CONCEPTS

At Genius Lab we love the fact that the word genius stems from a term related to genie:

Genius (Gen"ius) noun ; pl. E. Geniuses; in sense 1, L. Genii. [L. genius, prop.,

1. the superior or divine nature which is innate in everything
2. the spirit
3. from genere, gignere, to beget, bring forth

It reminds us that genius springs from the "genie in us"! We grant our own wishes, we are our own self-inspiration! It’s not about being born with a talent or level of intelligence, it’s about finding inspiration within and bringing it without!

Other than that, Genius Lab explores the idea that genius is all about making connections - not only across multiple disciplines, from past to present, from within to without, but especially about making connection in particular to the genie within us!

"Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius." - Wolfgang A. Mozart

"When human power becomes so great and original that we can account for it only as a kind of divine imagination, we call it genius"  ~ William Crashaw ~

"Man is a genius when he dreams. The harder you dream it, the sooner it will come true." ~ Akira Kurosawa

"Few people think more than two or three times a year. I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week." - George Bernard Shaw

"The principal mark of a genius is not perfection but originality, the opening of new frontiers" - Arthur Koestler

MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES THEORY- Howard Gardner (www.howardgardner.com)
Howard Gardner’s theory from his book “Mind Frame” is that different kinds of "intelligence" exists in human beings. These include:

1. Linguistic
2. Logical-mathematical
3. Spatial
4. Bodily-kinesthetic
5. Musical
6. Interpersonal
7. Intrapersonal
8. Naturalistic
9. Existential intelligence?

Traditionally there has been a focus in learning institutions on the linguistic /logical-mathematical kinds. At Genius Lab we prefer to explore all these aspects of intelligence and make connections between them all too!

"The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which means never losing your enthusiasm." ~ Aldous Huxley

"If children grew up according to early indications, we should have nothing but geniuses."- Goethe

"All of us, you, your children, your neighbors and their children are everyday geniuses, even though the fact is unnoticed and unremembered by everyone. That's probably because school hasn't encouraged us to notice what's hidden inside us waiting for the right environment to express itself."  ~ Peter Kline ~

THINKING LIKE A GENIUS
"Even if you're not a genius, you can use the same strategies as Aristotle and Einstein to harness the power of your creative mind and better manage your future. These strategies are common to the thinking styles of creative geniuses in science, art, and industry throughout history." - Michael Michalkol

The following eight strategies encourage you to think productively, rather than reproductively, in order to arrive at solutions to problems. At Genius Lab, we like to think of each of them as simply making connections.  With no. 3 being JFDI (that’s the Nike slogan with a bleep in the middle!), which is about making connections between the idea and it’s manifestation.

1. Look at problems in many different ways, and find new perspectives that no one else has taken (or no one else has publicized!) (making connections)
Leonardo da Vinci believed that, to gain knowledge about the form of a problem, you begin by learning how to restructure it in many different ways. He felt that the first way he looked at a problem was too biased. Often, the problem itself is reconstructed and becomes a new one.

2. Visualize! (making connections)
When Einstein thought through a problem, he always found it necessary to formulate his subject in as many different ways as possible, including using diagrams. He visualized solutions, and believed that words and numbers as such did not play a significant role in his thinking process.

3. Produce! A distinguishing characteristic of genius is productivity (JFDI!)
Thomas Edison held 1,093 patents. He guaranteed productivity by giving himself and his assistants idea quotas. In a study of 2,036 scientists throughout history, Dean Keith Simonton of the University of California at Davis found that the most respected scientists produced not only great works, but also many "bad" ones. They weren't afraid to fail, or to produce mediocre in order to arrive at excellence.

4. Make novel combinations (making connections )
Combine, and recombine, ideas, images, and thoughts into different combinations no matter how incongruent or unusual. The laws of heredity on which the modern science of genetics is based came from the Austrian monk Grego Mendel, who combined mathematics and biology to create a new science.

5. Form relationships; make connections between dissimilar subjects (making connections)
Da Vinci forced a relationship between the sound of a bell and a stone hitting water. This enabled him to make the connection that sound travels in waves. Samuel Morse invented relay stations for telegraphic signals when observing relay stations for horses.

6. Think in opposites (making connections)
Physicist Niels Bohr believed, that if you held opposites together, then you suspend your thought, and your mind moves to a new level. His ability to imagine light as both a particle and a wave led to his conception of the principle of complementarity. Suspending thought (logic) may allow your mind to create a new form.

7. Think metaphorically (making connections)
Aristotle considered metaphor a sign of genius, and believed that the individual who had the capacity to perceive resemblances between two separate areas of existence and link them together was a person of special gifts.

8. Prepare yourself for chance (making connections)
Whenever we attempt to do something and fail, we end up doing something else. That is the first principle of creative accident. Failure can be productive only if we do not focus on it as an unproductive result. Instead: analyze the process, its components, and how you can change them, to arrive at other results. Do not ask the question "Why have I failed?", but rather "What have I done?"

Adapted from: Michael Michalko: "Thinking Like a Genius: Eight strategies used by the super creative, from Aristotle and Leonardo to Einstein and Edison" (New Horizons for Learning) June 15, 1999) This first appeared in THE FUTURIST, May 1998.

“Genius is the ability to look at things simply“ - Dr. E. Lee Spence, lifetime member of Mensa

"The first and last thing required of genius is the love of truth." - Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

"A man of genius makes no mistakes . His Errors are the portals of discovery."- James Joyce

"To see things in the seed, that is genius" - Lao-tzu