
She is a frequent contributor to Fast Company 's website, and a member of USA Today 's Board of Contributors. She’s got lots of great ideas on choice, better brainstorming, and even online dating. LAURA VANDERKAM is the author of What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast, All The Money In The World, 168 Hours, and Grindhopping. Iyengar has figured out how to navigate various obstacles in order to travel solo, ride bikes (!), do research and get tenure at a major university, give a popular TED talk, raise a son, and (as we discuss) help him get into college.

As someone who has been blind since childhood, Prof. She is well-versed in practical problem solving. Sheena Iyengar of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business breaks this process down, just as she does in her popular entrepreneurship class. In this week’s episode of Best of Both Worlds, and in her new book Think Bigger, Prof. Instead, innovators tend to work by figuring out how to define a problem and combining solutions from different places.

How, exactly, do new ideas come to be? It’s seldom with a flash of lightning (or an apple falling on your head a la Newton).
