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Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques
Michael Michalko
Top 10 Best Quotes
“Creators are joyful and positive. Creators look at “what is” and “what can be” instead of “what is not.” Instead of excluding possibilities, creators include all possibilities, both real and imagined. They choose to interpret their own world and do not rely upon the interpretations of others. And most importantly, creators are creative because they believe they are creative.”
“The CEO of a major publishing house was concerned about the lack of creativity among his editorial and marketing staffs. He hired a group of high-priced psychologists to find out what differentiated the creative employees from the others. After studying the staff for one year, the psychologists discovered only one difference between the two groups: The creative people believed they were creative and the less creative people believed they were not.”
“Thomas Edison held 1,093 patents. He was a great believer in exercising his mind and the minds of his workers and felt that without a quota he probably wouldn't have achieved very much. His personal invention quota was a minor invention every ten days and a major invention every six months. To Edison, an idea quota was the difference between eating beefsteak or a plateful of Black Beauty stew.”
“handles. One handle represents the nature of your business today, the other represents”
“To increase your self-affirmation, get in the habit of remembering your successes, your good qualities and characteristics, and forgetting your failures.”
“Therefore the skillful commander takes up a position in which he cannot be defeated and misses no opportunity to master his enemy.”
“Record all the things you like about yourself—your positive qualities, characteristics, and traits. Include the successes you have had in every area of your life: work, home, school, and so on. Keep adding to this list as you think of more things and as you accomplish more. Acknowledging yourself, your abilities, and your own unique qualities will encourage you to get moving.”
“It doesn’t matter how many times you have failed in the past; what matters is the successful attempt, which should be remembered and reinforced.”
“You have to record your own ideas, as, so far as I know, there is no store that sells Cliffs Notes on your past thoughts.”
“Whenever Thomas Edison was about to hire a new employee, he would invite the applicant over for a bowl of soup. If the person salted his soup before tasting it, Edison would not offer him the job. He did not hire people who had too many assumptions built into their everyday life. Edison wanted people who consistently challenged assumptions.”
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Book Keywords:
idea-generation, assumptions, challenges, goals, invention, creativity-techniques, creativity