Distill your problem to its heart, find other worlds that share it, and bring their best ideas home.
Every problem has a surface, made of the details of your organization, your people and your field, and a core. Essence asks you to strip away the surface until you can name the core in a word or a short phrase. An animal shelter struggling to rehome its dogs might find that its problem is really about making a match.
With the essence named, you look for other worlds where the same essence appears: dating apps, house hunting, sports scouting. Those worlds have been working on their version of your problem for years. You study how they handle it, then carry their best moves home and translate them into your situation.
Use it when you're too close to your own field to see past its habits, ideas have started to flag, or you suspect someone, somewhere, has already solved a problem a lot like yours.
Climb from your problem up to its essence, find other worlds that share it, borrow their methods and carry them home.
Choose a part of the diagram or a tab to explore each rung.
What is this situation really about, at its core?
Where else in life does this same essence appear, in a completely different form?
How does that world solve its own version of the problem?
How could each borrowed method work in your own situation?
Essence works because problems that look different on the surface are often the same underneath, and other fields may have had far more practice.
Details tie a problem to its field. Describe it in essential terms and it no longer belongs to any one field, so suddenly every field is open for borrowing. Many inventions come from spotting the same deep problem in a new place.
Every world you visit already shares your problem's core, so the methods you find there arrive aimed at what you care about. Carrying them home takes a smaller leap than linking a random word to your problem.
Inside your own field, everyone shares the same habits and blind spots. Another world offers methods refined by people who never held your assumptions, and you get the benefit of their years of trial and error.
Even before you borrow anything, agreeing on the essence shows what the team actually cares about. Is it speed, trust, belonging? That clarity improves every idea that follows.
Describe the situation plainly, details and all: who, what, where. “Volunteers drift away from our community garden after a few weeks” is a good start.
Keep asking “What is this really about?” Strip out the specifics until you can name the heart of it in a word or short phrase. Try several candidates and pick the one with the most energy.
List five to eight situations where the same essence appears. Include close ones and wildly distant ones: nature, sport, games, history, entertainment.
Pick two or three worlds. How do they solve their version of the problem? List their rituals, tools and tricks in their own terms, before you think about yours.
Translate each borrowed move into your setting. What would it look like here, with your people and your budget? Combine moves, then shortlist with a NUF Test.
A whiteboard with three columns (Essence, Other worlds, Ideas back home), sticky notes and about 30 minutes. With AI, all you need is the prompt below.
Subject: volunteers at a neighborhood community garden. Goal: keep new volunteers involved for the whole season. Essence the group chose: a reason to come back.
Regulars return because they're recognized. Idea: greet every volunteer by name, keep a photo board of regulars and serve coffee at a fixed Saturday start time.
Players come back to see their progress. Idea: each new volunteer adopts one bed and gets a weekly photo of how it's growing, with small milestones to celebrate.
Every episode ends on a cliffhanger. Idea: close each session by announcing what happens next week: “Saturday we dig up the first potatoes.”
Members show up for each other, not just the book. Idea: crews of four who share a bed and a group chat, so skipping a week means letting your crew down.
A good instructor notices who's missing. Idea: a friendly check-in message from the crew leader when someone misses two sessions in a row.
Five worlds, 19 ideas in 35 minutes. The group noticed that most were about being seen, and being missed.
Crews of four, each adopting a bed, with a short “next week we…” announcement at the end of every session. Crew leaders agreed to check in with anyone who missed two weeks in a row.
The hardest part of Essence is the first climb, from the messy details up to the heart of the problem. A good questioner helps, and AI can keep asking “What is this really about?” without tiring. It also knows a little about a great many worlds, which makes it a useful guide once you know what essence to look for.
Let AI question you upward one level at a time, instead of guessing the essence.
Ask me 'What is this really about?' about my volunteer problem. After each answer, ask again. Stop at one word.
Compare several framings. Each one opens a different set of worlds.
Offer 5 possible essences of my problem, 1-3 words each, and say which worlds each would lead us to.
Get real detail on how a far-off world handles its version of the problem.
How do video games keep players coming back? List 6 specific techniques, in gaming terms, not mine.
Translate one borrowed method several ways so you can pick the best fit.
Translate 'daily login rewards' into 3 ideas for a community garden that has no budget.
Describe your situation, pick a mode, then copy the prompt into Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini or Copilot. In coach mode the AI questions you up to the essence, then guides you through other worlds and back home.
The “Open in” links put the prompt in the web address. If your challenge includes anything sensitive, copy and paste instead.
After the session, click one to copy it, then paste it into the same chat.