How creative solutions emerge when we admit what we don’t know

By Dave Trott

“The wise man knows he doesn’t know.
The fool doesn’t know he doesn’t know.”
Lao Tzu

“In the West they only respect experts.
But the expert mind is the closed mind.”
Shunryu Suzuki

What’s the most important step in fixing a puncture?
It isn’t jacking up the car, or taking the wheel off, or finding the puncture.

There’s something more fundamental than any of those.

Something without which you can’t even begin to fix a puncture. The most important step is finding out you’ve got a puncture. Without that you can’t do anything.

Instead of saying, “It’s just a bit bumpy, must be the road,” and carrying on, you must acknowledge that something has changed and you don’t know what that is.

If you don’t admit you don’t know what’s happening, you can never find out.
If you don’t find out, you can never change it.

The most important step, always, is admitting you don’t know.

That’s the power of ignorance.

In this latest collection of real-life stories, Dave Trott provides lessons about problem solving and creative thinking that can be applied in advertising, business, and the wider world.

With his trademark wit, wisdom and critical eye, he shows how great problem solvers and creative thinkers are those who are not afraid to say “I don’t know.”

Dave Trott is a creative director, copywriter, and author. Trott studied at the Pratt Institute in New York City, majoring in advertising before going on to found the advertising agencies Gold Greenlees Trott, Bainsfair Sharkey Trott and Walsh Trott Chick Smith. In 2004 he was given the D&AD President's Award for lifetime achievement in advertising.