Think Like a Genius By Todd Silver

Just now i completed reading Think Like a Genius By Todd Silver

Nice book written by Todd Silver.

I wanted to share few important points i found from this book

1) "The Goose with the Golden Egg"

A farmer went to the nest of his goose to see whether she had laid an egg. To his surprise he found, instead of an ordinary goose egg, an egg of solid gold. Seizing the golden egg, he rushed to the house in great excitement to show it to his wife.

Every day thereafter the goose laid an egg of pure gold.But as the farmer grew rich he grew greedy. And thinking that if he killed the goose he could have all her treasure at once, he cut her open only to find — nothing at all.

Application: The greedy who want more lose all.
— Aesop's Fables

2) Most of the answers you're looking for are hidden in your mind: from ideas, products, stories, and experiences to confidence and inner peace. That's why it's so important to explore how your mind works, to know it intimately. Too many people are strangers to their own minds. The key thing to remember is: Like the farmer in this fable of Aesop's, you don't have to get all the answers (or eggs) all at once.

3) 2 main abilities required by us are

One is the ability to find or create the information you need to realize your goals. The other is the ability to apply this information in productive and meaningful ways. In the process of gaining these golden eggs, you learn how to think like a genius — that is, to think and see things in new ways, leading to fresh discoveries and inventions.

4) Becoming more original in your thinking and using your creativity more effectively are the keys to improving the quality of your life. Being a genius doesn't mean that you have to live in some lofty creative world of ideas all the time. It includes using your common sense. As the author Gertrude Stein reminds us, "Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense."

Geniuses are able to see what many miss. They see possibilities in the impossible.

5) In his book Human, All Too Human, the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche described the making of genius in this modest, mortal way: "Someone who has completely lost his way in a forest, but strives with uncommon energy to get out of it in whatever direction, sometimes discovers a new, unknown way: this is how geniuses come into being, who are then praised for their originality."

6) Holy men in ancient India once said: "Reality is one thing,but the learned call it many things." Metaphorming is one thing, too, though scholars and entrepreneurs have called it many things.

7) Some important beacons are as follows

Be patient. Never panic. (Multiply your patience.)
Be nervous. Keep a close watch. (Divide your patience.)
Be flexible. Change courses. (Multiply your flexibility.)
Be steadfast. Keep a steady course. (Divide your flexibility.)
A big risk is the key to a big gain. (Multiply your risks.)
Never risk what you can't afford to lose. (Divide your risks.)

8) Helping others was a way of helping yourselves.

9) Discovery:
To lose yourself in something you love is to find yourself: to discover who you are.Sometimes, in order to find something, you first have to get lost. It's like trying to find a street address without a map: you can simply immerse yourself in the neighborhood and travel on instinct alone.

For the purpose of self-discovery, try to lose yourself in something until you can't distinguish between the thing and yourself. Step into the infinite corridors of your curiosity and disappear for a while.

10) Invention:
Select something you would love to lose yourself in,such as a favorite book, film, hobby, or sport. Totally immerse yourself in it. Allow yourself to daydream.If it's a novel, become the leading character. Try relocating the events in the story to your own home or town.

If you want to immerse yourself in a news article, think of how you might have described the facts that the journalist reported. What questions would you have asked that the journalist missed?

If it's a film you've chosen to explore, become one of the actors, or the director, and see yourself in a particular scene. How would you "re-act" differently?

Visit a museum of natural history. Stand before one of the spectacular dioramas that reveal an animal's habits and try to get lost in the scene. Live, for a moment, in that depiction, as the animal or as yourself. Try this at a modern art museum, as well. Or a zoo.

Make some notes or sketches about your experiences. What did you discover about yourself? What did you learn about your work or your relationships with others? What parts of your experience can you use in your everyday life?

11) Fear Interferes

Think about how fear affects your performance. For Calvin on the slide, the fear is paralyzing. Not only can't he perform at his best, it looks like he won't be able to perform at all. The nervousness you feel before a public speaking engagement, however,doesn't need to paralyze you. Rather, it can energize you. It can give you a blast of adrenaline that translates into an extra jolt of excitement in your speech. That kind of fear improves your performance, because it's converted into energy that you can use.It's true for swimmers and runners poised on the starting blocks,too. The jitters they experience add to their explosive leap toward their goal.

12) Avoid Cynicism

Oscar Wilde's definition of a cynic:
"A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing."

David's self-imposed ordeal of cynicism reminds me of the poem "It Can Be Done" included in William J. Bennett's The Children's Book of Virtues. Bennett introduced this poem with these words, "Brave people think things through and ask: 'Is this the best way to do this?' Cowards, on the other hand, always say,'It can't be done.'"

The poem reads:

The man who misses all the fun
Is he who says, "It can't be done."
In solemn pride he stands aloof
And greets each venture with reproof.
Had he the power he'd efface
The history of the human race;
We'd have no radio or motor cars,
No streets lit by electric stars;
No telegraph nor telephone,
We'd linger in the age of stone.
The world would sleep if things were run
By men who say, "It can't be done."

As it turned out, David learned the hard way: If you don't enjoy something, don't do it. Any genius will tell you that. When you tell yourself that, you're thinking like a genius. Don't do it! Period.

And if you absolutely, positively must do it (whatever "it" is), make it as enjoyable and meaningful an experience as possible. However mundane you think it is, make it meaningful through metaphorming. If you don't, then you're "missing all the fun."

13) You can't be forced to love. And you can't be forced to learn. One of the best ways to learn is without pressure or coercion. And certainly the most enjoyable way to learn is by having fun. That happens when your mind is free and clear.

There's a universal saying that fits here: "Learning cannot be inherited. It has to be experienced." You have to live with it, so to speak, experiencing the thing you're learning about.

14) Consider how the entrepreneur Harvey Mackay views creativity in business. In his refreshing book, Swim with the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive, Mackay relates:

Efficiency achieved at the expense of creativity is counterproductive.
Don't equate activity with efficiency. You are paying your
key people to see the big picture. Don't let them get bogged down
in a lot of meaningless meetings and paper shuffling . . .
If you discover one of your employees looking at the wall,
like the oboe player, instead of filling out a report, go over and
congratulate him or her.

They are probably doing the company a lot more good than anything else they could be doing. They're thinking. It's the hardest,most valuable task any person performs. It's what helped get you where you are. THINK: It's the one-word motto of the most
imitated company in the country, IBM. Don't stifle it. Encourage it.

15) Develop Your Sense of Choice and Habit

"Choice" and "habit" are like two roads: one has a fork in it, and the other has only a long narrow straightaway.Choice involves a good deal more creativity than habit. In fact, habit often feels like the antithesis of creativity. A habit is something you do until it becomes "second nature." But what is "first nature," other than creativity? Unless, of course, you make a "habit of choice" . . . as in your choice to be creative.What does it take to become a highly effective person? Is it
habit, doing things efficiently in a "well-oiled" way? Or is it choice? For me, choice wins hands down. After all, it's the choices highly effective people make that make them successful through and through: as human beings, as leaders, as deep thinkers and metaphormers. Choice precedes habit, just as creativity
precedes order.

16) our creative potential.
Try out this emotionally charged reflection by the legendary cellist Pablo Casals in his book Joys and Sorrows. In contemplating the shortcomings of our education process, Casals made these
points:

Each second we live in a new and unique moment of the universe,a moment that never was before and will never be again.And what do we teach our children in school? We teach them that two and two makes four, and that Paris is the capital of France. When will we teach them what they are? You are a marvel.You are unique. In all of the world there is no other child exactly like you. In the millions of years that have passed there has never been another child like you . . . You have the capacity
for anything . . . we all must work — to make this world worthy of its children.

17) If at first you don't succeed . . . don't concede. Take another swing at your goal. Follow through on your original plan, or reevaluate your goal and change your strategy for achieving it. The baseball can symbolize a long-term goal. If you can hit it squarely, it will go far. The beachball can represent a short-term, less ambitious goal. You can hit it easily, but you can't knock it out of the ballpark to score a home run. To be successful you need to set up realistic goals, not overbearing ones. Find a ball that you can hit, even if the accomplishment seems minimal. Then build on your success, inch by inch, step by step, swing by swing. Develop your confidence, as you coordinate your swing.

18) Discovery: The obvious is not so obvious.
Sometimes, it's obvious to some people but not to others.Sometimes, it's right smack dab in front of your eyes, where you can't see it. Sometimes it's expressed in such complex terms that it flies right past us. (The publisher Alfred A. Knopf once said,"An economist is a man who states the obvious in terms of the
incomprehensible.")

Invention: Take something you're so familiar with that everything about it is obvious to you. Make it unfamiliar. Try to surprise yourself. As the Pop artist Jasper Johns said: "Take an object. Do something to it. Do something else to it."

19) Discovery: "Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach a man to fish and he eats for life," says a universal proverb. A fish is finite; the process of fishing is infinite. Teach a human being to fish on the Internet and he'll catch, prepare, and eat information in unique ways for the rest of his
life. Teach a person to metaphorm his life, family, relationships, and work and he'll be happy and inspired throughout his whole life.

Hope you enjoy reading this book

About the Author

Todd Siler, Ph.D. (b: August 23, 1953) is an American visual artist, author, educator and inventor, equally well known for his art and for his work in creativity research. A graduate of Bowdoin College, he became the first visual artist to be granted a Ph.D. from MIT (interdisciplinary studies in Psychology and Art, 1986). Siler began advocating the full integration of the arts and sciences in the 1970's and is the founder of the ArtScience Program and movement. Siler combines insight into the creative process with advances in plasma physics and neurology, using multimedia arts to create lucid models of novel technological creations, in the tradition of Renaissance artists like Leonardo Da Vinci. In 2006, Siler used a multimedia exhibition at New York's Ronald Feldman Gallery to present his proposal for the nature-inspired "Fractal Reactor," which offers an environmental-friendly, alternative method of using controlled nuclear fusion for energy purposes. This proposal has been taken up by the International Atomic Energy Agency for further study.