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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Sean Patrick
Read between
November 10 - November 11, 2021
smart enough
The studies conclusively disproved the notion that great performance stems primarily from a natural “gift” or talent.
While some people display innate talents for certain activities early on, amazingly average people have become champions in all manner of endeavors.
they practiced so hard and intensely that it hurt.
First, that the seed of greatness exists in every human being. Whether it sprouts or not is our choice.
Second, that there are no such things as natural-born under- or overachievers—there are simply people that tap into their true potentials and people that don’t.
Is ten thousand hours too simple of a prescription for greatness? Yes. It overlooks another aspect of great achievement that cannot be ignored: opportunities—conditions that often appear to be plain old dumb luck.
Sure, we may not be built for the NFL or Kentucky Derby, but we’re surrounded by opportunities every day, everywhere we go. There is no shortage of problems to be solved, needs and desires to be fulfilled, and innovative ways to help others.
But there’s a catch. Most opportunities never announce themselves with trumpets and confetti. They’re easily missed, mistaken, or squandered.
They’re often nothing more than chances to improve on something other peo...
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Many calls to adventure are puzzles waiting to be solved. Anyone can apply, but the price of admission is paid in imagination. As journeys unfold, new challenges arise and pressures mount. These successive tolls must too be paid in creativity and ingenuity, as they were by history’s most imaginative minds.
The philosopher Edmund Burke said “there is a boundary to men’s passions when they act from feelings; but none when they are under the influence of imagination.”
They’re audacious enough to think that they’re not just an ordinary player.
In every field of human endeavor, the more visionary the work, the less likely it is to be quickly understood and embraced by lesser minds.
This is the beauty of imagination. An unexpected dead end in one journey is merely an opportunity to set a new course for another. Losing what we have can only do us real harm when we feel we can’t create it, or something equally valuable or compelling, again, and that ability resides squarely in our imagination.
Einstein said that “imagination is more important than knowledge,” because “knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”
Steve Jobs said creativity is “just connecting things.”
Salvador Dali said “those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.”
Picasso said “good artists copy but great ...
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Mark Twain said “all ideas are second-hand, consciously and unconsciously drawn from a...
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When you start viewing creativity as a process of combination, and imagination as the ability to connect, stretch, and merge things in new ways, creative brilliance becomes less mystifying. A creative genius is just better at connecting the dots than others are.
Don’t confuse creativity and imagination with “thinking” either. Ray Bradbury said that thinking is the enemy of creativity because it’s self-conscious. When you think you sit calmly and try to reason through something in a structured, logical way. Creativity dances to a different tune. Once you flip that switch, things get a bit chaotic. Ideas start buzzing. Images start popping into your head. Fragments of all kinds of data find their way into orbit. We’re pulled in one direction, then suddenly our instincts send us flying in another. Material collides and fuses, disappears and reappears.
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There’s a catch to “combinatorial creativity,” though. Before you can connect dots, you need to have dots to connect. The more material you’re exposed to in the world, the more grist you’ll have for your imagination mill. Tesla fully immersed himself in the world of electricity. He read hundreds of books. He conducted thousands of experiments and took copious notes. The more varied your knowledge and experiences are, the more likely you are to be able to create new associations and fresh ideas.
Read books, watch documentaries, and discuss your ideas with others. No subject, no matter how specialized or esoteric, is off limits. You never know where your imagination will find pieces for its puzzles.
It takes curiosity to find your call to adventure, it takes courage to venture into the unknown, and it takes imagination to create your path.
