Moment 36 - How To Create Great Ideas: Marcia Kilgore

The excerpt starts with the host offering two explanations for Kilgore's success that they say they have already noticed: very high standards, and being a pleasant person, which they suggest can compound over about 30 years. The host then asks whether there is some other trait, such as being a visionary, that she would point to herself. She answers briefly and frames it as her defining quality, if she has to name one.

I connect the dots.

Kilgore connects this to Adam Grant's book Originals. She says the art teacher at her son's school gave it to her and said it sounded like her. She describes reading it with mixed feelings. She recognised herself in chapter after chapter, and that recognition also made her feel less unique: "nope I'm not special". The idea she takes from the book is a profile of deep expertise in one area combined with curiosity about many other things.