Rapid Idea Generation:
How to Create,
Innovate,
Conceive,
and Invent From Scratch [Second Edition] (Think Smarter,
Not Harder Book 5)
By Peter Hollins, narrated by russell newton.
James Dyson had a real problem with vacuum cleaners.| Back in the 20th century,
a household vacuum cleaner worked by rolling over the carpet,
grabbing dust with brushes attached to a cylindrical mechanism,
and then sucking up that dust and storing it in a bag that was connected to a
pipe.
When the bag filled up,
you had to take it out and replace it with a new one.
In many ways,
it seems crude,
especially when you consider that we will soon have self-driving cars on the
road.
Dyson absolutely loathed changing out the vacuum cleaner bags.
He assumed,
quite correctly,
that other people hated it too.
It was a filthy business.
Dust got everywhere,
and often it left matters just as messy as when he'd started.
He decided he was going to try to find a way to create a bagless vacuum cleaner.
The big issue,
of course,
was how this cleaner would dispose of the dust.
For a while,
Dyson didn't have any ideas.
One day,
Dyson was at an industrial sawmill.
He noticed that it was relatively clean for a sawmill.
He discovered that there were a couple of large cones that not only collected
the sawdust,
but removed it from the air.
These machines were called cyclonic separators.
Dyson thought this principle could be a tool that adapted to work in household
vacuum cleaners,
so he fashioned a crude cyclone model out of cardboard and scotch tape,
connected it to his normal vacuum cleaner,
and went about sweeping the home.
He found that it worked extremely well.
He went to work building prototypes and trying to line up financing.
After 15 years of trial and error,
Dyson's cyclone power totally bagless vacuum cleaner hit the market.
Eventually,
it became a tremendous success.
Now the vacuum cleaner bag is nearly extinct and no house cleaner ever has to
live with getting lint all over his or her hands.
Dyson solved his bag problem by assessing a situation,
coming up with a theory,
being curious about other industries,
experimenting on his own,
and finally producing the ultimate solution.
He probably didn't realize it at the time,
but in finding a workable answer for bag-free vacuuming,
Dyson was emulating a few of the most well-known creative problem-solving
principles,
ones that Leonardo da Vinci used to great effect.
To be clear,
this isn't a book about da Vinci's life,
but he just so happens to be the archetype for creativity and out-of-the-box
thinking for so many of us that he's a fantastic role model to analyze.
It's from following his lead and mindsets that we can start to become more
creative in our own ways.
History's greatest polymath.
Leonardo da Vinci,
born in 1452 in Tuscany,
Italy,
is arguably the most famous and accomplished polymath in the history of the
world,
as well as someone recognized for massive creativity.
A polymath,
sometimes referred to colloquially as a renaissance man or woman,
is a person with deep expertise across an impossibly wide range of subjects and
disciplines.
Science,
math,
the arts,
politics,
culture,
history,
you name it,
and he cultivated an interest in it and likely gained a level of proficiency.
Polymaths have deep and ongoing interests in multiple areas.
When a problem comes along,
polymaths solve it by tapping it into their knowledge in different subjects.
They're relentless about gaining knowledge and putting it into application.
Galileo,
1564 to 1642,
was a polymath who explored astronomy,
mathematics,
physics,
and engineering,
and who basically gave us the modern scientific method.
Benjamin Franklin,
1706 to 1790,
was an expert in politics,
science and philosophy,
who,
between inventing bifocals and discovering electricity,
helped found the United States of America.
It seems there is a clear pattern between a mastery of multiple disciplines and
creativity.
Da Vinci,
though,
is the model from which all subsequent polymaths are born.
His list of accomplishments is staggering and the variety of fields he mastered
is beyond belief.
Anatomy.
Da Vinci reshaped what human beings knew about themselves.
He was the first person to create detailed views of the internal organs of the
human body.
He made casts of the brain and ventricles from a deceased ox,
paving the way for such models of human organs.
He was the first to describe the S-shaped structure of the human spine.
He completed numerous dissections of both human and animal bodies,
meticulously documenting and drawing everything he saw.
Imagine how valuable those diagrams were,
coming from someone so artistically skilled.
Even today,
Da Vinci's many illustrations of human anatomy are still necessary studies.
Innovation and Invention.
Da Vinci's foresight was incredible.
He came up with drafts of several inventions that were finally brought to life
almost 500 years after he lived.
The helicopter,
the parachute,
the military tank,
the robot,
and scuba gear all sprang from ideas first put forth by Da Vinci.
And that's just a partial list.
He had a particular interest in military and defense inventions,
and biographers have speculated that his various artistic endeavors were only
meant as stop gaps so he could find more work in warfare.
Architecture.
Da Vinci was fascinated with large scale construction projects and served as a
consultant to builders of his time.
He designed a system for canal locks that wound up being extremely close to the
types that are used today.
He even dove into urban planning with his conception of the ideal city.
Art.
Da Vinci painted a couple of masterpieces you may have heard of,
the Mona Lisa and the Last Supper.
His iconic Vitruvian man drawing of the human body is as much a piece of art as
a scientific explanation.
Da Vinci also revolutionized the use of landscapes in his art and was an early
innovator in the use of oil paint.
He was a sculptor as well.
Science.
Da Vinci's expertise made him a key figure in the development of studies in
several different sciences.
He was the first to speculate that fossils would prove that Earth was far older
than those of his time believed.
He made detailed depictions of plants that influenced how botany was studied.
He made intensive studies on the motion of water.
He designed mills,
machines,
and engines that were powered by water.
He even designed a musical keyboard that played bowed strings.
Occasionally he slept,
we can assume.
But how did Da Vinci accomplish everything he did?
What made him so influential in so many different disciplines that continued to
be a part of our everyday lives?
Was it truly a level of creative genius that few have been able to aspire to
ever since?
Yes,
and no.
Author Michael Gelb explored possible reasons in his book How to Think Like Da
Vinci.
Gelb examined a multitude of Da Vinci's achievements and notebooks and
speculated on a few facets of the polymath's career and traits that could
explain why the Renaissance man was so prolific and visionary.
What's inspirational about Gelb's list is that the traits that define Da
Vinci's genius are all inborn human elements each of us can improve with just a
little more awareness.
Even if we can't conceptualize a flying machine or an iconic piece of art,
as Da Vinci did,
we can easily emulate his approach to improve the quality of our minds and what
we produce.
Thus,
it can be said that we can indeed think like Da Vinci and learn the fundamental
mindsets he possessed,
albeit perhaps not as effectively or intensely.
Gelb identified a few traits in particular that he felt were responsible for Da
Vinci's creative prolific habits.
I'll present my own in the following chapter.
Insatiable Curiosity.
Da Vinci was driven to know the truth in all its aspects.
He was curious about scientific principles.
He was intent on finding out what worked.
He would ask why until he truly comprehended.
Indulging his own interest led him to visualize solutions to problems that
generations in the far off future would encounter.
When you're curious about something,
you will attack it from every angle and never cease trying to solve it,
and that can lead to spectacular creativity and resourcefulness.
Seek knowledge through experience.
People in Da Vinci's time weren't used to challenging long-held beliefs through
their own investigation.
Governmental and religious forces discouraged the population from questioning
anything they decreed.
After all,
Galileo Galilei,
not quite a contemporary of Da Vinci's,
being born in 1564 while Da Vinci died in 1519,
came into great conflict with the church over his concept of heliocentrism,
the notion that the earth revolved around the sun and was not the center of the
universe.
Da Vinci wouldn't have that restriction.
He sought to answer his questions through first-hand experience,
and wanted to get as many perspectives on a situation as he possibly could.
It's only when you're able to challenge the so-called rules and conventional
ways of thinking that,
like Da Vinci,
you can be creative.
Embracing the Unknown.
Da Vinci didn't seek quick certainty.
He sought truth.
In doing so,
he had to deal with ambiguity and uncertainty,
which is just how he liked it.
He went into situations and lines of thought without feeling he needed a
definite answer.
He knew that adhering to a strict code of safety and belief would keep him from
exploring the world,
so he circumvented the rules and accepted the unfamiliar.
Balancing Art and Science.
More than anyone,
Da Vinci held logic and imagination in equal importance.
He balanced the two apparent opposites and saw how both approaches were
important in decoding truth.
By holding art and science in equal esteem,
Da Vinci obtained a more complete overview of the world that fascinated him.
It's likely this mixture of interests that was in part responsible for his
degree of insight and genius.
His imagination was so powerful that inventors born centuries after Da Vinci
used his notes and observations to build their own creations.
For us,
this could mean looking for answers to practical questions through the arts,
using drawings to explain complex functions or music to describe the functions
of a beating heart.
Da Vinci's motivations were so broad and all-encompassing that his ability to
channel them into focused work and results almost makes him superhuman.
But the factors that drove Da Vinci are ones that almost all other humans on
earth can emulate,
and they serve as a kind of blueprint for creative thinking.
The Psychology of Creativity.
Still,
attaining that kind of creativity is difficult for some of us to imagine.
Worse yet,
some of us feel that it is impossible.
Creativity is popularly considered,
not entirely accurately,
more of an impulse than a function.
Often,
creativity is tied to the notion of natural talent that only certain people
possess.
That assumption is also incorrect.
Just like analysis,
memory,
and communication,
creativity is a complex function administered by several parts of the human
brain.
Researchers have spent myriad hours in lab environments trying to determine
where creativity comes from and what parts of our anatomy control it.
While they've made progress and come up with some firm determinations,
perhaps the elusive nature of creativity has transformed its mystery into
certain myths about the brain's role.
The Left Brain,
Right Brain Myth.
This idea is certainly responsible,
in large part,
for perpetuating the notion that creativity is inborn.
In the 1970s,
neuropsychologist Roger Speary worked on a study,
the findings of which gave rise to the theory of the split brain.
Speary's work suggested that the two hemispheres of the human brain control
different realms of thinking,
the left side handles logic and analysis,
and the right side enables intuition and subjectivity.
When these findings were published in the media,
casual readers seized on the dichotomy of left brain,
right brain people.
Scientific,
mathematical,
and practical people were thought to be dominated by their left brains,
whereas creative,
artistic,
and imaginative people were controlled by the right side.
This catchy contrast is impressed upon many of us as scientific fact,
but it's a myth,
or,
more accurately,
an overly simplistic explanation of how the brain actually functions.
Speary's experiments involved animals and humans who had their corpus callosums
severed.
The corpus callosum is the thick bunch of fibers that connects the left and
right hemispheres of the brain and serves as the conduit of information between
the two sides.
Some epilepsy patients had their corpus callosums surgically cut to lessen the
effects of seizures,
so only one side of their functioning would be impaired during a seizure.
So in someone with a severed corpus callosum,
if the right eye,
left brain,
sees a table,
the left brain says,
table,
and everyone's comfortable with the fact that the table has been correctly
identified.
But if the left eye,
right brain,
sees a table,
the right brain says,
well,
probably something unintelligible,
we're not sure what.
Each side of the brain controls the opposite side of the body.
The left brain controls the right eye and vice versa.
Speary discovered that when test subjects covered their left eye,
controlled by the right brain,
they were able to process and accurately name certain items their right eye saw.
But when they covered their right eye,
controlled by the left brain,
they couldn't remember any of the items they saw with their left eye.
Through his studies,
Speary isolated certain functions that the left and right brains performed and
how they applied to language,
math,
drawing,
interpretation,
speech,
and so forth.
From these results came a very overgeneralized picture that the left brain is
analytical and the right brain is creative.
Even though Speary himself cautioned against making that rash distinction,
when it was discovered by popular culture,
it was too catchy to resist.
From these results came the theory that the two sides of the brain handle
entirely different kinds of processing.
The left side deals with numbers,
language,
and reasoning.
The right side oversees emotions,
creativity,
and intuition.
If it sounds like a leap in logic,
that's because it is.
The truth about the brain is a little more complex,
and Speary himself insisted we remember that.
Yes,
the left and right sides of our brains can handle different functions and
collaborate with each other through the corpus callosum to get thinking done.
But researchers found that both sides do roughly the same amount of activity in
all people.
A mathematician's right brain doesn't just turn down when they're working,
and a composer doesn't simply suspend their left brain when they're writing.
A great example of how the two halves of the brain work together is in learning
a language.
The left brain,
analysis central,
identifies the alphabet and pronunciation of certain words,
but the right brain picks up on intonation,
stress,
and emotional content.
The two sides collaborate to determine the whole meaning of a word or phrase in
a certain language.
So you're not a left brain or right brain person,
no one is.
Creativity engages all aspects of the brain and calls upon different functions
in both sides.
Understanding that could be the key to unlocking your creative possibilities.
Creativity is indeed something learnable,
but it doesn't particularly matter how good you are at math.
Default Mode Network.
As you might suspect and have experienced firsthand,
the brain has multiple types of functioning modes.
When you're sleeping,
for instance,
the brain has a very specific focus and set of duties.
When you're trying to solve a difficult math problem,
you activate what's called the Executive Attention Network.
This mental mode helps your brain hyper-focus and accomplish a specific goal
that requires concentration and ignoring potential distractions.
As you might also predict and hope,
there's another type of mental mode that assists in creativity,
abstract thinking,
and the generation of ideas.
It's not just one that you can push yourself into,
rather it's the opposite.
You must relax yourself into it.
If a solution is outside of your brain's familiar experience,
which is shaped by your beliefs,
culture,
and biases,
your conscious mind will most likely never find it.
The conscious mind deals too much in fact and the present,
which stands in stark contrast to abstract thought and conceptual thinking.
An analytical search for a solution can comb through the entire content of your
mind's known,
but not outside of it.
Novel answers reside outside of your mind's known box,
and the subconscious is the first place to look.
When you allow your brain to integrate new information with existing knowledge
on a subconscious level,
it can establish new connections and see patterns not obvious to your conscious
mind.
Creative solutions and ideas are more likely to bubble up from a brain that
applies unconscious thought to a problem,
rather than going at it in a deliberate approach with your frontal lobe.
When your thinking brain is inundated with information and analysis,
it doesn't have the opportunity to connect concepts or make creative leaps.
Science shows that your brain's resting state,
called the default mode network,
DMN,
which is activated when you stop thinking about something specific and just veg
out,
is the best place to park a problem.
In the DMN,
your brain does some of its best,
wisest,
and most creative work.
Research from Rachel and Snyder in 2007 demonstrates a predictable pattern of
neurological activity that's your brain's go-to state when it's at rest,
not focused on anything in particular or actively engaging with its environment.
It's associated with experimental thinking,
mind wandering,
emotions,
past encounters,
and intuition.
The imagination network is used in situations like brainstorming,
painting,
daydreaming,
or devising a new recipe.
Yes,
this is where you might consider most creative thinking to occur,
while execution and analysis occurs in the other mental networks.
This mental state is also where ruminating and worrying takes place.
Hey,
no one said that it wasn't going to have its downsides.
The harder and more cognitively demanding a particular task is,
the less the DMN is activated.
We'll discuss later on how to use this DMN to your advantage.
Creatives,
crazy or genius?
When some of us think of legendarily creative people,
we occasionally make the very dubious observation that many of them were,
to some degree,
crazy.
The meaning of creativity infers the ability to invent something out of
nothing,
to call into existence something that wasn't there just a second ago.
That involves going outside the info processing boundaries of the brain and
just making things up,
which some people might consider crazy.
To be sure,
there have been some artists and creators who suffered from a variety of
emotional disorders,
Charles Dickens,
Ernest Hemingway,
Virginia Woolf,
Tennessee Williams,
and Leo Tolstoy,
all dealt with clinical depression at some point,
according to certain studies,
which were,
it should be noted,
highly contested by some.
Researchers also determined that many,
but not all creatives,
endured difficult life experiences like losing their parents,
social rejection,
or physical handicaps.
But no evidence has conclusively proven that mental illness is a contributor to
a creative person's productivity.
A study of over a million Swedish citizens conducted over a span of four
decades and completed in 2012,
found that artists were not likelier to have psychiatric ailments.
They were,
however,
found to have an unusually high number of relatives who suffered conditions
like autism,
schizophrenia,
bipolar disorder,
or anorexia nervosa.
Artists themselves typically had more highly developed schizotypal traits.
Despite the name,
having these traits isn't quite the same as having a schizophrenic disorder.
In fact,
almost everybody on earth has these characteristics.
Schizotypal traits are mainly positive.
Generally speaking,
they involve what motivational speakers would call thinking outside the box,
unique perspectives and experiences,
non-conformance,
maybe even a fanciful belief in magic.
There are some unseemly schizotypal traits as well,
cognitive disarray and difficulty-filling pleasure,
but by and large,
the schizotype reflects the positive aspects over the negative.
A 2008 study by British scientists Mark Beatty and Andrian Furman found that
positive schizotypes were associated with character traits like confidence,
insight,
resourcefulness,
diverse interests,
and even sexiness.
They were also oriented toward doing at least one creative thing every day.
Then of course,
there's the precuneus.
The precuneus is a part of the superior parietal lobule located between the
left and right hemispheres of the brain.
There's still some mystery about how it actually functions in relation to other
parts of the brain,
but it's known to have several very complex jobs,
memory retrieval in processing,
environmental analysis,
cue processing,
organizing mental images,
and pain reaction.
How the precuneus relates to creative people is that they can't turn the darn
thing off.
Neuroscientists Hikaru Takeuchi found in 2011 that creative types could not
suppress their precuneus.
They were unable to filter out inessential brain activity.
While this might sound like Takeuchi said creatives were cluttered with
meaningless thoughts,
what he actually meant was that they had more access to creative stimuli and
could put ideas from different networks together.
And in 2013,
Austrian researcher Andreas Fink found that there was a direct link between the
inability to suppress the precuneus and higher generation of original ideas.
What this all means is that the key to creative thinking is to let as much
information into one's brain as possible in order to make connections and
associations between different elements.
Even if that cognitive process results in strange,
outlandish,
weird,
or,
say it together,
crazy associations,
those connections often produce the most creative ideas.
This can be great for generating hundreds of ideas at once,
if properly harnessed,
or result in mental chatter you can't escape that completely drowns out
coherent thoughts.
It can be a double-edged sword.
I don't want to speculate on whether Da Vinci was crazy,
but we do know that he came up with blueprints for the airplane,
the parachute,
the bicycle,
the guided missile,
and even the snorkel,
multiple centuries before they were physically invented.
He could only generate those ideas by letting his precuneus run wild and
thinking as creatively as anybody ever could.
If that's crazy,
then I'll have more crazy.
Just know that the side effects for such heights may be more than you bargained
for.
Creativity is good for your health.
Despite a dubious link to mental health,
being creative not only produces solutions,
new thought processes,
bold ideas,
or a nice quilt,
it actually has great benefits to your physical health.
The American Journal of Public Health noted that engaging in a creative pursuit
is a great way to relieve stress.
In fact,
you don't even have to physically do something creative to de-stress.
The journal claims you just have to watch somebody doing something creative or
see the results of their work.
Creativity impacts the brain in much the same way that meditation does by
focusing on mindfulness,
being in the moment,
and reflecting on internal process.
Whether it's sewing,
painting,
building a garden,
or watching a movie,
both the act and the mere engagement with creativity naturally stimulate a
sense of calm.
Creativity also promotes increased functionality of the brain.
It encourages production of new neurons that are crucial to the central nervous
system.
According to the Croatian Medical Journal,
art therapy has been found to be an extremely valuable tool in repairing brains
that have been injured in some way,
helping to rewire some of the functionalities that have been damaged.
CNN reported that middle-aged and older people who take up artistic pursuits
were 73% less likely to develop the mental impairments that lead to dementia.
Considering those physiological benefits to creativity,
it's a wonder that anyone would de-mit something that should only be reserved
for one spare time or weekends.
It's a trait that needs to be engaged more in as many life areas as we can use
it,
and certainly in view of how much he produced.
Da Vinci obviously created nearly 24 hours a day.
Creativity is the key.
You probably don't need more convincing as to the benefits and virtues of being
able to think more creatively on a consistent basis.
You can see that it's led to some of the greatest innovations in history,
and it can keep you healthy and happy.
And yet,
there is more.
Truly creative people can apply their faculties of asking,
what if,
to every single area of life,
specifically using their imaginations to solve problems.
This makes sense when you think about it.
Any problem you have is,
in a way,
a failure of imagination,
i.e.,
the failure to conceive of and access those ideas and concepts that constitute
a solution.
Solving a problem requires something special of us.
It asks that we think something we haven't thought before,
try something we haven't tried before,
or imagine a perspective that we currently don't hold.
What could be more creative than that?
Let's talk more concretely and look at exactly what we mean when we say problem
before we talk about problem solving.
A problem is the experience of realizing that there's a gap between what is and
what you wish the case to be.
All problems can be framed as a tension between the reality and what you desire.
You're hungry,
want food,
but don't have any food.
You wish that you had a garden without any pests to bother you,
but you have aphids and want to be rid of them.
You have two equally important invitations for Saturday night,
and don't know which one to go to,
but you must decide.
There's a car heading right for you,
making it so that your desired future reality and the future reality it is
suggesting are in conflict.
You get the idea.
Right in its very definition,
we see that problems are whatever they're defined to be.
The way we conceptualize of a problem is more important than the problem itself.
In fact,
our manner of thinking about a situation is the problem.
Therefore,
addressing how we engage mentally with reality is the best and only means to
arriving at a solution.
We can think of four main types of problems.
The first type is where we know what the problem is.
We know what needs to be done,
but for whatever reason,
we can't motivate ourselves to take that action.
The problem here is our resistance to actually bringing about the solution,
or our procrastination,
fear of change,
or lack of motivation.
Examples could include dragging your feet when it comes to going to the gym,
to achieve your fitness goals,
struggling with quitting any kind of addiction,
or simply being lazy when it comes to taking those actions required to achieve
the outcomes we know we want.
Solving these problems is more a matter of finding the right mindset to
manifest the solution that is already understood and identified.
The second type is also where we know what the problem is,
but to solve it requires more skill or knowledge than we currently have.
Here,
it's not so much a question of motivating ourselves psychologically or removing
unconscious resistance or limitations,
but rather being more systematic in seeking out the information or expertise we
currently lack to solve our problem.
You might be trying to choose between two potential careers,
but don't have enough information about either to make an informed decision.
Your solution is therefore to seek that information.
If your problem is you have a hole in your roof and you don't know how to fix
it,
the solution is to seek a roofing expert.
If your personal accounts are in shambles and you're having trouble filing your
tax return,
part of your response will be to create better techniques to store and organize
your data.
Underlying all these solutions is simply adopting the right attitude and
systematically thinking about what's needed,
what you have,
what you don't have,
and what you want.
It's drawing a clear path between your current state and the state you want to
be in.
Creativity can also be substituted here for expertise or information.
You may put together a makeshift roof repair solution using what you know to
buy yourself more time.
You may not know anything about taxes or accounting,
but you certainly use your creative thinking skills when you recall that you
have a friend whose partner is an accountant and consider what you could offer
them in return for some expert advice.
A third type of problem is again where we know what the problem is,
but the solution we need requires a total shift in perspective,
a new pair of glasses to look through,
a complete out-of-the-box approach.
This ability to reframe and reconsider is fundamentally a creative enterprise.
This is because there is actually no new information needed or uncovered.
There's only the need to look at the same information in a different way.
We don't change the problem in front of us,
but ourselves and how we perceive that problem.
By being creative,
we ask,
how is the question itself affecting my perception here?
What other question could I ask?
We give ourselves the opportunity to reframe,
rearrange,
and restructure.
We become curious about our variability to perceive and organize information
and ask how we can change or become better.
A classic example,
your problem is that you have an irate customer who left a scathing review of
your business on a public site,
but look at it another way.
This person is in a prime position to give you honest and very valuable
feedback about what's not working in your business so you can improve and avoid
the outcome in future.
What a gift.
What a shift in perspective.
The problem is no longer a problem.
Finally,
the category of problem that creativity is best able to solve.
Those problems that are actually unknown and need to be identified in the first
place.
This is the space where we challenge our assumptions and habits,
brainstorm new ideas,
and get a better handle on the realm of what's possible.
The trick with hidden problems is that they need to be uncovered first and this
can only happen with a large dose of creative thinking.
As an example,
imagine that a couple starts experiencing problems in their relationship but
don't really know why.
They only know they don't get along anymore and things aren't working.
Is it a loss of spark?
Old resentments?
Is their problem actually perfectly normal for their stage of relationship?
Does their communication style need improvement or is it simply that they're no
longer as compatible?
By going to couples therapy,
for example,
they can begin to ask pointed questions to get to the root of the issue.
Creative questions that they may never have thought to ask before.
Takeaways.
Creativity is something we all want.
But how can we even define it?
Perhaps we can describe it best by looking at someone who appeared to embody
creativity,
Leonardo da Vinci.
He possessed a few traits in spades that may have been the keys to his success.
Curiosity,
experimentation,
mindfulness,
embracing the unknown,
and balancing multiple disciplines in both artistic and scientific endeavors
alike.
We can emulate these traits,
which means creativity is a learnable quality.
The spark of insight that James Dyson used to create his revolutionary vacuum
cleaner was a distillation of some of these traits.
Some of us,
however,
are constrained by one of the most long-standing myths in psychology,
the myth of hemisphere-specific functionality.
In other words,
people believe that they have talent in only the left hemisphere,
logic,
rationality,
or the right hemisphere,
creativity,
art.
This leads us to believe that we are inherently destined for a lack of
creativity.
Basic neurobiology proves this to be untrue.
Moreover,
three specific modes of thought all span both hemispheres.
We're all two hemisphere thinkers.
There have often been associations between creativity and mental illness.
Do these claims hold any water?
Yes,
and no.
There is certainly a correlation between the two groups,
but there is nothing to suggest that one causes the other.
A major factor may be the functioning of the Precuneus,
a brain structure that filters out mental chatter from your consciousness.
Thus,
if it filters poorly,
your head will be filled with endless chatter that you can't turn off.
This can be fertile ground for creative ideas just as easily as insanity from
not being able to experience silence.
We already know we want creativity,
but it also has health benefits.
Creativity has been shown to reduce stress,
improve brain functioning,
and create similar soothing effects to meditation.
This is achieved through keeping an active brain.
Last,
and certainly not least,
creativity gives you the tools and keys to solve problems.
This might seem self-evident,
but it's not always that we need creative solutions.
Sometimes,
we need to creatively define the problem as well.
We frequently will need to look at matters from a completely different
perspective to get where we want.
This has been
Rapid Idea Generation:
How to Create,
Innovate,
Conceive,
and Invent From Scratch [Second Edition] (Think Smarter,
Not Harder Book 5) By Peter Hollins, narrated by russell newton.