Today’s guest Bob Sager is the founder of Spearpoint Solutions. Bob’s professional background includes over three decades of experience in sales, leadership, and training. Bob Sager is the inventor of the creative thinking game What’s the Big Idea, which he is turning into a game show. In addition, he has authored a personal achievement book named Discovering Your Greatness and a book of innovative strategies and how to create them called 101 Freaking Brilliant Business Ideas And 10 Ways You Can Create Your Own. Bob has successfully used his vast experience to help companies get unstuck and take them to the next level. We often hear about thinking outside the box and that is exactly what Bob helps clients do.
You will want to hear this episode if you are interested in…
- Bob’s path to starting Spear Point Solutions? [2:02]
- What does out thinking the competition mean? [4:05]
- Why is it so hard for people to have an out-thinking mindset? [8:10]
- How Bob helps businesses implement and walks them through the process [12:34]
- The inside scoop on creative thinking FUNshops [14:09]
- What’s the Big Idea game show [23:02]
- What Bob did today that put him in the right mindset for success? [28:31]
What is it to outthink the competition?
For most companies, outthinking is the only option. There are 24 hours in a day so you can only work so hard. You can try to outwork the competition, but you’re limited by the time barrier. You might try to outspend the competition but that can be a losing proposition because ultimately somebody’s got deeper pockets than you. Why not — as opposed to looking outward— look inward and figure it out.
How can we do things differently, better? Differentiate ourselves in the hearts and minds of our existing and potential customers. Those innovative thoughts are the key. People think of innovation as technology but Bob is talking about innovation in how you do everything in the process of delivering a product or service. He says that’s true both externally and internally. Referring to employees as internal customers. How can you make their life easier and better the same way you do for your external customer? All of those things emanate from the ultimate capital… human mindset, and imagination.
Why’s it so difficult for people to utilize out-thinking?
Why is it hard to take that out-thinking mindset, look at the business in that way, and utilize it for opportunities and benefits? Bob says the answer is biology. We are biologically wired as human beings to move everything to a habitual state as quickly as possible. You don’t think about how to tie shoes, you just do it — habitually. If we have solved a problem in the past, our brain moves the way to solve that problem into our habitual thinking pattern. That happens with everything that we do. The problem is that when that solution isn’t working well anymore and we’re trying to think about new solutions it’s hard to overcome that biology. Check out the episode to learn about the circular thinking highway and how to create your own exit!
What are Funshops and how do they foster creativity?
Bob calls his training workshops FUNshops because he says, they are not work. He utilizes a creative thinking game he invented several years ago, called What’s the Big Idea. It turns the creative process into a game. The goal is to come up with as many ideas as possible and then evaluate them and find out which ones are actionable. Which ones can be implemented? Which ones are the pearls?
Nothing’s out of bounds. One of the things we talk about at the beginning of our training FUNshop is that no idea is a bad idea. There’s no judgment. He asks at the beginning of the sessions, how many people consider themselves to be creative and it is always 20% or less.
Yet, Bob says, we all have that ability; it’s just not fostered and encouraged. After people have played this game and they’ve come up with several ideas they’re often blown away by both the quantity and the quality of the ideas that they’ve come up with during the session. Almost everybody thinks that they’re creative after that, it totally changes what they believe about themselves and what they believe is possible for them to do. Everyone from the person to the company stands to benefit from a mindset shift like that!
Resources & People Mentioned
- Discovering Your Greatness
- 101 Freaking Brilliant Business Ideas And 10 Ways You Can Create Your Own
- Atomic Habits
Connect with Bob Sager
- The website
- On Twitter
- On Linkedin: Bob, Spearpoint
- On Facebook
The founder of SpearPoint Solutions, Bob’s professional background includes over three decades of experience in sales, leadership and training. He uses that experience and innovative thinking to develop business strategies that help organizations get unstuck. He also facilitates training on methods of thinking more creatively that can help organizations and individuals innovate more readily so they can thrive in today’s economy.
Among other accomplishments, Bob is the inventor of the creative thinking game, What’s the BIG Idea?™, author of the personal achievement book, Discovering Your Greatness and the book of innovative strategies and how to create them, 101 Freaking Brilliant Business Ideas: And Ten Ways YOU Can Create Your Own. He is also the creator of the recently launched Business Strategies by Subscription.
Guests on the Mitlin Money Mindset Show are not affiliated with CWM, LLC, and opinions expressed herein may not be representative of CWM, LLC. CWM, LLC is not responsible for the guest’s content linked on this site.
Connect With Mitlin Financial
- podcast(at)MitlinFinancial.com – email us with your suggestions for topics or guests
- https://mitlinfinancial.com
- Follow on Twitter
- Follow on Instagram
- Subscribe on Youtube
- Follow on Linkedin
- Follow on Facebook
Subscribe to Mitlin Money Mindset™ on
Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts
