62 THE INVESTOR
From this evidence, it’s pretty obvious that creativity, though cer-
tainly not dead, could at least use a jump start.The remainder of the book is intended to help all of us recov-
ering goodie-two-shoes loosen up and get our creative juices flow-
ing again, especially with regard to investment thinking. How did
we lose the inventiveness of those five-year olds? How did we get
so realistic, practical, and rigid? In workshops, to help people re-
member the natural creativity of children, I show clips of young
inventors sharing their inventions. The workshop participants laugh
out loud at the kids’ outrageous creations. It helps to loosen them
up for playing with their own ideas.
Try this riddle:It is greater than God
It is more evil than the devil
Rich people need it
Poor people have it
If you eat it you will die.What is “it?”
After you’ve thought about it for a minute, consider the fol-
lowing.
When I pose this riddle to workshop participants, I tell them
that it was given to a group of kindergarten kids and a group of
Stanford MBAs. I then tell them that 80 percent of the kids got the
answer, whereas only 17 percent of the MBAs did.
(Oh yes, what is the answer? Nothing. Try it out, you’ll see!)
As I’m naturally skeptical, I wasn’t sure I believed this research
about Stanford MBAs, so I tried it out on a friend’s 10-year-old.
He was playing a computer game. I settled in beside him and smugly
said, “Here’s a riddle. It is greater than God.” He did not look up
from the screen as I spoke, “It is more evil than the devil.” As I
prepared to say the next part, he interrupted, “Nothing.”
“What?” I said, taken aback.07 ware 62 1/19/01, 1:09 PM