From Da Vinci to Steve Jobs .. How are creative ideas generated?

More important than the "genius idea" is the behind-the-scenes creation of this idea.

Undoubtedly, you had a moment when you wondered how the idea came to be in the creators.

For example, how did Albert Einstein arrive at the idea of ​​the theory of relativity that immortalized his name?

How did Mozart come up with his genius tunes?

How did Steve Jobs turn his company onto the development path that created the iPhone?

Where did the ideas for Da Vinci's brilliant paintings come from?

Most of us think that creative ideas are limited to a group of people and not others, and that innovation is limited to geniuses and those with high IQs only, and that they all go through the “Eroica” moment that makes them suddenly exclaim: I found it, I found it!

As if the ideas suddenly come exclusively to them.

In fact, what we lose sight of is that these creative and exceptional people evoke their ideas with tools and methods that we can all go through, and achieve the same results.

On the TED stage, a series of scattered lectures were given that shed light on the answers to this perplexing question: Where do good ideas come from?

Can all of us actually produce these ideas, or are they limited to a certain group of people?

How did simple ideas lead to amazing scientific discoveries?

When Richard Feynman - the famous physicist - was a young boy in Queens, he went for a walk with his father, his cart, and a ball. Inertia.” He asked him: “What is inertia?” His father replied, “It is the name given by scientists to the phenomenon of the ball heading towards the back of the cart.”

In fact, it was this question - as simple as it is - that made Feynman understand that the simplest questions drive you to knowledge, and this is what ultimately led him to receive the Nobel Prize in Physics.

Sometimes, things seem complicated and incomprehensible at all. How did Newton deduce the laws of motion, although he had been living for centuries, and you and I do not yet know how he deduced them?

How did Einstein arrive at his equations?

How did that scientist, inventor or creator reach the amazing discovery, invention, book or movie that he reached?

Where did the ideas come from, and where did he draw them?

In this famous short lecture from TED, which received - for its shortness - a huge number of views, approaching two and a half million views, Adam Savage explains two examples of “how you can reach amazing things with the simplest possibilities.”

The first example of the Greek scientist Eratosthenes, who was able to calculate the circumference of the Earth about 200 BC with very simple tools, and then explains a second example of the scientist Hippolyte Vezo, who was able to measure the speed of light in 1849 with very simple tools.

It may seem that creativity or amazing breakthroughs require major complications, but the truth is that simplicity is the first key to reaching amazing discoveries, whether that simplicity is in the tools or the principles themselves.

Where do good ideas come from?

Over four million people watched this official TED talk delivered in 2010, and it was considered one of the most important lectures rooted in an attempt to understand one of the most baffling issues of all: Where do the good, logical and creative ideas that create a major change in the course of its owners come from? , which may also turn into a major change in the course of life and history?

In this lecture, Stephen Johnson talks about the idea of ​​inspiration, or the “Eroica” or “I found it!” moment.

famous in history.

He reviews many examples and models, and begins to analyze them, starting with the ancient London cafes, passing through Darwin's ideas and theories, not ending with the genius idea that led to the existence of the high-speed Internet that we use today.

In general, it looks very complicated from the outside, but the methodological truth is that the most creative ideas come through 'communication'.

We take our ideas from others without our knowledge, and without direct discussion.

A café session with a friend, a morning joke with a neighbor, or a side talk with a co-worker can lead to amazing creative ideas.

Only the quality of those people we find along the way will determine whether creativity will come, long overdue, or not forever!

When thoughts have sex!

When I was a student at Oxford in the 1970s, the world's future looked bleak.

A population explosion does not stop, a global famine is at the door, a cancer epidemic is taking our lives, global desertification is coming, oil will run out, and a nuclear winter is on the horizon.

Well, none of these things happened. (Laughter) On the contrary, later global per capita income rose, life expectancy rose 30% during this period, infant mortality decreased by two-thirds, food production rose by a third, all of this happened with the increase in population. Also, it's all because thoughts have sex!

In his quiet talk on the TED stage, writer Matt Bradley explains through his controversially titled "When ideas have sex" lecture that humanity actually survives by the evolution of the collective mind of humans, not by the development of individual skills. .

Humans have been able to survive many crises and problems because of nothing but modern and new ideas, inventions and innovations that were continuously produced by the collective mind, even if it was indirectly or it seems that due to the creations of certain individuals.

The lecture, which has achieved more than two and a quarter million views, focuses on the principle that human progress is based on ideas that fertilize all the time to develop new ideas that eventually lead to major breakthroughs that solve the most important problems of the world, even if the future appears cloudy on the horizon.

How can boredom lead you to the best ideas?

I started wondering: What really happens when we're bored?

I started talking to neuroscientists and cognitive psychologists, and what they told me was amazing.

It turns out that when you're bored, you fire up a network of nerves in your brain called "default mode," so our bodies are in automatic mode as we fold clothes or as we walk to work, but in fact at these times the brain is very busy, at this exact time, you can Come out with amazing ideas!

In a lecture she gave in April 2017, which achieved a large number of views, close to the ceiling of two million views, Manoush Zumurdi explains one of the most famous phenomena that we all go through, but we do not have enough opportunity to analyze it or try to find its causes and motives.

That situation in which excellent ideas spring into your mind as you do the most boring chores such as washing clothes or dishes, or perhaps doing nothing at all and just staring at the passers-by on the road or looking at the wall.

In passing, boredom may seem the most disturbing human condition for all of us, feeling empty and unwilling to do anything, and not having anything to do at all, but the truth is that this particular moment is the moment when the mind activates an exceptional situation in linking ideas and solving problems and crises , in a way that may result in creative ideas that transform the entire course of your life on a personal level.

The speaker personally went through this stage, especially after giving birth to her first child and immersing herself in all the usual routines of mothers, and she noticed that the boredom stage helped her to achieve excellent projects and ideas, which made her feel curious to know what exactly happens when we are bored, and most importantly: How do we benefit from those The moment we deal with as one of the most provocative and narrow moments of our lives.

Distinctive habits of creative thinkers

If you look at all areas, great innovators are the ones most likely to fail, because they try the most.

Let us take the composers of classical music, for example, the elite among them. Why do some of them occupy more pages in encyclopedias than others?

And their writings as well, why are they re-recorded more than once?

The reason is the huge amount of literature they produce.

The more you produce, the more variety you get, and the more chances you have of coming up with something really creative.

If we want to get more creative, we have to generate a lot of ideas.

Adam Grant, a psychologist, gives an interesting lecture that traces the sources of great ideas that come from innovators, whether entrepreneurs and the wealthy on the one hand, or scientists, artists, and musicians on the other.

In all cases, there must be a specific template in which all these creators participate, even if their orientations and fields differ, but the law remains the same.

In the "Distinctive Habits of Creative Thinkers" lecture, which achieved massive views that exceeded seven million views, and was considered one of the most important "TED" lectures that shed light on the concept of creativity, innovation and the flow of ideas.

Here Grant presents 3 specific habits that he has observed in almost all creatives, with no exceptions, all three of whom are unexpected.

The most prominent of these habits and the most important of them is the ability of the creator to embrace failure, because he is - contrary to expectation - more prone to failure than others, and it is this repeated failure that leads him to create amazing creations that others cannot come up with.

The lecture focuses on the theme “You need a lot of bad ideas to come up with a few brilliant ideas!”.

Find your elusive creative genius

14 million views of this lecture, which was given in 2009 at the "TED" theater by the international writer and writer Elizabeth Gilbert, who gained huge fame after her famous book, which achieved great sales around the world, "Food, Prayer and Love", which was later turned into a movie.

Here, Gilbert explains, through her funny talk, what she is trying to convey to the audience by diving into the dimensions of creativity, based on a rule: Genius is not limited to others, each of us has his own genius, but he has not yet found it.

As a world-renowned veteran writer, Gilbert sees fear as an important driver of creativity.

Before entering the world of writing, she was afraid of failing in this field.

After entering the world of writing, she was terrified of the failure of her published novels.

When her most famous novel was released and she became a world-class writer with huge sales, she was once again afraid of the future, whether the next was worse or whether she could write something else new and special.

A series of fears that, in the end, turned out to be the main driver of the genius of artists and geniuses throughout history in various fields, the fear of failure pushes them to success, the fear of stillness pushes them to move, the fear of collapse pushes them to focus, the fear of falling pushes them to rise!

The lecture is a mixture of personal visions and perceptions on the one hand, and a historical and informational sequence on the other hand to explain the concept of genius and creativity, which is designed to be two elements implanted in each of us, but some discovered it early, others discovered it late, and some third - which is definitely the worst luck - did not discover it at all. .

Where does the creativity inside you hide?

One of the principles of creativity is to have childhood trauma, when I was 14 I discovered that in 1967 my brother, and only six months later my father, both had brain cancer.

My mother and I did not comprehend this fact, and yet this same shock was the reason for the big questions I asked myself from then until today: Why do these things happen?

How does it occur?

The American writer of Chinese origin, "Amy Tan", has a different opinion about creativity, which may be a little frustrating and yet it has its justifications.

The writer and novelist gave her lecture on the TED stage in 2008 entitled "Where does creativity disappear?", and achieved a large percentage of views that exceeded two million views on the official TED platform, and was considered one of the most important lectures that shed light on the sources of creativity and attracting distinctive ideas.

Shock, Amy Tan believes that trauma has a very important role in sparking the creative process of anyone in any possible field, starting with the technical fields and not ending with companies and business and professional and career excellence.

It is very difficult for a creative person who has not suffered from a shock at some point in his life, let alone if he did not experience it at an early stage in his life that would make him enter the first step of the creative cycle: thinking outside the ordinary, and asking the two eternal questions: Why?

and how?

In the lecture, Amy Tan explains many of the axes that she monitored during her experience as a writer and novelist regarding the creative process, and how she herself monitored the development of her creativity in her field, and compared her to other creative models that seemed clear that she shared large parts of her personal experience that - despite her pain and problems - was A reason to reach what it has reached.

In the end, the consensus seems clear in all these lectures that creative ideas in our lives are the result of many different factors, fortunately they are available to all of us without exception, and fortunately also that superintelligence is not one of them!