Link Practices

Throughout this blog, I’ve mostly avoided saying things like “You need to do this” or “You need to do that.” Whenever an author tells me what I need to do, I roll my eyes. How do they know what I need? They don’t even know me. It always sounds a little self-important, like someone pretending … Read more

“Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.” That old saying highlights the importance of hard work and stick-to-itiveness. But that ninety-nine percent isn’t the real mystery. The interesting part is that one percent. Where does inspiration actually come from? How do new ideas arrive in our heads? Think about Archimedes shouting “Eureka!” in … Read more

When a new discovery lands in your mind, it doesn’t just arrive — it splashes. It’s a drop of water falling into a still glass of water. But not gently — disruptively. It punches a crater into the surface, sending ripples outward, stirring mini-currents and eddies below, launching a column upward. Some discoveries rewire your … Read more

I’m going to just come right out and say it. This blog post is about how the world tends toward chaos unless people act, and there’s some noble beauty to be found in that activity.  OK, there it is. You can stop reading right now and go do something else if you like, because it … Read more

Alright, let’s talk about your 168 hours. We all get the same amount of time each week (24×7), but it’s what we do with the time we have that counts. Since tonight is Oscar night, let’s look at this topic like a movie – the pacing, the plot, it all changes depending on the different … Read more

When you are born, your world is small. Small eyes. Small ears. Small face brushing against your small blanket. As you start to learn, your world grows. It gets filled with images and sounds and discoveries. Stuff reveals itself to you, like unfurling flowers with intoxicating scents. At first, the stuff you learn is mostly … Read more

A recurring theme in this blog is about connecting the unconnected. But how do you know when unconnected things can be connected? As with lateral thinking, sometimes it helps to change your perspective. Here are a few mental devices that can help you do just that. I want to introduce something I call the Rewind … Read more

I’m fascinated with this idea that simple things can interact to create complex results. Think about that for a moment. Sometimes you can combine things in such a way as to create properties that are greater than the properties of the things being combined. They adopt heightened characteristics when they interact. Nature is full of … Read more

An essential step in developing good ideas is discarding bad ones. The writers’ vivid expression “Murder your darlings” suggests that even your favorite ideas should be trashed if they don’t advance your project. You might have meticulously crafted the most inspiring characters, juicy plot lines, and pithy phrases since the Bard of Avon himself, but … Read more

It has been said that writers don’t necessarily have more ideas than other people; it’s just that they notice when they do have ideas. Writers develop a sort of metacognition, which is an awareness of one’s own thought process. In fact, this process isn’t unique to writers; it is prevalent in anyone who devotes mental … Read more

In the post The Three Types of Transformation, we discussed refracting as one of the three types of transformation, along with expanding and contracting. You can read the full post here. Recall, refracting is when you transform something by changing its purpose. I was in an airport toy store recently, and although it had just … Read more

Many of these blog posts discuss practices you can use to discover singular links. These fall into three categories, each involving a different way of transforming the subject of your work. They include, Expanding, when you transform something by creating new iterations of it. Contracting, when you transform something by removing some elements of it.  … Read more

“The best ideas are born from the union of disparate thoughts.” – Unknown   Before September 11, 2001, the idea to take down skyscrapers using commercial airplanes had not occurred to many people. It had obviously occurred to some people, including the group of terrorists who had been secretly plotting for months, but it had … Read more

You may wonder if anyone can put together singular links, or if certain people are better at it than others. Spoiler alert, yes, anyone can. However, since there are many different kinds of brains, some people are better at making certain types of connections than others. Harold Gardner, developmental psychologist, researcher, and educator, formulated the … Read more

I remember my first visit to New York City when I walked into a deli to order some breakfast. There was a cacophony of activity and voices and characters scurrying around like ants in a tree stump. Someone yelled from behind the counter, “Who’s next,” and two or three people shouted their orders. The deli … Read more

So far we have been diving into singular links in the context of adding one thing to another thing to create an altogether new thing. This describes a cumulative process. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. One plus one equals three. But there is another way to think about singular links, … Read more

When you combine various elements to create singular links, the resulting unions exhibit emergent properties. These properties spring into existence from the interaction of the underlying components. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Or, the whole demonstrates properties that its parts do not. The components interact in such a way so … Read more

When you notice something that’s exciting, it creates energy in your brain and your body. Kids demonstrate this most vividly when excitement jolts through them and they leap in the air, clap and flap, shriek and squeal. Their excitement on the inside becomes excitement on the outside. Adults sometimes shine with excitement too. Think of … Read more

Inside your skull, your brain is floating in a silky goo. your brain resembles other brains. If someone were to scoop your brain out of your head and plop it on a counter, you wouldn’t be able to identify it from other brains on the counter. However, it is not exactly like any of the … Read more

A toddler, held in his mother’s arms, sees a puppy and points at it. “Puppy,” his mom says, training the boy to associate the word with the dog. “It’s a puppy.” The baby holds his gaze, transfixed, and keeps pointing. He points for a comically long time, for such a long time that he causes … Read more

If we are going to pioneer original work, we have to be willing to reject conventional thinking and forge new mental paths on our own. Let’s unpack this by first exploring conventional thinking. One day, XYZ Corporation announces it has positive earnings and its stock price goes up. The news headline claims, “The stock price … Read more

There once was a man who was a merchant and father of a teenage daughter. Through a series of mishaps, he found himself unable to pay his debt to a money lender. The money lender proposed a bargain: he would pick up two stones from the stone path, a black one and a white one, … Read more

In our last post we discussed divergent thinking, which is the thought process used to generate many ideas related to a subject in a short amount of time. Quantity is key. The goal is to create as many ideas as possible, regardless of whether they are any good or not. Then, after we have created … Read more

“The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.” – Linus Pauling A great tool for making links is divergent thinking. Divergent thinking is a thought process used to generate many ideas related to a subject in a short amount of time. By exploring an anything-goes attitude to the subject, we … Read more

Our story begins three million years ago in patch of African lowlands where a monkey-like hominid named Lucy is scurrying away from her hominid companion. There were 3 signs that her companion was not having a good day. 1) the insects he ate for breakfast were upsetting his digestion, 2) an annoying splinter was still … Read more

Have you gone out to play today? People need playtime. Especially adults. Especially serious adults. Especially serious adults who think they have no time for playtime. Whimsy (noun) – playfully quaint or fanciful behavior or humor; a whim; a thing that is fanciful or odd. Some people are apprehensive about playtime because it is not … Read more

The “Invisible Gorilla Test” was an experiment that showed participants a short video showing players in white shirts and players in black shirts dribbling a basketball and passing among them. The test asked participants to count how many times the players in white shirts passed a basketball. While most viewers managed to count the number … Read more

Sitting down and staring at the blank slate of a new project can be intimidating, and it can fill our minds with both excitement and dread. Where do we find the inspiration for our work? How do we identify the important elements to link together? Optimism and pessimism wrestle for control of our thoughts like … Read more

“How can individuals identify links among seemingly unrelated influences to make innovative new discoveries?” I asked that question to OpenAI/ChatGPT and, in about 30 seconds, I received this persuasive response… Identifying links among seemingly unrelated influences to make innovative new discoveries requires a combination of creativity, curiosity, and critical thinking. Here are a few steps … Read more

Imagine you open up a comic book and the first page shows a close up of a man’s smirking face. You have no context. Who is this man? Why is he smirking? “He seems pretty smug,” you may think. You turn the page to get more information about why he is smirking. The next page, … Read more

Where do you discover new ideas? How do you find inspiration? What gives you new perspectives? What is the flash that takes you from something routine and conventional to something rare and extraordinary? How do you learn to create? How do you place ourselves in situations where creativity flows through you? How do you create … Read more