Episode #417 – Think inside the box: How constraints can lead to creative breakthroughs with Sheri Jacobs

Cherylanne Skolnicki:

This is episode 417 of the Brilliant Balance Podcast. Think Inside the Box how constraints can lead to creative breakthroughs with Sheri Jacobs. Well, today I am thrilled to welcome Sheri Jacobs to the Brilliant Balance Show. Sheri is an entrepreneur, a bestselling author, a keynote speaker, and her work has influenced leaders and organizations around the world. Her latest book, the Unexpected Power of Boundaries.

In this book, she challenges the conventional wisdom that innovation thrives on endless options, and I think all of us have been taught that, right? The more innovative we can be, the wider the range of options are. But instead, Sherry shows us how the right boundaries can actually spark creativity. They can build trust, and they can unlock bold new ideas. So with decades of experience advising executives and companies and her insights drawn on data from over a half a million people, Sheri brings a fresh and really freeing perspective for leaders, entrepreneurs, and professionals who wanna do less, but with greater clarity and greater impact. So, Sheri, welcome to the show.

Sheri Jacobs:

Thank you, Sheri. It’s such a pleasure to be here.

CS:

I love to get started by just kind of finding common ground with our listeners. And as you know, this is a show that really reaches professional women who are trying to juggle a lot of things and make room for themselves in the middle of all of that. So can you tell us a little bit about your own story and what that looks like for you in your life today?

SJ:

Sure. So I am someone, like many women out there who has a lot on my plate. There’s a lot of it that I choose, some of it that is just part of life. And like everyone else, I have felt overwhelmed at times. There have been times when I haven’t gotten to my own list of priorities and things I wanted to do. And I’m a big fan of Miles Davis. I love his music. He’s a legendary jazz musician. And, and one of the things he had said was, it’s not the notes you play, it’s the notes you don’t play. And I always thought about that because it’s not what’s, not to fill our days and what to not to say yes to. Right? And boundaries and constraints do it. It actually allows you to pause and say, in this space, this is what’s important to me. Now I do a ton of stuff. I am a marathon runner and I play tennis, and I run a company and I’m a photographer and I write books and, but that’s what fills me up. Yes. And so it’s knowing that space, allowing for that space and choosing the things that are important to me is really what fuels me.

CS:

Yes. And you will fit right in here because that is the thing that I think we’re forever telling listeners and the coaching clients that I have is, you know, most of the people who listen to the show really want a big, full life. They’re not people who are happy with like a really just little life and that things fit tightly in. It’s really we’re trying to figure out how are we gonna handle all of these passions for a million ideas and still have room to do the things that we want. Like sometimes I talk about balances the balance between what you have to do and what you get to do or choose to do. Right. And making sure there’s enough space. You had a lot of things on that list that sound like they’re certainly there by choice.

SJ:

Yeah, absolutely. So it’s definitely a misconception that boundaries are restricting or they limit you, but instead I see them as providing clarity. Right? So, and then sometimes you don’t know exactly what’s next or what you wanna do, but when you set a certain boundary around something that allows you a little bit more freedom to play and explore because you’re like, this is the time I have, I’ve set that aside. Yes, these are the activities. I don’t know which one I want. Yes. But I’m, I can now explore within that space because I’ve set those. So while other people see boundaries as limiting, or they’ll say, you know, I want unlimited opportunities, right. Or

CS:

Resources.

SJ:

I say, provide the clarity around or the fences around where you really wanna play. So

CS:

This is the core idea we’re really gonna dig into from lots of different angles. Today. You clearly have a passionate point of view about boundaries and how helpful they can be, which you’re right is like sort of a counter-cultural idea. Did you always believe that? Or is there something that you had to kind of walk through as an individual that led you to this kind of realization?

SJ:

I, I definitely didn’t always believe it. So I’ve definitely had experiences that have pointed me towards this. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. One of the ones is, is actually more recently. So I was up in the Arctic. I mentioned I’m a photographer and I have been to Africa in Antarctica, but I had thought that I needed to capture a photo of a polar bear and I needed to go all the way up to the Arctic to do that.

CS:

Okay. This was just like a personal priority or you were doing it for a magazine? Or what was the, why did you feel like you had to capture this photo?

SJ:

You know, I felt like I needed to do it because I needed to, to show to myself and to show to others that I can do it that may, I am a wildlife photographer. It is a passion. And while I don’t make a living at it, I consider myself a professional wildlife photographer. Awesome. So I had been following this, um, famous photographer, and I had an opportunity to go with her up to the Arctic and get on this ship, a tiny ship where we were the northern most boat in the world. And we are, we had gone all the way up into the pack ice because of the rules that you have to wait for a polar bear to approach you. Now I had done everything I thought to prepare, and I think I got this, there’s no problem, except for I wasn’t prepared. And it was minus 40 degrees. Wow. That’s Celsius and Fahrenheit meat. Yeah, it’s, it was insane. And I, but I had these like really warm battery powered gloves. I thought, I’m, I’m good. I live in Colorado, I ski, I got this, except for you can’t take photos on a camera with battery powered big Muppet hands. Right. They, you know, it’s like trying to text with like, um, oven mitts on or something.

CS:

Right.

SJ:

So I, it’s not working. And this photographer Daisy looks at me and she says, didn’t you get my gear list? And then my heart sinks even more because like, she’s duly not impressed with me and everything is failing,

CS:

Right.

SJ:

I get a thousand blurry photos. Oh, well the next day we move out of the pack ice and we go down farther where it’s really warm. It’s only minus 10 <laugh> balmy,

And there’s a mama walrus and a baby walrus, and they’re sitting on this piece of ice. And this is my chance to redeem myself to show that I can do this. And I keep thinking, you know, just keep pushing. You have all these lenses, all these cameras, go to a different level. Keep pushing yourself. So I go outside and I go down to the lower deck and I’m aiming my camera at the mama walrus and baby walrus. And afterwards we go, all the photographers, there’s 10 of us, we go inside and we look at our photos and I still don’t see a good shot. Aw. Her heart is breaking. And I’m thinking, what did I do wrong when this woman, Remy is also has a smile on her face? And she’s quiet and I walk over and she got the shot of the trip. But what’s really interesting is that she caught her leg on the first day of the trip and she couldn’t climb down the ladder to the lower deck. And she had the extreme cold and she had fewer lenses in her bag. But what she did was she said, what can I do with what I have?

CS:

Yes.

SJ:

And I kept saying, how am I gonna push past this? Yes. How different lens a different camera. And I kept looking for other things. Had I only taken a step back and evaluate and say, what can I do with what I have, I could have likely gotten a better shot. So here I am, I’m on this ship writing this book about the unexpected power boundaries And not even taking

CS:

Money, breaking your own. Yes. Isn’t it wild? Because it’s what, first of all, amazing life experience to go and be able to do the shoot. And I think everyone’s drooling over that for sure. I know. I am. And also the fact that those lessons are everywhere when we just look for them. Like you can, you probably see it everywhere you look, just example after example of how that introduction of a boundary, I’m calling it a constraint, starts to actually open up possibilities instead of closing them down. Right. One of my favorite questions to ask is, what would have to be true? And so, you know, when you’re, when she’s sitting there on that upper deck in the cold with these couple of lenses, it’s like, well, what, what would have to be true? There are Apollo 13 moments, right? I gotta work with the stuff. I’ve got to make this connection happen. And I do think there’s such creativity that gets sparked when we have limited resources of some kind, any kind of, you know, any kind of limitation we can place on the situation. I love it. Yeah, absolutely. You, you have even seen this play out on playgrounds and you have kind of a great story from a playground. Can you share that story with the listeners?

SJ:

Yeah, I’d love to. Okay. Because it makes perfect sense in this way. Yes.

CS:

There

SJ:

Was a landscape architect student named Tatiana Goodman, and she was curious about how the impact of physical boundaries have on how children play. So she has a group of preschool teachers to take their kids to a park, and this park had the wood chips and the swings and the slides and the monkey bars, and then rounded a big grassy area, but nothing else around it. No border, no sidewalk, no your fence. Okay. Now, the kids only had one rule. They were told, listen for the bell, and that’s when it’s time to go. And what Tatiana observed is that every single kid played, stayed on the playground, not one even ventured into the grassy area. They stayed within that wood chip area, and they played the same games that they do every time they go. Well, the following week she had the same group of teachers bring the same group of kids to a different park in town.

And this park was very similar with one exception. It had a fence and enclosed the entire space when they get there to the park, same rules, which is just simply listen for the bell. And when they got there, the kids ran and they went all the way to the fences and they explored and they were more creative in their play. And they would start a game and then stop it and try a different game. And what Tatiana found out was that when people have clarity around how far they can explore it, they feel safer. Yes. Chances to try different things and then to restart. And they’re more creative in their play. And when they don’t, they don’t. And so what that shows us is that the perfect example of how fences or constraints create that clarity around, okay, this is how far it can go. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. But when they don’t exist, people play smaller, they stay on their playground. Yeah.

CS:

I, what I hear in that story is like, they created their own boundary, meaning the edge of the playground equipment or the wood chip area, which was even smaller than the boundary they actually could play with it. You know, <laugh>.

SJ:

Yeah.

CS:

Did you know that beyond hosting this podcast, I also directly support women leaders at the intersection of work and life. As a member of Bold, you get direct access to me, the women on my team, and a peer group of exceptional women who are rewriting the rules and redefining what it means to have it all together. Go to brilliant balance.com/bold to learn more and apply for your spot today. So I want, it makes me think about in a workplace environment where if you name the, you give them the edge to say, like, you can go this far in air quotes. Right? The metaphorical this far, then they might actually go farther because if you haven’t named it, the imaginary boundary they’re creating in their mind might be even smaller.

SJ:

Absolutely. Also,

CS:

That’s the paradox. And it also,

SJ:

It it, that’s so true. But it also, it also helps people, it unlimited options and resources is really hard to play in. Right? Yes. A blank page is so much harder than a prompt on a page about this. And one of my favorite stories from the, from the business world is it’s about Bank of America. So big company, they wanted to create a way for people to save money. So simple idea here, but when they brought the team together, they said, here are the three constraints. One, you have to use our existing debit card and technology. So no new app or no new technology. The second was, and this was important, we’re not gonna change people’s spending habits. Okay. So we want people to say money, but we’re not gonna change. We’re not gonna ask ’em to commit to anything or change their spending habits.

And third, we wanna make it invisible and seamless. So what they came up with was such an amazing program that has not only helped millions of people save money, including my colleague Nick, who has saved like $5,000, but it fit all that criteria. And they say they never would’ve come up with it without these constraints. So they came up with the Keep the Change program. So every time somebody used their Bank of America debit card made a purchase, they rounded up dollar Yeah. And transferred from their checking to their savings. And it was existing technology, no change in the spending habits and seamless and frictionless. So those constraints in the business, in the, you know, in the, in the wor in the work world Yeah. Help actually then focus our attention on creative solutions.

CS:

Yeah. It makes me think about how when you give people one choice to make, instead of, like, I was thinking about when you were talking about swiping cards, something that’s really prevalent here is do you wanna round up for charity? Right. Same kind of concept. And it’s a yes no answer. It’s not how much do you wanna give, you’re not paralyzed at that point of trying to like, calculate or make a decision. It’s just a simple yes or no do, and that constraint is another, like, you know, it’s never gonna be more than a dollar because they’ve already decided that. And just, I bet the frequency goes way up of people saying yes, because they’ve created a constraint. Right. There’s a boundary on it. I love it. Absolutely. I love it. So many women listening to this show, I think will be starting to translate this into their personal life in addition to the workplace. So when you, when you really do this work, like who did you write it for? What, who were you thinking of when you wrote your book?

SJ:

Yeah, I was thinking for of a variety of different audiences. So it, it can be really for anyone who is an entrepreneur or somebody who works in a big company that, you know, have been faced with a challenge that they need to, to, to come up with something new. It could be for somebody that’s just starting out in their career, but wanting to, to, to have some success. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. So I actually had a lot of different sources, individuals that I thought this could, could work with. Obviously I, I’m passionate about entrepreneurship and especially about women entrepreneurs as well. So I, I see this as an opportunity for women, for a lot of your listeners, to really look at a way for them to break through. And one of the ideas that I suggest is when you’re trying to break through a market there, people have said, you know, go broad, try all these different things. I actually say sharpen your pencil because it’s easier to break through any kind of glass, ceiling, anything that you’re imagining with a sharp point. And when you have a sharp point, you have one idea in it. When you have a big, you know, brush, then it’s harder to break through and there are lots of ideas. So start with a really sharp point, and then once you break through, then you can broaden. Mm-hmm <affirmative>.

CS:

How does it translate to life at home? Like, if I think about how can, how can the idea of a boundary be used for somebody who’s experiencing overwhelm? Like what the example you just gave, I think is excellent, right? When you’re an entrepreneur and you have to position yourself and you wanna be everything to everyone, it’s just not as powerful as saying, I’m gonna be a really specific thing to a really specific audience until I have so much traction there that I can eventually expand. Like, that makes perfect sense to me. The problem that I see so many women dealing with at home is they do feel like they have to be everything to everyone. Right? They have spouses and partners and kids and aging parents and workplaces, and they’re trying to kind of say yes to everything. Can you think of a use case where establishing a boundary there could really help actually cr like open up creative solutions?

SJ:

Yeah, absolutely. So you’re absolutely right. Um, and, and if I think back to when I first entered the workforce, I actually left work at five. My boss left work at five, and the phone was attached to the wall. Yes. <laugh>, there was no one less email, one less text. And we can’t say today, oh, just lock your phone in a lockbox, right? Because you are gonna miss that call or you’re gonna miss that opportunity or even that call from your, from your kid or your spouse. So that’s not the solution either. So your questions a really good one because how do we function in today, not just function, how do we thrive mm-hmm <affirmative>. With all the noise today with the reality that we can’t put the phone away, that it is going to be connected, and we, we have that fear of missing out or we just fear of missing an important call or email or something.

And so I, what I have found what I have done, because I’m one of those people I have, you know, I have caregiver, I have to care the parents, and I’ve got kids and all the demands. Yes. Is that, and this, this occurred to me more recently was I was always putting myself second and thinking about first make sure that everybody else is happy. Until one day I found this list that I had created when I was 29 and I had all these things that I wanted to achieve on it. What was really interesting is decades later when I found the list, not everything was important anymore. Yeah. And it wasn’t about having a bucket list. What it did was it gave me some focus of what are the one or two things that are really important to me

CS:

Now that are important to me now? Yes. Now mm-hmm <affirmative>. And how

SJ:

Do I make time to do those things because that will make me more fulfilled and happier and more present for other agree.

CS:

Yes.

SJ:

Well, I actually, the, the advice is, is narrow the list, like identify what’s important to you right now, but, and don’t try to do everything on it. And so I looked at two things that were super important. One is really small and minor, but important to me, which is learning how to bake the perfect chocolate chip cookie because it’s my dad’s favorite gift. And I, I just wanted to give that to him. So I worked on like a hundred recipes to come up with it. And the second was I had put down my cameras, I had started as a photojournalist and I wanted to take photos again. That was really important to me. Yeah. And early on, you know, now I take trips around the world, but I started with the botanic garden, you know, just a mile down the street from my house that fit into my timeframe. But it also,

CS:

And what I’m hearing you say is by choosing to do fewer things in this season, like this is what, then you expand the time you can offer to each of those. Like you can do a hundred chocolate chip cookie recipes and not just one because you’ve chosen to make that a priority, which is a great example. I had one racing to the front of my brain when I asked that question, which was, I think bedtime is a really unique boundary that people can set and we don’t. Right. A lot of women are like, well just stay up later, or, you know, I’ll basically trade sleep to get more done. I have found that when you introduce a constraint of a bedtime, you, you’re, it’s a forcing function to make choices in the rest of your day. And you do get more creative about how you’re gonna to use your waking hours if there’s a fixed number of them. Right. As soon as we say, well that’s an, that’s a, that’s a not a boundary, right? I can stay up as late as I want. We don’t make those choices ’cause we just think we can get more time. So I think that’s a another example that What do you think that, would that work? Mm-hmm

SJ:

<affirmative>. Yes. I love that. I love that. And I am, I have a bedtime boundary. Yeah. And, and for waking up, for going to bed and waking up. And what’s funny is that I keep it, even if we all have those restless nights or you don’t sleep a lot for me, I actually keep it in the morning when the alarm goes off because I know I need those early morning hours. I love, I’m a morning person and I love it. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. So I am fairly strict around it now. You don’t have to be, but I find that when I stick to the boundaries of the time that I go to sleep and the time I wake up, then pe I get things done and people always ask me, they’re like, do you have more hours in the day?

CS:

Oh, you have more energy. Yeah, you have more energy. Yeah. But

SJ:

I just, I’m very proud I know how to spend those hours. Yeah.

CS:

And it does, it, it just, if you know that you only have a certain number of them and don’t we all right, at the end of our life, we only have a certain amount of time. It does sort of force creativity. It, it positively impacts our creativeness and our innovation on how we’ll use that time. And I think you can just start to see how that that idea expands in all the different use cases that you’ve been describing. Workplace innovation, personal innovation with how we spend time at home, how do we create space for these hobbies and, and interests that we wanna make time for. All of those places sort of nest around this idea of limit your choices and see what happens within that. I was thinking about closets too, Sherry, I don’t know if you’ve, if you’ve workshop this one with people, but sometimes just that capsule wardrobe, I mean the number of creative combinations you can make when you know it’s just these 10 or 12 things instead of I can continue to buy things, you know, every day for the rest of my life. And somehow it’s less innovative.

SJ:

Oh, it completely. And and I’ll, I’ll be honest, this is an area where I love fashion uhhuh. I love buying clothes. The retail therapy is very true for me because I, I couldn’t limit it even though I do believe it’s a great practice. Yes. Yeah. But because I knew that I just got so much enjoyment from, from shopping and from buying clothes. I worked with a stylist who has an app for me, and she comes to my closet twice a year and she takes photos and she says, these are the outfits there and it just saves me time. Like she said, this is, these are your work outfits, these are the other outfits. And so it, it still allows me the flexibility to go shopping and try different things, but it gives me like, this is, it saves me time. Yes,

CS:

Yes. That you can then use for other things. Like, so that, that, again, I just think this layers into so many different ways that people can apply it. And I wanna just circle back to the paradox because if I think if you’re listening to this conversation, what I want you to ask yourself is where am I not creating a boundary, adding a constraint to a problem that I’m acting like the problem is unsolvable. Right? And what, what you’re really doing is sort of the boundaries are too wide. We haven’t introduced any constraints. And that’s stifling creativity. It’s stifling problem solving. What does happen when you introduce a theoretical boundary or constraint to that? Does it open up new creative solutions for you? And I think that’s the big takeaway from this episode is how will you apply this to your own life? So Sherry, somebody’s appetite today is gonna be wet for more. They will want to be able to find your work. What is the best place for them to find your book and to find your presence online?

SJ:

Absolutely. You could find it@sherryjacobs.com, which is S-H-E-R-I jacobs.com. And all of my information resources, the books that I’ve written, I’ve written four books and this one is about to come out. Um, you can go on on there and pre-order it and if you’re interested and you wanna see some of those photos that I’ve taken from around the world, I also have them on the website too. Oh,

CS:

That’s awesome. That’s a great teaser. So we will link that in the show notes for people as well as in our newsletter so that they can just single click and get there. And I hope you will check out this book. I think this is one of those ideas to just walk away chewing on and thinking about where can you identify it in your own life, maybe in your kids’ lives, in your workplace, and start to really recognize the power that boundaries can bring to increasing innovation. Terry, thanks for being here today. It was great to have you. Oh,

SJ:

Thank you so much for having me. It was truly my pleasure.