# How Discomfort Is the Human Factor Driving Innovation

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/innovation-storytellers-3701797/how-discomfort-is-the-human-factor-driving-innovation
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/innovation-storytellers-3701797/how-discomfort-is-the-human-factor-driving-innovation.md
Podcast: [Innovation Storytellers](https://stenobird.com/podcast/innovation-storytellers-3701797)
Published: 2026-05-12T04:00:00+00:00
Episode link: https://innovationstorytellers.com/podcasts/
Audio file: https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/innovationstorytellers/Reeves.mp3?dest-id=2720171
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/innovation-storytellers-3701797/episodes/how-discomfort-is-the-human-factor-driving-innovation
Duration seconds: 2613

## Resource

How do great companies stay distinctive when everything around them is pushing them toward sameness? In this episode of the Innovation Storytellers Show, I sit down with Anthony Reeves, speaker, consultant, and author of Eat the Donkey: Why Great Companies Embrace Discomfort, for a conversation about creativity, brand identity, AI, and why discomfort may be one of the most valuable forces in innovation. Anthony shares how growing up in the Australian outback shaped his understanding of progress, boredom, resilience, and the creative power of empty space. From LVMH and Amazon to WPP, Nike, Jaguar, Kohler, and Southwest Airlines, he explains why the strongest brands know when to evolve and when to protect what made them matter in the first place. The conversation also moves to the tension leaders face in the age of AI. As companies chase efficiency, optimization, and automation, Anthony warns that many risk becoming average by design. We discuss why human creativity, curiosity, and distinctiveness matter even more as technology pulls everyone toward the same answers. This is a conversation about brand courage, creative restlessness, and the difference between useful discomfort and unsafe pressure. How can companies use AI without losing the very human qualities that make them worth choosing? Listen in, and share your thoughts.

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## Transcript

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