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    Genius: Habits of Highly Creative People
    Genius: Habits of Highly Creative People
    Genius: Habits of Highly Creative People
    Ebook117 pages2 hours

    Genius: Habits of Highly Creative People

    By David Tuffley

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Genius is an often misunderstood though perennially interesting topic. Down through the ages, researchers have observed and studied the nature of genius in an effort to understand it. This book gives you the essence of that research. The material comes from across many cultures and historical periods. It is the lowest common denominator of this fascinating phenomenon, presented in plain English. The book explains the underlying nature of genius, charisma and leadership and gives you a series of exercises. If you take the time to read, understand and practice the principles outlined here, you will be well on your way to increasing your creative output and your ability to persuade others to listen to your ideas.

    In today’s globalised economy, we increasingly compete with low-cost workers in the developing world who charge much less for their labour. The labour market has expanded, and the competition has never been greater. The trend will continue well into the foreseeable future. As a knowledge worker, how can you increase your value in the market and future-proof your earning ability? The answer is to be able to generate great ideas that add value to whatever enterprise you work in. Creativity is a very bankable skill, regardless of where you work and what you do.

    Creativity, or indeed genius, can indeed be learned; it is how you think, rather than what you think that matters. Like leadership, You cannot conjure genius on demand. You can only create the right conditions and wait for it to spontaneously occur.

    Throughout this book, I use the terms ‘genius’ and ‘highly creative person’ interchangeably. A genius is a highly creative person who has a mind-set that generates creative output.

    Many people assume genius requires a high IQ, but this is not necessarily the case. It is far more about attitude, and attitude is learn-able. You can learn how to think and act like a genius. Is there a human alive who has reached their fullest potential? Possibly, but he or she is so rare as to be perhaps one in a billion. It is the nature of being human to be imperfect. We all have room for improvement.

    So what does it mean to be a genius? This book gives you a profile of how geniuses think and act, based on the work of researchers across cultures over time. It gives you the essence of being a genius. If you follow the advice and emulate these practices, you will create the right conditions for genius to manifest in your life. How successful you are will be largely dependent on how much time and effort you are prepared to invest in this most noble of endeavours.

    Genius can be understood as an aspect of the self-actualised person; someone who is in the process of living and expressing their unique human potential at its fullest. The process of self-actualisation is discussed in detail in this book.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAltiora Publications
    Release dateOct 24, 2012
    ISBN9781301656851
    Genius: Habits of Highly Creative People
    Author

    David Tuffley

    David Tuffley (PhD) is a Senior Lecturer in Applied Ethics & Socio-Technical Studies at Griffith University in Australia.David writes on a broad range of interests; from Comparative Religion, Anthropology, Psychology, Ancient and Modern History, Linguistics, Rhetoric, Philosophy, Architectural History, Environments and Ecosystems.

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      Book preview

      Genius - David Tuffley

      Genius

      Habits of highly creative people

      David Tuffley

      Published by Altiora Publications at Smashwords

      www.altiorapublications.com

      © Copyright 2012 David Tuffley

      Until ‘kings were philosophers or philosophers were kings’ there will be injustice in the world – Plato

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the work of this author.

      About the Author

      David Tuffley PhD is a Lecturer and researcher at Griffith University in Australia. He has a broad range of interests; Anthropology, Psychology, Philosophy, Ancient and Modern History, Linguistics, Rhetoric, Comparative Religions, Architectural History, Environments and Ecosystems.

      David Tuffley’s Profile & other eBooks: http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/tuffley

      Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/tuffley/

      Contents

      Introduction

      The mind of the genius

      Multiple intelligences

      Genius & self-actualisation

      Genius & charisma

      Genius & leadership

      The Tao of creativity

      Collected quotations

      Appendix: Rhetorical devices

      Introduction

      Genius is an often misunderstood though perennially interesting topic. Down through the ages, researchers have observed and studied the nature of genius in an effort to understand it. This book gives you the essence of that research. The material comes from across many cultures and historical periods. It is the lowest common denominator of this fascinating phenomenon, presented in plain English. The book explains the underlying nature of genius, charisma and leadership and gives you a series of exercises. If you take the time to read, understand and practice the principles outlined here, you will be well on your way to increasing your creative output and your ability to persuade others to listen to your ideas.

      In today’s globalised economy, we increasingly compete with low-cost workers in the developing world who charge much less for their labour. The labour market has expanded, and the competition has never been greater. The trend will continue well into the foreseeable future. As a knowledge worker, how can you increase your value in the market and future-proof your earning ability? The answer is to be able to generate great ideas that add value to whatever enterprise you work in. Creativity is a very bankable skill, regardless of where you work and what you do.

      Creativity, or indeed genius, can indeed be learned; it is how you think, rather than what you think that matters. Like leadership, You cannot conjure genius on demand. You can only create the right conditions and wait for it to spontaneously occur.

      Throughout this book, I use the terms ‘genius’ and ‘highly creative person’ interchangeably. A genius is a highly creative person who has a mind-set that generates creative output.

      Many people assume genius requires a high IQ, but this is not necessarily the case. It is far more about attitude, and attitude is learnable. You can learn how to think and act like a genius. Is there a human alive who has reached their fullest potential? Possibly, but he or she is so rare as to be perhaps one in a billion. It is the nature of being human to be imperfect. We all have room for improvement.

      So what does it mean to be a genius? This book gives you a profile of how geniuses think and act, based on the work of researchers across cultures over time. It gives you the essence of being a genius. If you follow the advice and emulate these practices, you will create the right conditions for genius to manifest in your life. How successful you are will be largely dependent on how much time and effort you are prepared to invest in this most noble of endeavours.

      Genius can be understood as an aspect of the self-actualised person; someone who is in the process of living and expressing their unique human potential at its fullest. The process of self-actualisation is discussed in detail in this book.

      Where does inspiration come from?

      Where inspiration comes from is still a moot point. Since the time of Classical Greece until the European Enlightenment in the 18th Century, it has been assumed that inspiration comes from a divine source outside of oneself.

      ‘Inspiration’ literally means ‘to breathe into’, as in being infused with the divine breath of life. This is distinct from ‘respiration’ which the body automatically does to obtain the oxygen it needs to function. Inspiration was considered to be more than mere breath; it was a divine gift, a blessing for an artist to receive. The artist needs to be humble.

      The Ancient Greeks believed inspiration came from The Muses -- nine goddesses who inspired artists and scientists. This belief was carried forward by the Romans and the civilisations of Europe that followed.

      Since the Enlightenment though, inspiration came to be thought of as the product of the human ego. In the Age of Reason, all good things were thought to derive from rational thought. The existence of Muses could not be proven by objective evidence, therefore they must not exist.

      Which version is correct? The debate continues, yet it is interesting to note that highly creative people from all walks of life recount how inspiration seemed to come to them from outside. It comes unexpectedly, never on demand, and only after they have disciplined themselves to be in a fit state to receive it. Is the creative impulse coming from outside or from some deeply buried source within the person? What matters is how to achieve inspiration, not where it comes from.

      The Noosphere

      The French philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881 – 1955) in his book The Phenomenon of Man describes humankind as part of the evolutionary process of life on Earth becoming conscious of itself. He discusses a phenomenon called the Noosphere which offers some insight into the origin of inspiration.

      In Teilhard’s view, the generation and exchange of ideas between people over time has created a collective memory that has enhanced human consciousness to the point where a thinking layer, a sphere of human thought has been created, and which now envelopes the earth as a living, growing entity. He called this the Noosphere after the Greek for mind.

      The Noosphere is an extension of the Biosphere, which is itself founded upon the Geosphere. Our living planet is comprised of these three concentric spheres. The Noosphere is generated by the interaction of human minds, a kind of collective cognition. As humanity has become more diverse and knowledgeable, the Noosphere has likewise grown and will become increasingly aware of it itself. The Internet can be understood as an aspect of the Noosphere.

      Teilhard views this phenomenon as inherent to the evolutionary forces that shape the Universe. Consciousness wants to become conscious of itself and will grow increasingly self-aware until it reaches the Omega Point, the greatest degree of integration and unification. The Omega Point bears similarities to the concept of the ‘Singularity’ that Ray Kurzweil and Vernor Vinge predict will occur sometime around the year 2045.

      Teilhard’s ideas are thought to have been influential in the thinking of the early internet pioneers living in the San Francisco Bay area in the 1960’s and 70’s. The Internet can be accurately described as the cognitive infrastructure, implemented at a silicon-based hardware level, of the Noosphere. It extends the organically-produced cognition, created by six billion human brains into cyberspace.

      As Kevin Kelly, founding editor of Wired Magazine pointed out in a 2007 TED Talk, the Internet is a neural network that in 2007 approximates the human brain in complexity, and it is doubling in complexity about every two years. Kelly predicts that by 2040, the total processing power of the Internet will exceed that of six billion human brains. The information richness and accessibility options of the Noosphere are growing at a phenomenal rate.

      ‘Nothing is as powerful as an idea whose time has come’

      This quote from French writer Victor Hugo acknowledges the intriguing phenomenon of great ideas seeming to demand to be brought into the world when the time is right. It implies that the idea has a life of its own.

      The history of innovation is full of accounts of a great idea being thought of and worked on by innovators who knew nothing of each other. The invention of television, for example, is credited to Scotsman Alexander Logie Baird, though it is now known that the same idea was being worked on by a Frenchman and a Russian, all independently of each other. If Baird had not released his work when he did, one of the others would have soon after.

      The Wright Brothers were not the

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