Jeff Bezos and Steve Jobs both illustrate that the sterile calculus of today’s valuation-obsessed start-up culture doesn’t put nearly enough premium on a particularly elusive ingredient: love.

Kim Scott writes, “Slogans like ‘Move Fast & Break Things” are rallying cries for accelerators. But there’s a lot of mythology here…. If you really want to do something new, figure out a way to decelerate.”

It’s been over two since I last worked in regular physical proximity with folks beyond my immediate team at Stanford. Of all the things I miss the most, I must say that eavesdropping is near the top of the list.

The need to “think outside the box” is a common refrain.

But how does one do it?

It’s not nearly as complicated as you might think.

Most breakthroughs sneak up on us, and can easily recede from our memories. Appreciating the small breakthroughs is an important step in rewiring some of our default ways of working.

Maya Angelou and Thomas Edison gave me permission to keep my space messy. It’s not unlike one of those detective whodunits, every available surface covered in conspiracies. If you peeked into my garage, you’d probably think, “I hope he finds the killer…”

Sometimes, the best way forward in solving a problem is to allow yourself to retreat. Operative word here being, “allow.” It is profoundly uncomfortable to choose to work differently, when it doesn’t really look like work.

We tend to think in terms of polish, and being presentable. Jake Karls, founder of Mid Day Squares, flips the script and turns this assumption on its head. He shares his unexpected formula for crafting deeply engaged fans.

The single-most enjoyable hour of work each week is the hour I deliberately shed the “teacher’s” cap and put on the student’s. Instead of showing up to talk, I show up to listen. But boy does it take intention to protect that time.

I’m a closet statistics nerd. Good for me, because innovation is a numbers game. One of my favorite counterintuitive statistical truths is expressed by Bayes’ Theorem, which can effectively bend the odds.

It’s hard to imagine more different characters than LinkedIn Founder Reid Hoffman and John Steinbeck. And yet when it comes to sparking creativity, they share an unexpected hack.

The evidence is clear: back-to-back meetings strain our cognitive function. One innovation leader I know has created a rule to make sure he shows up ready to sprint.

In our quest for breakthrough outcomes, we can often neglect something as simple as care. Yet it’s the problems we actually care about that get the brain’s extra special attention.

Ever wonder where Amazon’s famous organizational innovation, the “two pizza team,” came from? The fly-wheel inducing innovation didn’t come from a brainstorm…

Innovators ranging from Lin-Manuel Miranda to Jeff Bezos have made good use of down time. For all our connectedness, being unplugged has never been more important.

We see sick days as days we can’t work. As a few classic examples of transformation demonstrate, perhaps we should see them as a gift — an opportunity to receive a new vision of the future.

With graduation looming, lots of fresh perspectives are pouring into the job market. I’d like to implore graduates to preserve their “outsider’s perspective,” as they begin their careers.

For breakthroughs to happen, we need fresh inputs to drive new connections. These connections aren’t just the function of new input, though; we’ve got to create space to realize new connections.

Frustrated by what he considered to be inadequate design, Steve Jobs left his desk. He didn’t do it absent-mindedly, but deliberately, looking for something that would unlock the riddle.

In design, HOW you’re working — speed, reflection, iteration, and all — is every bit as important as WHAT you’re working on. Perhaps even more so.