Turning Constraints Into Breakthroughs with David Epstein

I'm Rufus Griskom, and this is the next big idea. Today, how constraints make us better. In the mid-1950s, William Spalding, the head of Houghton Mifflin's education division, challenged Theodore Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, to write a children's book using no more than 225 words from a list of first grade vocabulary.

There are no adjectives, Geisel complained to his wife. It seemed like an impossible task. But he gave it a try. He decided to take the first two rhyming words on the list and make a book. And the first two rhyming words, cat and hat.

A few years later, Bennett Cerf, the co-founder of Random House, bet Geisel 50 bucks that he couldn't write a children's book using only 50 words this time. So again, he's frustrated, but he takes up the challenge and and writes Green Eggs and Ham, where he even more has to rely on this like rollicking rhythm because he has no flexibility with the vocabulary. I am Sam, Sam I am, that's Sam I am, that's Sam I am, I do not like that Sam I am. Without that bet, without what appears to be a totally arbitrary limitation in the number of words Dr. Seuss could use, we wouldn't have perhaps the two most famous children's books in history.

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