Synopses & Reviews
Based on the authors wildly popular
Huffington Post article 18 Things That Creative People Do Differently” (which generated 5 million views and 500,000 Facebook shares in one week), this well-researched and engaging book uncovers what we know about creativity, and what anyone can do to enhance this essential aspect of their lives and work.
Filled with insights from the lives of well-known artists and visionaries, along with scientific findings and practical advice, this smart, lively and inspiring book reveals these creativity-sparking habits:
Daydreaming
Taking Time for Solitude
Seeking out New Experiences
Nurturing Emotional Sensitivity
Turning Challenges into Opportunities for Growth
Making Time for Play
Following Passions
Practicing Mindfulness
Listening to Intuition
Challenging the Status Quo
Achieving Mastery
What Quiet did for introverts Wired to Create will do for creative individuals, along with anyone who aspires to be onethat is, it will help them see themselves in a positive light and enhance their strengths, even though they are not always the most conventional ones.
Review
Praise for Scott Barry Kaufmans previous book, Ungifted:
“Ungifted is a virtuoso book that gracefully weaves science, psychology, and the authors personal experience into a powerful argument for valuing the cognitive strengths of all students, particularly those sidelined in the past by short-sighted assumptions about the limits of their potential.”
—Steve Silberman, correspondent, Wired magazine
“A warmly human and coolly scientific survey of both the reductive and the liberating fruits of two centuries of cognitive research.”
—The Scientist
“A convincing—and moving—case for the great potential of even an ‘ordinary mind.”
—Parade
Synopsis
Have better ideas, faster, without the stress and burnout. It isn't enough to just do your job anymore. In order to thrive in today's marketplace, all of us-even the accountants-have to be ready to generate brilliant ideas on demand.
Business creativity expert Todd Henry explains how to establish effective practices that unleash your creative potential. Born out of his consultancy and his popular podcast, Henry has created a practical method for discovering your personal creative rhythm. He focuses on five key elements:
* Focus: Begin with your end goal in mind. * Relationships: Build stimulating relationships and ideas will follow. * Energy: Manage it as your most valuable resource. * Stimuli: Structure the right "inputs" to maximize creative output. * Hours: Focus on effectiveness, not efficiency. This is a guide for staying inspired and experiencing greater creative productivity than you ever imagined possible.
Synopsis
Discover the ten things highly creative people do differently.
Is it possible to make sense of something as elusive as creativity? Based on psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman's groundbreaking research and Carolyn Gregoire's popular article in the Huffington Post, Wired to Create offers a glimpse inside the "messy minds" of highly creative people. Revealing the latest findings in neuroscience and psychology, along with engaging examples of artists and innovators throughout history, the book shines a light on the practices and habits of mind that promote creative thinking. Kaufman and Gregoire untangle a series of paradoxes-- like mindfulness and daydreaming, seriousness and play, openness and sensitivity, and solitude and collaboration - to show that it is by embracing our own contradictions that we are able to tap into our deepest creativity. Each chapter explores one of the ten attributes and habits of highly creative people:
Imaginative Play * Passion * Daydreaming * Solitude * Intuition * Openness to Experience * Mindfulness * Sensitivity * Turning Adversity into Advantage * Thinking Differently
With insights from the work and lives of Pablo Picasso, Frida Kahlo, Marcel Proust, David Foster Wallace, Thomas Edison, Josephine Baker, John Lennon, Michael Jackson, musician Thom Yorke, chess champion Josh Waitzkin, video-game designer Shigeru Miyamoto, and many other creative luminaries, Wired to Create helps us better understand creativity - and shows us how to enrich this essential aspect of our lives.
About the Author
Scott Barry Kaufman, Ph.D., is Scientific Director of The Imagination Institute in the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania, where he investigates the development and measurement of intelligence, creativity, and personality. He has written six previous books, including
Ungifted: Intelligence Redefined. He writes the blog Beautiful Minds for Scientific American, and regularly gives keynotes and workshops on the development of intelligence, creativity, and human potential.
Carolyn Gregoire is a Senior Writer at the Huffington Post. She has spoken at TEDx and the Harvard Public Health Forum, and has appeared on MSNBC, The Today Show, The History Channel and HuffPost Live.