Paul Sloane

It's a dangerous idea, and it's much better to be open-minded and receptive to whatever's coming down the pipe at you, and to seize the opportunities as and when they arise.

I'm not saying no control.

I'm not saying be completely at random and don't do anything that's structured.

But if you introduce the random, if you deliberately do things, I advise you to accept productive boredom.

Bring more boredom into your life.

We tend to be focused all the time on doing things and concentrating in very short bursts on little things.

We're listening to a podcast.

We're watching a video.

We're reading a book.

We're watching the TV.

We're doing things all the time.

And yet many of the greatest ideas that geniuses have had have come at times when they've been bored, when they've been deliberately distracted.

go into a mental downtime where the subconscious is working on problems and coming up with ideas rather than concentrating on one particular thing.

Yes, and you need an attitude which is, if something interesting comes up, I'm going to follow it up.

I'm going to investigate it.

I'm going to do something about it.

If Sir Alexander Fleming had just ignored that mould in the Petri dish, we wouldn't have penicillin.

You know, if Crom had ignored his new chips, we wouldn't have them.

So when something serendipitous happens, you've got to be prepared to act.

You know, when Art Fry came up with post-it notes working for 3M,