99% Inspiration

Just as Edison relied on the workshop tools to help make, and even occasionally trigger, new ideas and inventions, creativity computer programs will also trigger new ideas. But they certainly won't do the thinking for you. You, like Edison, still have to add the genius.

If you study the lives of great inventors, two key personality traits stand out: fierce independence and persistence.

Challenging the status quo takes great courage and self-confidence. An extension of this courage is the inventor's willingness to entertain ideas that others consider radical or just plain crazy.

Great success, it seems, comes only to those willing to risk great failure and great embarrassment.

With the right mental disciplines and training, most of us can learn to do things we'd normally presume to be impossible.

The best inventors don't just stand by waiting patiently to receive a flash of inspiration. No, they actively seek out inspiration.

The key to a successful group process could be summarized in a single word: risk.

Do some experiences, memories, loves, or accomplishments from your childhood stand out as symbols or clues to your unique genius? If you get in touch with some of these childhood experiences, it might be a powerful, potentially life-changing creative experience.

Repressed feelings, and even very painful emotional wounds, from childhood sometimes made it difficult to "get at the genius."

It is important to be very gentle in helping people open themselves up to new and more creative ways of thinking and being.