level case study.

• 07:xx — The practice plan: Follow-ups, listening for surprises, and keeping a question bank.

• 08:xx — Travel tip: Chocolates for crew = social intel.

• 09:xx — Closing prompt: Open a curiosity gap—start with, “What’s interesting?”

If this episode sparked better questions, like, follow, and subscribe to the SuperCreativity Podcast—and share it with a teammate who leads innovation.
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Creativity at work isn’t random—it’s designed. In this SuperCreativity Podcast episode, Dr. Amy Climer (author of Deliberate Creative Teams and creator of Climer Cards) joins James to break down her Purpose–Dynamics–Process model for team creativity. We dig into psychological safety and “creative abrasion,” reframing the right problem before ideating, meeting redesigns that unlock innovation, and practical tools like ethnographic interviews and image prompts. Plus: exnovation (what to stop doing) and how leaders can turn conflict into better ideas, faster.

• Be deliberate to be creative: rituals + structure make innovation repeatable.

• The Deliberate Creative Team model = Purpose, Dynamics, Process—alignment matters.

• Clarify before you ideate or you’ll solve the wrong problem.

• Encourage task conflict (“creative abrasion”), avoid relationship conflict—psychological safety is the guardrail.

• Redesign meetings: less reporting, more collaborating through clear stages (clarify → ideate → develop → test).

• Make time by stopping things: exnovate outdated tasks and meetings.

• Practical tools: Creative Problem Solving, ethnographic interviews, and image-based prompts (Climer Cards).

• “Be deliberate to be creative.”

• “Creativity is novelty that is valuable.”

• “Teams think they have a process—until you ask them to describe it.”

• “If you didn’t spend time clarifying, you’d solve the wrong problem.”

• “Creative abrasion means disagreeing about the work—respectfully.”

• 00:08 — Intro to Dr. Amy Climer and her work with innovative teams and organizations.

• 01:16 — Amy’s path: from The Artist’s Way to a PhD and a consulting practice.

• 03:23 — Creating the Deliberate Creative Team Scale: measuring behaviors, not just traits.

• 04:36 — The model: Purpose, Dynamics, Process (and why all three matter).

• 06:17 — Applying the model to an engineering team: purpose, process, and meeting design.

• 10:53 — Clarifying the problem: how five minutes can change the brief.

• 12:25 — Ethnographic interviews: talk to the people who actually have the problem.

• 14:55 — Dynamics & “creative abrasion”: productive task conflict vs. harmful relationship conflict.

• 18:05 — Safety, hierarchy, and speaking up (airline cockpit lesson).

• 22:58 — The biggest blocker is “time”—and how exnovation frees it.

• 29:47 — Letting go to innovate: pausing projects to serve emerging client needs.

• 30:30 — A teacher’s influence and early psychological safety.

• 33:59 — Leaders’ misconception: “I don’t want creativity, I want innovation.” Defining terms.

• 36:56 — More people now self-identify as creative; culture and generational shifts.

• 38:41 — The 1950 APA moment and the boom in creativity research.

• 39:37 — If you do one thing: fix your team meetings to unlock brainpower.

• 41:03 — Tools: Climer Cards and image prompts to deepen conversation and ideation.

• 43:42 — Book pick: The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron.

• 45:12 — Connect with Amy: Climer Consulting and LinkedIn.

• 45:58 — Close.

• Deliberate Creative Teams — Dr. Amy Climer

• Climer Cards (image-based facilitation/ideation decks)

• The Artist’s Way — Julia Cameron

If you enjoyed this episode, please follow and rate the show—and share it with a colleague who cares about building innovative teams.
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In this solo episode, James Taylor breaks down how to hook and hold attention when audiences are more distracted than ever. Drawing on research (Microsoft’s “8 seconds” headline, Gloria Mark’s screen-focus studies, and a King’s College London survey) and years of stagecraft, James shares a practical framework: script the first eight seconds, chunk content into 3–5 minute segments, and use intentional attention resets (story shifts, movement, voice changes, stats, and questions) to keep people with you—online or onstage. You’ll learn specific openings, reset ideas, and a 4-step structure you can apply to keynotes, team meetings, classes, or one-to-ones.

• You have ~8 seconds to earn the next 8. Treat the opening like a runway: nail it, and you buy more attention in repeating cycles.

• Attention is under siege. Average screen focus dropped from ~2.5 minutes to ~47 seconds; many people feel eight seconds is the norm. Structure to match reality.

• Hooks that “break autopilot.” Start with a human story, a surprising question, or a stat that snaps people out of scroll-mode.

• Use attention resets every few minutes. Change story type, visuals, stage position, or vocal tone; pose a question or drop a surprising number to re-engage the room.

• Think in short, high-impact chunks. For a 30-minute talk, build in 3–5 minute segments with deliberate transitions.

• Deliver value quickly. Give people an immediate reason to invest their attention—then keep paying it off.

• Respect attention as a gift. You’re competing with the most addictive feeds ever built; intentional design beats improvisation.

• “Eight seconds is your runway. If you use it well, you earn the next eight seconds—and the next.”

• “Whatever the hook, the goal is the same: break autopilot.”

• “These resets are intentional—they pull people back from the brink of distraction.”

• “Attention isn’t guaranteed; it’s a gift. If you respect it, people will give you more of it than you think.”

• 00:08 — The 8-second challenge: Goldfish myth vs. reality; why attention is our scarcest resource.

• 01:10 — The data picture: Gloria Mark’s findings (47-second screen focus) and a 2023 King’s College London survey.

• 02:30 — Onstage diagnostics: Reading phones, posture, and eye contact to know you’ve passed the first test.

• 03:20 — Opening hooks that land: Manila power-cut story; “What do jazz musicians and AI engineers have in common?”; striking image/metric.

• 04:30 — The Attention Reset toolkit: Shift story → image, center stage → edge, full voice → whisper, stat drops, and reflective questions.

• 06:00 — Competing with attention machines: Designing like an engineer, communicating like a storyteller.

• 07:00 — The 4-step framework: 1) Script the first 8 seconds, 2) Chunk into 3–5 min segments, 3) Build resets, 4) Deliver value fast.

• 08:20 — Closing thought: Treat attention as a gift—and keep earning the next eight seconds.

If this helped you sharpen your talks, like, follow, and subscribe to the SuperCreativity Podcast—and share it with a colleague who presents often.
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On a red-eye flight over the Indian Ocean after a keynote in Chennai, James Taylor unpacks why our best ideas often arrive at 3am—when we’re untethered from meetings, inboxes, and notifications. He explores diffuse-mode thinking, the role of cultural cross-pollination (inspired by an NPR Tiny Desk discovery of Catriel & Paco Amoroso), and a simple, three-step creative practice to capture late-night insights: expand your playlist, protect your “off hours,” and remix on purpose. If you want more serendipitous breakthroughs and stronger creative muscles, this episode shows you how to engineer them.

• Odd hours = open circuits. When pressure drops (think 3am on a plane), the brain shifts into diffuse mode, quietly connecting books, conversations, mistakes, and music into fresh ideas.

• Great innovators are “cultural DJs.” Fluency across genres and the courage to combine them—sometimes recklessly—creates the magic.

• Ideas travel at light speed now. A sound born in Buenos Aires can influence Berlin today; a Bangalore breakthrough can shape Boston by week’s end. Use this global flow deliberately.

• Three practices that spark: 1) Expand your playlist beyond your bubble. 2) Protect off hours—don’t fill every gap with your phone. 3) Remix on purpose to surprise yourself.

• Capture first, judge later. Some pages are usable, some need to marinate, and a few make no sense—often the favorites. Keep them all.

• “Your mind becomes a DJ booth, sampling from the influences you’ve been collecting.”

• “Great innovators are cultural DJs.”

• “Don’t fill every gap with your phone. Let your mind wander.”

• “The best ideas don’t always knock on the door during office hours.”

• “Sometimes they arrive quietly… halfway between yesterday and tomorrow at 35,000 feet.”

• 00:09 — The red-eye spark: Wide awake over the Indian Ocean after a Chennai keynote; cabin quiet, notebook ready, headphones on.

• 01:xx — Tiny Desk inspiration: Discovering Catriel & Paco Amoroso; genre-blending as a creativity lesson.

• 02:xx — Ideas in motion: How cultural exchange now moves at unprecedented speed—and why that matters.

• 03:xx — Diffuse-mode thinking: Letting connections form when you stop forcing solutions.

• 04:xx — The cultural DJ: Becoming fluent in multiple creative languages and mixing them boldly.

• 05:xx — Practice #1: Expand your playlist—fill it with ideas and sounds outside your norm.

• 06:xx — Practice #2: Protect your off hours—resist the phone, preserve mental wandering.

• 07:xx — Practice #3: Remix on purpose—combine influences until you surprise yourself.

• 08:xx — Capture it all: Pages fill; some ideas are ready, others need time, a few are gloriously weird.

• 09:xx — Closing prompt: When was your last 3am idea?

If this episode sparked something, like, follow, and subscribe to the SuperCreativity Podcast—and share it with a curious friend.
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