Thinkertoys Quotes

“Creators are joyful and positive. Creators look at “what is” and “what can be” instead of “what is not.” Instead of excluding possibilities, creators include all possibilities, both real and imagined. They choose to interpret their own world and do not rely upon the interpretations of others. And most importantly, creators are creative because they believe they are creative.”
― Michael Michalko, Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques

“The CEO of a major publishing house was concerned about the lack of creativity among his editorial and marketing staffs. He hired a group of high-priced psychologists to find out what differentiated the creative employees from the others. After studying the staff for one year, the psychologists discovered only one difference between the two groups: The creative people believed they were creative and the less creative people believed they were not.”
― Michael Michalko, Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques

“Thomas Edison held 1,093 patents. He was a great believer in exercising his mind and the minds of his workers and felt that without a quota he probably wouldn't have achieved very much. His personal invention quota was a minor invention every ten days and a major invention every six months. To Edison, an idea quota was the difference between eating beefsteak or a plateful of Black Beauty stew.”
― Michael Michalko, Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques

“Therefore the skillful commander takes up a position in which he cannot be defeated and misses no opportunity to master his enemy.”
― Michael Michalko, Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques

“To increase your self-affirmation, get in the habit of remembering your successes, your good qualities and characteristics, and forgetting your failures.”
― Michael Michalko, Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques

“You have to record your own ideas, as, so far as I know, there is no store that sells Cliffs Notes on your past thoughts.”
― Michael Michalko, Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques

“Think of roses and thorns. You can complain because roses have thorns, or you can rejoice because thorns have roses. You can choose to interpret experiences any way you wish. It is not the experience that determines who you are; it is your interpretation of the experience. You do not see things as they are; you see them as you are.

We are each given a set of experiences in life. The experiences are neutral. They have no meaning. It is how we interpret the experiences that gives them meaning. The interpretations of experiences shape our beliefs and theories about the world. Our beliefs and theories, in turn, determine what we observe in the world to confirm our beliefs, which, in turn, reinforce our interpretations.”
― Michael Michalko, Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques

“Set yourself an idea quota for a challenge you are working on, such as five new ideas every day for a week. You’ll find the first five are the hardest, but these will quickly trigger other ideas. The more ideas you come up with, the greater your chances of coming up with a winner.”
― Michael Michalko, Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques

“Record all the things you like about yourself—your positive qualities, characteristics, and traits. Include the successes you have had in every area of your life: work, home, school, and so on. Keep adding to this list as you think of more things and as you accomplish more. Acknowledging yourself, your abilities, and your own unique qualities will encourage you to get moving.”
― Michael Michalko, Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques

“It doesn’t matter how many times you have failed in the past; what matters is the successful attempt, which should be remembered and reinforced.”
― Michael Michalko, Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques

“Instead of presenting a catalog of all known creative techniques and abandoning you to puzzle out which ones actually work, I started with the ideas (fish) and worked backwards to each creator (fisherman). Then I identified the technique that caught the idea.”
― Michael Michalko, Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques

“handles. One handle represents the nature of your business today, the other represents”
― Michael Michalko, Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques

“Whenever Thomas Edison was about to hire a new employee, he would invite the applicant over for a bowl of soup. If the person salted his soup before tasting it, Edison would not offer him the job. He did not hire people who had too many assumptions built into their everyday life. Edison wanted people who consistently challenged assumptions.”
― Michael Michalko, Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques

“Assumptions are maintained by the hug of history. Yet, history does not guarantee their validity, nor does it ever reassess their validity.”
― Michael Michalko, Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques

“John Patterson, president of National Cash Register, was a fan of Napoleon. Patterson rode horseback with his executives every day at 5 a.m. He demanded that they maintain a "little red book" to record daily activities, thoughts, ideas, and so on. He ruthlessly fired many an employee who failed to maintain a notebook.”
― Michael Michalko, Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques

“A popular children’s puzzle shows six fishermen whose lines are tangled together to form a sort of maze. One of the lines has caught a fish; the problem is to find which fisherman it belongs to. You are supposed to do this by following each line through the maze, which may take up to six tries, depending on your luck. It is obviously easier to start at the other end and trace the line from the fish to the fisherman, as you have only one possible starting place, not six.”
― Michael Michalko, Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques

“The person who believes he is a subject is frank, open-minded, sincerely going ahead, facing the situation freely, and looking for ways to make things work and get things done. The person who believes she is an object is inhibited, pushed, driven, acting by command or intimidation, has a one-track mind, and is always looking for reasons things can’t be done or why things can’t work.”
― Michael Michalko, Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques