About This Episode
Author / Host: Daniel Stih is an aerospace engineer, senior iOS software engineer, first-ascent mountaineer, first-ascent mountaineer, and author of 12 books. Throughout his career—from engineering and software development to environmental health and product design—he has been fascinated not just by solutions, but by the thinking processes that produce them.
Central Question: Why do some people consistently create great ideas while others wait for inspiration?
People often admire the finished product—a hit song, an innovative product, a brilliant engineering solution, or a successful business strategy. What we rarely see is the thinking process that produced it.
In this episode, Daniel explores one of the ideas that has shaped his own work across engineering, software development, product design, writing, and entrepreneurship: the difference between structure and process.
Using examples from songwriting, baking, product design, and branding, he argues that creativity is rarely accidental. The best creators develop repeatable ways of asking better questions, discovering better ideas, and solving the right problems. You’ll learn:
- Why legends like Lennon and McCartney didn’t write hits in one sitting
- The crucial difference between structure (ingredients, parts, frameworks) and a process (how and why)
- Examples of key processes used by designers, engineers, and CEOs
- Smart questions to ask yourself (and your team) to unlock new ideas
- How to build your own repeatable process for solving problems or creating art
True genius isn’t just knowing the parts—it’s knowing how to bring them together.
Listen on:
Questions Explored in This Episode
- What is the difference between structure and process?
- Why do great ideas rarely appear fully formed?
- How do songwriters, designers, and engineers solve creative problems?
- Why are questions often more important than answers?
- How can you build your own creative process?
- Why do many teams copy successful products but miss what made them successful?
- How can a better process lead to better decisions?
- Why is understanding how something was created more valuable than simply studying the finished product?
Editorial Summary
Structure Tells You What Exists. Process Explains How It Came to Be.
The episode begins by distinguishing between two concepts that are often confused. Structure describes the parts of a finished product—a song has verses and choruses, a cake has ingredients, a product has components. Process, however, explains how those parts were discovered, refined, and assembled. Daniel argues that understanding the process is what allows people to consistently create rather than simply imitate.
Better Questions Lead to Better Ideas
Throughout the episode, Daniel emphasizes that creative work begins with questions. Whether writing a song or designing a product, the first step is rarely generating answers—it is asking questions that reveal what needs to be created. Song titles become prompts for lyrical ideas. Product names suggest user expectations. Every creative discipline benefits from a process that uncovers the right questions before searching for solutions.
A process isn't just a sequence of steps—it is a sequence of questions.
Every Creative Field Uses the Same Pattern
One of the central insights is that creativity looks remarkably similar across disciplines. Songwriters, chefs, engineers, designers, entrepreneurs, and filmmakers may produce different kinds of work, but they all rely on repeatable processes rather than random inspiration. The examples of songwriting, baking, and automobile design illustrate that while the final products differ, the underlying thinking process remains surprisingly consistent.
Great Design Starts With Expectations
Using the examples of the Mini Cooper and Ford Explorer, Daniel explains how names immediately create expectations in the minds of customers. Those expectations become design requirements. Rather than beginning with technical specifications, designers can begin by asking what images, questions, and assumptions a product's identity creates. Those answers naturally guide design decisions.
Clarity Is Often More Powerful Than Complexity
Drawing on advice from songwriter Roger Black, Daniel argues that creators often overcomplicate their work in pursuit of originality. Instead, the strongest ideas usually begin with a clear message expressed simply. Complexity can always be added later, but clarity should come first. Whether designing products, writing songs, or communicating ideas, audiences should not have to decode the creator's intent.
The Goal Isn't Better Answers—It's a Better Process
The episode concludes with what may be its most important idea: exceptional work comes less from exceptional inspiration than from developing a reliable process for discovering solutions. When people focus on improving how they think rather than simply what they know, they become capable of solving a much wider range of problems.
Transcript
Welcome to The Daniel Stih Podcast. Today's episode is more on how I think. Today is going to be about discovering the process on how to design, invent, create something, solve a problem.
The process, not the structure. So sometimes there's a structure to do stuff that's pretty common, but the process.
So I used to think John Lennon and Paul McCartney just sat down at the piano and instantly played a new song, fully formed, ready to go. But in reality, that rarely happens. Even spontaneous, op song hits rely on the songwriter's songwriting process.
For example, songwriting, you may have heard the terms verse and chorus. This by the way, today is not about how to write a song. I'm going to use this example.
A lot of people think it's hard to write a hit song and it's not easy. But they think it's like random chance.
I'm going to explain the difference between the structure, meaning we all know there's a structure to a song, a verse and the chorus and the process. You need to find the process if you want to be successful.
Process answers questions like, how do I think of a great song title? What will I say in the first verse? A process contains the types of questions you might ask yourself or your team to discover the answers to a problem you're working on.
In baking, for example, anyone can list the ingredients in a cake. Flour, sugar, butter, unless you're vegan, that's part of the structure, the common structure.
It's the chef's secret recipe, the process, that makes it a hit, the ratio of ingredients, how much sugar to flour to butter, the baking time, the baking temperature. Those are a process that yields the masterpiece.
Often, of course, the recipe, the actual process is kept a secret. So we want to discover the best process. To create something exceptional, you want the best process to use.
Here's an example of the differences between the structure and a process for songwriting. So the structure might be, every song has a title, of course. Process could be, come up with the title first.
Before you write anything, what are we singing about? This helps you stay on track and ask the right questions in the rest of the steps in the process. Step two, a structure for songs might be, well most songs have verses.
What's the process to come up with a good first verse? What are three questions? You might say the title out loud and note first three questions that come to your mind.
You should answer those questions in the song. Those are going to be what you sing about in the verses. The structure for a song has a chorus.
What's the process? You could just repeat the title over and over. That's some people's process, and that's what you see in pop songs.
Not every song is going to have a verse in the chorus. The process of writing a song, whatever it is for each songwriter, John and Paul or me or you, you're going to have your different process. I'm going to have mine.
Beyond the music, today is not about writing songs. It's how can you use the same idea of a process for any creative challenge. For product design, for example, you're going to start with the name of your product.
Let's say product is the Mini Cooper, the car, the Mini Cooper. It's a name that invokes, it's compact, it's fun in the city, it's a tight cargo space, it's easy to park. How about Ford Explorer?
What conjures up an image of maybe rugged off-roading, big tires, long road trips out to get there? Next step in the process is note your impressions. What uses and limits might each of these examples come to mind?
The Mini Cooper versus the Ford Explorer. Can I cross a stream if I come to one? Is there room for all my camping gear?
What kind of feelings or images arise? Can I hear the crunch of gravel as I'm driving down a fast dusty road with the windows rolled down in my Ford Explorer?
Or am I listening to my music as I'm on the freeway in the city in my Mini Cooper going as fast as I can? Next, you're going to capture those impressions because those are the questions you're going to answer. Where would I take the car?
What wouldn't it be good for? You're going to jot down all these questions, just like your song title. Say your song title is the Ford Explorer.
Write down what comes to mind, what questions do I have? Where would I take it? Where can't I take it?
No judgment, write everything in your notebook, because the next step is to turn those questions, instead of into a verse and chorus, your design specifications.
Where I might be singing about something instead, I'm designing this for muddy trails. You might need tighter ground clearance and waterproof interiors. If it's for the Mini Cooper, maybe it's a quick grocery run that pops into your mind.
Prioritize getting in and out of the car. Faster. Fuel economy.
A tighter turning radius. So you're going to let the title Mini Cooper or Ford Explorer, whatever your product or your services, drive your process of what questions come to mind.
And you're going to keep your problem-solving authentic that way and ensure your final design answers the most important questions a user of your product is going to have. Just like a song, a good song, will leave you satisfied.
All your questions, like what were they singing about when I heard that title? Do you don't love me anymore? What happened?
What happens next? All your questions are going to be answered. Your design specs are going to deliver what your users are going to be expecting.
Consider what the message is. Years ago, I had the amazing opportunity to see Robert Black. He's the writer of the song Born Free at the Sedona Film Festival.
It was a panel on music and movies, and many in the audience were composers or musicians. His advice was simple. Say what you mean and keep it simple.
So clear of a message, so simple that your audience doesn't have to work to decode it. Like imagine instead of Mini Cooper, Modular Vehicle, or instead of Ford Explorer, I just said Ford Truck. Might be too simple.
Keep your message clear so no one has to try to decode it. And hunt for, as some songwriters do, oh, it has to be mystical and have metaphors and elaborate wordplay as an artist thinks they need to do. Know what's your product.
You start with the core idea. Just say what you mean to say, layering clever taglines and logos later. Craft the message first, the art second.
If you're a designer, an artist, an engineer, you just want to think better, consider how can you make your message as simple and clear as possible and your process the best one to get the job done and deliver what the user is expecting you todeliver. That's all for today. Thanks for listening.
That's How I Think.
I'm Daniel Stih.