Borrowing something from one part of experience and understanding how to apply it elsewhere, or combine it with something else, is sometimes the key to completely new solutions, even if a connection does not appear to exist at the outset.
It may also be a version of "thinking outside the box." Once I understood it, it also emerged earlier in life as integral to how I managed to stay alive by predicting what the other guy was about to do.
It also comes in handy today when moving beyond what the pundits say about energy matters.