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Blink 3 of 8 - The 5 AM Club
by Robin Sharma
InGenius summary
Tina Seelig
A Crash Course on Creativity
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Key idea 1 of 7
4.5 (19 ratings)
15 mins
7 key ideas
Audio & text
What is InGenius about?
InGenius (2012) unlocks the secrets to the creativity we all have, whether we know it or not! From new thinking habits to motivating attitudes to environments with incentives, these blinks will guide you toward kindling your own creative spark.
About the Author
Tina Seelig is a Gordon Prize-winning author and academic with a PhD in Neuroscience from Stanford University. She teaches a course in Management Science and Engineering at the University and has written the book What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20.
Table of Contents
Key idea 1 of 7
Creativity is a habit you learn, not something you’re born with.
Creativity: Either you’ve got it or you don’t, right? Well, although we tend to see artists, innovators and entrepreneurs as a different breed, creativity is actually not something you’re born with. If you don’t consider yourself creative, perhaps your creative spirit simply hasn’t been fostered!
Luckily, it’s never too late. By putting some new thinking habits in place, you can nurture the creativity you never knew you had. So what are these habits?
The first is to combine seemingly unrelated ideas and create a surprising result. Say you combine an alarm clock and vocabulary flash cards. The result could be an alarm clock that switches off when you answer a set of questions. It may sound like a pretty useless invention, but this kind of product could be just the solution for people who want to learn a new language, but find it hard to motivate themselves to do it.
You can also kindle your creativity by reframing the problems you face. Because we often see things from a limited perspective, we tend to create solutions to problems based on what we already know, or usually think. By actively taking a step outside these constraints, you’ll be able to grasp truly innovative solutions.
One way to do this is by removing something from its usual context. For example, you might think of an artificial leg as a functional product, a tool to aid those with disabilities. But what if you took it out of a medical context, and into the context of fashion instead?
The highly successful company Bespoke did just this, by creating artificial limbs that weren’t just medical aids, but also fashion accessories. By reframing artificial limbs, they discovered the possibility of producing them in a way that was aesthetically pleasing and also made their wearers feel more comfortable!
We often face problems where the solution is simple, or when it comes to us easily. Does that mean we should simply stop there? Not quite - find out why in the next blink!
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Who should read InGenius
- Creatives from any field
- Business leaders seeking to foster creativity in their teams
- Anyone who wants to learn how to think outside the box!
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