What happens when a creativity "expert" becomes a creativity "explorer"? For Fredrik Haren, the transformation began with his son's innocent mistake during a school presentation. Asked to describe what his father did for a living, the young boy was supposed to say "creativity expert" but instead announced that his dad was a "creativity explorer."

That simple slip of the tongue revolutionized Haren's entire approach to his work. "An expert has all the answers," he explains from his geometric dome office on a Swedish island. "An explorer, by definition, doesn't have any answers, but has all the questions."

After visiting 76 countries and speaking in 15-35 nations annually, Haren has discovered something fascinating about his homeland's creative success. Despite having just 10 million people, Sweden consistently ranks in the top three globally for creativity and innovation—producing everything from ABBA to Spotify.

The secret? What Haren calls "confidently doubting."

He illustrates this with Sweden's unlikely dominance in international cooking competitions. Swedish chefs don't believe their cuisine is the world's best (unlike their French or Italian counterparts). Instead, they travel globally, learning French techniques and Italian pasta-making, then return home to master Swedish meatballs. The result? Revolutionary dishes like "herring sashimi with lingonberry wasabi" that win gold medals.

"We're the only country that thinks we're both the best and worst in the world simultaneously," Haren notes. "That sweet spot of confidence and doubt is creativity's engine."

Haren's travels have revealed a striking truth: there are more similarities between professions than between neighbors. In Bhutan's capital, he walked from a web design agency—complete with Star Wars figures, Nike caps, and a pool table—straight into a street where everyone wore traditional Bhutanese dress.

"The world is connected in different layers," he observes. "A programmer in Ulaanbaatar is just one flight connection away from 300 cities, but they think they're isolated because of mental barriers."

This realization led Haren to advocate for adding a crucial layer to our identity stack. Most people identify as village → city → state → country → continent, then stop. "I'm surprised most people haven't added the last layer: and then I'm also human."

Perhaps Haren's most profound insight comes from a Dutch music composer who described "the moment of nothing"—that sacred pause before creation begins. It's the instant when your fingers hover over the piano keys, when the blank page awaits the first word, when everything is possible and nothing has yet gone wrong.

"You need to pause at the moment of nothing and ask: where am I supposed to go now?" Haren explains. "Once you take that first step, you're off to the races, but that step determines your entire destination."

Haren argues that the West's greatest rhetorical mistake was calling itself "the developed world." "If you define yourself as developed, you're saying you're done. But developing countries are still moving, still learning."

This explains why airports in Mongolia have automated passport readers while Sweden—home to some of the world's most advanced technology—still relies on manual checks and long queues.

Rather than fearing artificial intelligence, Haren embraces it as "the biggest creativity tool humanity has ever invented." He's not concerned about AI replacing jobs—he hopes it will, freeing humans to tackle the infinite problems that remain unsolved.

"As long as any child is being bullied or anyone is unhealthy, we're not done," he says. "We need all the AI we can get, and all the humans we can get."

From his unique perspective—living on a private island while maintaining a global speaking career—Haren practices what he calls "the Singapore mindset." Just as Singapore operates as a global city with no limiting country around it, he treats his island as a sovereign nation connected directly to the world, bypassing restrictive national identities.

His upcoming book, The World of Creativity (Wiley, December 2024), captures 38 insights from 38 countries, showing how creativity manifests differently across cultures while revealing universal human truths.

The bottom line? Stop being an expert in your comfort zone. Become an explorer in the vast landscape of human possibility. As Haren's journey proves, the best ideas don't come from having all the answers—they come from having the courage to ask better questions.

Fredrik Haren's new book "The World of Creativity" will be published by Wiley in December 2024. Follow his journey at fredrikharen.com or find him on LinkedIn as "the creativity explorer."

Episode 31 with Matthew Stafford

Most entrepreneurs are trapped in conversion rate purgatory—stuck at 1-2% despite endless A/B tests and colorful button changes. Matthew Stafford thought he had it figured out until his $15 million business vanished overnight, forcing him to discover what truly drives sales.

This isn't another guru promising quick fixes. Stafford's insights come from the brutal classroom of business failure and the relentless pursuit of what actually works when everything is on the line.

What You'll Discover:

Stop optimizing the wrong things. Your website isn't broken—you're just asking the wrong questions. Stafford reveals the psychological triggers that make people buy, backed by hard data from someone who learned these lessons the expensive way.

Perfect for: Business owners tired of incremental tweaks who want breakthrough conversion improvements based on proven psychology, not guesswork.

Transform your 2% conversion rate into something that actually pays the bills.

Listen now → Spotify | Apple | YouTube

David Lovejoy

Find me on X, LinkedIn, or YouTube

Matthew Stafford lost a $15 million business and had to rebuild from scratch, while Fredrik Haren transformed from a limited "expert" into a global "explorer" who's visited 76 countries. Both discovered that breakthrough success comes not from having all the answers, but from asking better questions and embracing what Fredrik calls "confidently doubting"—the sweet spot between self-belief and curiosity that drives true innovation.

Whether you're stuck at 2% conversion rates, feeling creatively blocked, or ready to expand your global perspective, the right coach can help you develop the mindset and systems that create lasting transformation.

Discover your perfect coaching match at CoachFinder.ai

Get matched with top-tier coaches who specialize in:

Just like Matthew learned that psychological triggers matter more than button colors, and Fredrik discovered that being an explorer beats being an expert, find the coach who can help you confidently doubt your limitations while building the systems that turn questions into quantum leaps.