9 Rules of Genius

Do you know that creativity can be learned? It is proved by Michael Michalko, an expert in creativity and the author of the book “Cracking Creativity” in which he reveals how Einstein, Edison, Tesla, Michelangelo, Mozart created their masterpieces. It turns out, there are 9 main creative strategies:

The main rule of a genius is that they learn to look at the problem maximally widely. Leonardo Da Vinci believed that to solve the problem you need to formulate it in different ways. He was sure that often the view on the problem is clouded by stereotypes that is why these stereotypes must be destroyed. The creative approach supposes that the problem is viewed on different sides.

Albert Einstein said that different kinds of thinking helped him greatly in solving tasks and generating new ideas. For example, he could formulate a question not only in words but in a diagram as well. Just think, can you present your question as a diagram?

Long before Einstein Galileo Galilei struck his contemporaries with his ability to express his ideas in drafts, not only in words as scientists of that time used to do.

Geniuses always knew that the quantity always changes into the quality that is why they were constantly experimenting. For example, Thomas Edison had 1093 patents for inventions. By the way, he even had his own share of ideas: he had to make a small invention once in 10 days and a great invention once in six months. You will agree that it is a perfect schedule to keep yourself focused.

This is also a very good approach because the more your brain works, the better it works. Johann Bach wrote a cantata every day even if he was ill or exhausted. Mozart was also very productive: he created more than 600 compositions in his life.

Ideas for a genius are like Lego bricks. He or she doesn’t always follow the instruction but creates new combinations. For example, take the famous formula E=mc2. Every concept here - energy, mass and speed light - were created before Einstein. But Albert’s contribution was that he was able to combine them like Lego bricks. The scientist himself said that his way of thinking is a combination game or an ability to combine objects correctly.

One day when Nikola Tesla was watching the sunset he compared it to an engine.This is how the engine operating on alternate current appeared. The scientist August Kekule once had a dream of a snake biting its own tail. When he woke up, he understood that a molecule of benzol had the form of a ring.

To see coherence in uncombinable things is one more ability of a genius. He or she sees connections as no other person can see.

Alexander Bell, the inventor of the telephone, once discovered that vibrations inside a human ear resemble vibrations of a steel membrane. There are a whole lot of such examples in the world of science! Many centuries ago Aristotle wrote that using metaphors is a sign of a genius. He believed that masterpieces are created when people see an analogy in different spheres where there is nothing common on the first sight.

Sometimes it is very difficult to find a solution for the problem and generation of new ideas seems to come to a dead end. What to do? Search where no one has ever searched before. For example, Thomas Edison had been wrestling with the idea of the coal filament for a long time. One day he was playing with a piece of plasticine crumpling it in his hands. At some point it struck him that coal can be twisted like a rope - and that’s it, the filament is ready!

To come up with a good idea you need to search even where no one has ever thought to search before. The answer can be hidden even in a simple piece of plasticine that you hold in your hands.

Alexander Fleming once noticed that mold appears on the culture of dead bacteria. Many physicians had probably noticed such a thing before, but no one had ever paid attention to it. However, Fleming had an idea that this mold could also be studied. As result, penicillin was discovered which saved millions of human lives.

Listening to the intuition is the eighth rule of a genius.

The last rule of a genius is to cooperate with other genii. Most scientists who made great discoveries communicated closely with people of their level - also genii. There are a lot of examples in history when societies and groups of talented people helped to advance science, art and the world to new discoveries.