Reyn Guyer: The Man Who Invented Twister & Nerf
Reyn Guyer is a serial entrepreneur in a variety of creative fields including toys and games, music publishing, education, and art. He is perhaps best known as the inventor of Nerf and Twister, and is a member of the Hasbro Toy & Game Inventor's Hall of Fame.
Guyer has also founded music publishing company Wrensong Music of Nashville, which has had many number one singles and won a Grammy and two CMA Song Of The Year awards. He is the creator of Winsor Learning, an educational program for remediating those with dyslexia; and he is also the author of the book Right Brain Red: 7 Ideas for Creative Success.
Other projects that keep Reyn busy include:
• The Curly Lasagna project, a series of stories and songs for kids and parents that he created with Jeff Harrington
• The new dice game Rally Roll, which he invented in 2014
• Creating sculptures and artwork, many of which are in private collection
• Doing croquet one better with a new lawn game called King’s Court
In this episode, we cover a lot of ground including:
• Sketching techniques and doing graphic design before computers
• How the Nerf ball “accidentally” got invented, and the origins of its name
• How an appearance on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and Eva Gabor helped launch Twister
• The challenges of starting a Toy & Game company, and what makes a good creative team
• Learning to not talk yourself out of creative ideas
• How rule-breaking is a key component of the invention process
.. and SO much more!
If you only have 5 minutes to listen, skip to 31:56 to hear Reyn’s 3 magic words, and his rules for Creative Success.
• Listen to it on iTunes.
• Stream by clicking here.
