Lesson 5 Unlock Your Original Thinking
Out of the Box with Original Thinking
Original thinking is the ability to think outside the box, to ____ at a problem, and to figure out a new, creative solution for it.
Many people choose to safely follow the path others have already paved, but it is difficult to achieve something exceptional in ____ way.
More often those who think differently achieve lasting success because to address the challenges of tomorrow, it’s essential to adopt a fresh approach ____ from yesterday.
____ how can individuals cultivate original thinking that leads to outstanding achievements?
Generate a ____ of Ideas
If you want to have ____ ideas, you must have numerous ideas.
Traditionally, people follow the ____ that they prefer “quality over quantity.”
However, in the ____ of ideas, quantity and quality are equally important.
Highly creative individuals do ____ actually produce better ideas than average ones.
Instead, they produce more ____
Their increased idea output means that they are more ____ to hit on something brilliant.
An excellent example is Pablo Picasso. Picasso is famous ____ a handful of artworks.
However, few people realize that Picasso’s ____ includes 2,800 ceramics, 1,800 paintings, 1,200 sculptures, and more than 12,000 drawings.
Again, only ____ fraction of them became famous.
Likewise, Mozart composed over 600 pieces before his death at ____ 35, only a handful of which are recognized as particularly creative.
Einstein ____ had more than 248 publications, but many of them didn’t have much impact.
The lesson here is to produce a ____ volume of work.
This way, you have more of a chance that one or two will ____ outstanding.
Just pour out whatever comes to mind and separate the gems from the ____
Don’t Rush
We are frequently told that procrastination is our ____ enemy.
Almost every self-help book describes successful people as being those ____ can overcome procrastination.
However, several moments of genius ____ stemmed from procrastination.
Great originals know how to utilize procrastination ____ a strategy in their idea production.
Procrastination encourages gradual progress rather than rapid progress, which leaves your brain open to a ____ range of ideas.
While procrastination may be the enemy of productivity, it can be a resource ____ creativity.
Few people know that Leondardo da ____ was a chronic procrastinator.
____ took him 16 years to complete the Mona Lisa.
Some of the things that took his attention away from work, like learning optics, transformed the way he modeled ____ and made him into a much better painter.
____ about Martin Luther King, Jr.?
The original script of ____ speech, believe it or not, didn’t contain the words “I have a dream.”
The night before the biggest speech of his life, he was up past ____ a.m. rewriting his script.
He was ____ in the audience waiting for his turn to go onto the stage and still writing notes on his script.
____ he got on stage, 11 minutes in, he heard Mahalia Jackson, his favorite singer, cry out: “Tell them about the dream, Martin.”
Encouraged by a shout ____ the audience, he drew upon some of his past talks, and the result became the landmark speech “I have a dream.”
By delaying the task of finalizing the speech until the very last minute, he left himself ____ to the widest range of possible ideas.
The text ____ set in stone, and he had the freedom to improvise.
Fight the Status Quo
The hallmark of originality ____ rejecting the default and finding out if a better option exists.
Your ability to do things differently, to question and refine the way ____ work is what makes you creative and different.
Your Internet browser is a pain? Change ____ You don’t like the system?
Say so! You have a new idea? Try it! You ____ a better way of doing things?
Test it! Most people ____ take any risk.
They’ll just stick with what ____ know, thinking it’ll be good enough.
But if you think that you can change things, then your originality and your creativity could make a big difference in ____ end.
The founders of an online eyewear company, for instance, couldn’t understand why it was so hard to find an affordable pair of ____
They thought the problem was interesting, so they conducted some ____
They found that just one ____ dominated 80% of the market.
As ____ result, they created a company that no one expected to thrive.
Instead of depending on only ____ stores where customers could try the eyeglasses on directly, they created a business where you could simply order inexpensive, high-quality eyewear online.
Using ____ business model, they were able to offer glasses that normally cost $500 for only $95.
In addition, ____ time a customer purchased glasses from them, they’d make a donation to charities.
All of this was possible because they ____ on the Internet.
The online ____ company has, without a doubt, been successful.
It was ____ as the most innovative business by a world-leading business magazine.
The company grew to ____ worth more than a billion dollars.
Anyone could have noticed the ____ with expensive glasses in stores, but it took courageous pioneers to find the answers.
Rules ____ systems are made by people.
This means they can be changed by people as ____
It’s a good idea to ____ the defaults.
We often believe ____ original insight is primarily a matter of nature: you are either born with it, or you aren’t.
But from a different perspective, it can be ____
The above ____ however, show that original thinking can be improved through our effort.
It turns ____ that we are all original thinkers in process.