Archive for the 'Creativity and genius' Category

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What is “Genius” Anyway?

Published on 16 December, 2008 in Creativity and genius and Karate. 1 Comment Tags: , , .

One of the challenges with writing about the meaning and nature of genius is finding an adequate definition. Let me identify a characteristic of a genius:

  1. Geniuses solve problems that novices cannot.
  2. Geniuses solve problems that novices can solve but much more rapidly and accurately.

We also observe that the thinking process used by genius to solve problems is briefer, reflecting that more subprocesses have been automated.

I have taught martial arts since 1998. Last week, I was doing some punching with one of my students, Kenny. I wanted Kenny to throw a left jab then a right cross. A novice would need to be told “left punch, right punch” – or something even more simple. Someone who had trained with me for a while could be told “double head punch”. However, Kenny had done quite a bit of boxing training; for him “one-two” was enough. Indeed, even after a few minutes, if I used the term “left-right” or “double head-punch”, he would internally translate that as “one-two”. Kenny is skilled, but he is not an expert or a ‘genius’.

My original fascination in genius came from the contrast between Jack and Barry. Barry studied hard. Jack didn’t. But they got similarly outstanding results.

When we were 16, they completed an examination in advanced mathematics. Here, they were asked to show a proof. However, the proof was impossible. Each identified that the question was flawed and so in a sense ’solved’ the problem. To gain marks for the problem, Barry provided six pages of working. Jack only provided three pages.

At the time, we thought that Jack was smarter – after all, he had worked it out in half the time that it took Barry. However, while Barry was granted full credit for his six pages of working, Jack was only granted half-marks.

One more thing to remember (that has relevance to the self-help goal setting world):

  1. Experts work forward, noticing and reporting consequences of the ‘givens’ until a solution appears, at least on problems that are easy for them.
  2. Novices work backwards from the problem goal.

Make your life easier: Frame your questions. Through finding the right framing, you increase your chances of finding the models and strategies that can give you the answer you seek.

From TheGeniusProject.com

European style?

Published on 9 November, 2008 in Creativity and genius and Lifestyle. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

One of the things that I noticed about Shanghai was the great focus given there towards European inspiration. The concession era, between the revolution and the civil war, saw Shanghai as a paragon of style, sophistication and elegance, a Paris of the East if you will, and the current style-makers appear to be latching onto such notions in helping define the current wave of growth towards such similar sources. This means that ‘French’, ‘Italian’, ‘German’ and ‘European’ generally mean not just good quality, but outstanding style… as it does throughout much of the rest of the world at the moment.

There are two great ironies and one paradox.

The first great irony is that it’s more the exports of Europe who appreciate the ’style’ that we equate as European… not all Europeans! In the same way that not all Australians ride kangaroos to school and not all New Zealanders have known sheep, not all Europeans appreciate the quality and style factors that we give them credit for. “Europeans” are not inherently stylish – it’s just the way they’re branded by our simplistic minds.

After all, just look at the soccer!
Since when did a soccer hooligan embody class, style and sophistication???

The second great irony is that by externalising ’style’, we lose our capacity to truly appreciate it. Where the Europeans have Dolce & Gabbana, America has Ralph Lauren – the difference is so obvious it’s almost insulting! They ‘compete’, yet there is really no comparison if you look beyond the brand itself and towards the quality of the garments and the style of those who wear those garments. By equating brands with characteristics of style and fashion, we lose our acuity to notice when something actually has aesthetic value at all, and are left with a water-down, second-handed experience of beauty.

The paradox is that we cannot learn to appreciate design and beauty without being exposed to it. Great spaces and great places help cultivate the great thinking that leads to sublime insights and inspired creations… yet we need sublime insights and inspired creations to create those great spaces and great places in the first place! Our values are so often unevaluated, that we are left confused and ill-prepared to deal with unfamiliar situations and conditions.

What is beautiful to you?
Rather than accepting what the critics think or just putting your head in the sand altogether, what do you notice cultivates beauty in your world?

I have some horrible clothes that I just love… I couldn’t throw out my Seniors’ jersey if I wanted to (even though my ex-girlfriends have worn it more than I have!), and I have made far more than my fair share of fashion felonies. Yet, to me, making mistakes is what allows us to see where the lines are and how those lines work together to create the picture before us.

And to get some great clothes, visit Shirts and Suits of course!

Make your life a masterpiece…

(slightly modified but originally written 4 November, 2006)

Boost

Published on 18 October, 2008 in Business, Creativity and genius, High performance, Science and technology and Travel. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Sitting at the Manly Wharf food court, I noticed a Boost beside between the Thai and Sushi outlets. Boost is a great success story – the founder even published a book – and yet it reminds me of an old friend.

Kim created Juice Break many years ago. Before juice bars had really even hit Australia – well before Boost – Juice Break was helping make Brisbanites more healthy by introducing them to the wonders of fresh juices and intensely healthy nutrition. Kim had a great little store and brought together some really cool people.

But Juice Break no longer exists.

It wasn’t that the product wasn’t “right” – as evidenced by the roaring success of Boost and a host of other juice outlets today. And the timing was pretty good too – Juice Break closed as the first of today’s successful juice outlets were opening. They could have been a market leader, ready to reap the turn of the tide and the resultant massive wave.

And Kim was – and is – really cool! A surfer, he’s likeable and fun to hang out with.

There were many reasons that we now know the story of Boost rather than the story of Juice Break. But one of the most important lessons for me is that success often lies just a short twist in the road away. So when you find something that inspires you, something that you feel is worth pursuing, you really gotta go for it.

It can take a long time to make your dreams a reality. Research into genius shows that it takes about a decade before anything really significant can be achieved. So choose something that you love to do… Something that is worth doing even if others don’t know you’re doing it… Something that you enjoy doing for its own sake rather than because you believe it will get you something.

I’m doing my NLP Trainers’ Training at the moment. It’s exciting. It’s interesting. It’s engaging. And with my good friends in Shanghai I’m looking forward to sharing my insights with more people upon my return. Maybe I’ll make some money from it – heck, I’d like that – but even if I don’t, I love being here and doing what I’m doing right now.

I figure that if you’re doing something that you love to do, even if it doesn’t get you where you want to go – even if it’s a total waste of time – if you choose to do something that you love to do for its own sake, you’ll never be really wasting your time.

A friend was telling me about his friend who wants to study law but who fears that she’ll not live long enough to practice. She’s just 20 and doesn’t think she’ll make it to 25. We all have our perculiarities, but to me the reason to study law is to enjoy the process of learning and experiencing the study of law… Not because you’ll become a lawyer.

I’d love to give the appropriate source, but I can just hear Marianne Williamson saying to me: “Do what you love. Do what makes your heart sing. And never do it for the money.”

And now I’m going to enjoy my tempura prawn roll and Berry Crush…

Just the little things

Published on 23 July, 2008 in Creativity and genius, Self-awareness and relationships. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Sometimes you realise that it is the little things that can make a huge difference.

The photo that I uploaded here wasn’t terribly different from any photo that I’ve uploaded previously. Yet this time it has sparked a bunch of comments – whereas my ‘average’ photo on Facebook struggles to even get a caption or tagged correctly. And it wasn’t the first comment that ‘did’ it either, but rather it was the stream of comments that compounded together to create momentum.

Momentum like that is difficult to predict, a combination, I think, of there being so much random variation (aka “chance”) involved and there being so many semi-opaque variables that even if you did know all the things that you would need to know to figure out the answer, it would be too much of a pain for you to figure it out anyway.

It is like a trend – there are just so many things that contribute to a trend’s success that it is immensely difficult to predict. Why did JR Rawlings become a billion-dollar miracle while David Eddings’ or Robert Jordan’s endless volumes of high-quality fantasy remain merely popular?

Rather like intimate relationships at times…

Of course, there are externalities involved at times and conspiracy theorists have been making other books out of this for years (a la The Da Vinci Code), yet the gap between the .00001% that makes a fortune and significantly impacts the lives of millions of people, and being “just another” seems so grotesquely small.

It doesn’t seem to be “skill” (eg Ayn Rand).

It doesn’t seem to be “originality” (eg The Secret).

However, it is a form of genius. Perhaps the most important lesson that I can take from this is to pursue what you personally feel passionate about… firstly because that is what is most likely to yield an outcome that is sufficiently unique and able to adequately connect to the hearts of those that you strive to impact that it gives you a chance of “winning”, but more importantly still, because even if you don’t “win”, you will still be doing what you love.

Powerful concepts

Published on 30 April, 2008 in Business, Creativity and genius, High performance and Social development. 0 Comments

Sometimes we come across ideas that change the way we see the world. Reading The Fountainhead as a barely-teenager shifted my model of the world radically by presenting values and attitudes that I didn’t again question for many years. Continue reading ‘Powerful concepts’

Visionaries shut up and listen… and not to focus groups

Published on 25 April, 2008 in Business and Creativity and genius. 0 Comments

Really cool stuff doesn’t follow trends.

Kinda cool stuff does – but not really cool stuff.

Google didn’t follow the trends set by the (then!) giants like Microsoft and Yahoo!… and the Pure Digital’s Flip doesn’t either – even though they sold 1,000,000 basic camcorders last year, they radically diverge from the path charted by Sony and the rest of the industry. It wasn’t that their Dan (PD’s CEO – not me!) had focus groups and steadily developed a novel product – “He paid attention, and created a product for them—without hiring focus groups. ”

Isn’t that where the really great ideas come from?

Business schools have been popularising the “Blue Ocean” – but great minds have been thinking this way for thousands of years. In order to get ahead of the pack, you have to either be a born freak or you have to chart a different route. And born freaks just chart a different route intuitively.

We make it hard for those that want to march to their own tune. Radicals are punished – and that it is a good thing in a sense… it is in the nature of the ’system’ to challenge those who work to undermine the Nash Equilibrium presently being enjoyed so as to ensure that the proposed change overcomes the switching cost. It’s not personal – it’s just evolution.

To stand out can be frightening and lonely. Yet if you don’t be true to yourself – or a company is not true to itself – what do you really have left?

Great minds listen to their inner voice. In the modern world, it is often drowned out by the clattering of empty vessels, but if you can stop and listen to the voice within, you can start to explore what makes you great. What makes you unique? What are you better at – or could you be better at – than anybody else? What are you passionate about? If you could stop and listen to that voice from within, what would you do? It’s like we have an internal radio tuner that we seldom tune – and we get confused that all the white noise means that there’s nothing really there.

It is still your song to sing… if you dare.

Self-actualisation 2008

Published on 18 March, 2008 in Creativity and genius, Self-awareness, Social development and relationships. 0 Comments

I’ve had a little post-it note sitting beside my desk for a few months now, so it’s about time I actually wrote something about this! Self-actualisation comes down to three words things:

  1. Independence
  2. Non-attachment
  3. Power-ambivalence

Independence means that you think for yourself. It requires an individual to choose their own path rather than choosing the path that is given to them or the one that others would choose for them. Independence demands that an individual take responsibility for their conditioning and their thought processes, and to take responsibility for their experience of life. Sooner or later, great people have to leave the ‘tribe’ that gave them their foundations – that is the only way to start your own tribe.

Non-attachment means that while you can work towards goals and objectives, you do so while remembering that most things that seem to matter don’t. They might act – even ferociously – as if what they were doing mattered, yet when their work is done they retreat in the peace that comes from knowing that it doesn’t. Money, relationships and our reputation are powerful motivators for those who are not living at this level.

Power-ambivalence means that you do not try to control others. Self-actualised people do not live to manipulate or control others, but instead proceed along their personal path, honouring their truth as their truth, rather than trying to impose their beliefs or ideas upon others. While leaders are called upon by communities to provide guidance, self-actualised leaders do so without becoming attached to the perks, privileges or prestige attendant thereto.

Some ideas that I’ve been developing…

Published on 3 February, 2008 in Creativity and genius, High performance, Science and technology, Self-awareness, Social development and relationships. 1 Comment

Separation of Powers in Education, Cognitive Competencies, Selective Reinforcement of Spontaneous Behaviour and Open-Hearted Relationships of Unconditional Love… they’re all “hobby horses” that I have ranted on about from time to time, yet I haven’t always explored them as much or taken them as far as I could. Continue reading ‘Some ideas that I’ve been developing…’

Communication is not that difficult… REALLY!!!

Published on 28 January, 2008 in Business, Creativity and genius, High performance, Overcoming, Self-awareness and Stories. 4 Comments

When I was in primary school I knew that I was going to enjoy public speaking. Debating was my first love though my attention shifted towards public speaking and training. Right now I’m involved with three Toastmasters Clubs here in Shanghai – to me, it still offers the best value speaking training in the world today. Yet I am still staggered at how people who call themselves leaders can possess such embarrassing communication skills. Continue reading ‘Communication is not that difficult… REALLY!!!’

Doing what you REALLY want to do

Published on 19 November, 2007 in Creativity and genius, High performance, Lifestyle and Self-awareness. 2 Comments

Listening to a Stanford podcast from the founder of Tesla Motors, I made the following notes that I thought worth writing down…

  • Do something you’re passionate about
  • Do something meaningful
  • Be bold
  • Think your ideas through
  • Build your company while you build your product
  • Face reality everyday
  • Hire the best
  • Aggressively follow all leads

Makes a nice snap back to reality after yesterday’s session with China NLP on values…

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