Dedicated to the theme of the birth of ideas: from the history of insights that radically changed human life, to the mechanisms of thinking and ways of generating ideas in the modern world.

Video recording of the lecture

Who am I and why do I have the audacity to talk about how your brains work? I worked as a creative director for fifteen years, and it was my job to come up with something every day. At some point, I got tired of it, and I decided to take up reflection. Because it seems to me that the main difficulty with thinking is that you cannot think and think at the same time as you think.

It is physically impossible. This can only be done retroactively. Try to understand how the idea comes to your mind. This is actually a very exciting process. I've spent quite a bit of time figuring out how ideas pop into my head. And I came to a few fundamental conclusions, for which I am in a good position to receive the Nobel Prize.

The most important takeaway is that we all think the same way. We all have exactly the same functioning of the digestive system, the respiratory system, the nervous system, the circulatory system, the limbic system. There is no reason to believe that there are separate brains for each of us.

And I don’t know about you, but it really inspires me. The very thought that my brains are no different from those of Richard Feyman (American scientist, one of the founders of quantum electrodynamics - site), I love.

I understand that my only difference from Feyman is that I thought and quit, and Feyman continued to think

Actually, what is thinking from my point of view. There is such an author - Tatiana Chernigovskaya. Maybe you listened to it. I really don't like her. I do not like it because she carries syncopated nonsense - one from which nothing follows. Her thoughts jump chaotically: she starts talking about God, about the fact that the brain is the most complex device in the universe and other nonsense.

As a result, some kind of water is produced at the exit, and you do not understand what follows from this - you seem to have listened to the lecture, but it seems that you did not understand anything at all. From my point of view, there is no riddle in human thinking. The brain is incredibly primitive, and our only way of coming up with new ideas is by going through options. Everything. There is nothing but an enumeration of options.

Simply put, we can get out of our head only what we put there, rearranging it a little and swapping it. This leads to the following conclusion: as soon as you come across (absolutely no matter in what area) some new bright idea, your task is to steal this idea and figure out what is good about it.

Once you figured out how this idea works, why it is so cool, consider that it has become a part of you, and another mechanism has been added to your constructor. The fact is that the number of thinking operations in itself is very small - they can practically be counted on one hand. And you may ask the question: how were all these things created around us, if the number of variations is so limited?

From my point of view, the best metaphor is music. There are only seven notes, and the number of melodies is endless. Or a constructor. You can have a lot of sets, there are also many parts in them, but there are few ways to combine them.

I will try to expand on the topic in more detail. But first, a few words about where we are. To simplify a lot, we are in the ass. Complete and completely hopeless. But are there people here who are scared? For example, I am scared of what is happening now.

It's not scary because we're all going to die. The Chinese have a saying: "God forbid you live in an era of change." It comes from the old days of the agricultural cycle, when a peasant could study all the basic agricultural operations, all the signs, and continue to live his whole life using this baggage for up to 12 years.

Sowing, taking care of the harvest, harvesting, digging out worms from the ground and, in fact, processing the crop. Everything was repeated every year. And then such a concept as a completed higher education was still legitimate.

I think you can forget about this nonsense: education can only be incomplete. Now the absolute norm is to get a new education every five to seven years. Because with a high degree of probability, all of you will change jobs. I will try to explain why.

The fact is that we are now in the most embarrassing moment of the fourth industrial revolution. It is unpleasant because the speed has already been picked up and further changes will occur incredibly quickly. I will tell you very briefly about the first three revolutions, namely about what they led to.

The first is the industrial revolution: steam, cast iron, Jenny's spinning wheel, and the like. She radically changed the world. Industrialization began, people began to move from village to city.

Sometime in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the world was swept by the second industrial revolution. Steel, electricity, conveyor belt - all this completely changed the world. In the early 20th century, 80% of Americans were farmers and found it difficult to feed themselves.

Today, US agriculture is the largest in the world. Maybe Kiselev said that the Americans do not produce anything except dollars. This is wrong. America is the largest (including agricultural) power. The country produces just under 20% of the world's food.

And if at the beginning of the 20th century this was done with a much lower result of 80% of the population, today farmers, together with hired Mexicans for harvesting, are less than 3%. From this, by the way, it follows that the thesis of the communists about the unity of the peasantry and workers simply does not work. There are only a few farmers left, and the number of workers is sharply reduced.

In the 50-60s of the 20th century, the third industrial revolution began, which is associated with space, nuclear energy, the first computers and the emergence of transnational corporations. This changed the world a lot, including bringing down the economy of the USSR - our country simply became uncompetitive.

And finally, now the fourth revolution is underway, which, it seems to me, is stronger than all three previous ones combined. These are the Internet, cellular communications, neural networks, artificial intelligence and GMOs (which, in fact, saves humanity).

Take a look at the two photos above. The first depicts Fifth Avenue in 1900. The only car highlighted in red is the rest of the horse. The second photo shows Fifth Avenue 13 years later. A horse is highlighted in a circle, and everything else is cars.

In the States, the most popular profession is a truck driver. These drivers have families of about ten million. There are also small towns, through which the highway passes, where motels, gas stations, restaurants and brothels operate. These industries are driven by drivers. That is, all these people will become unnecessary, because now there are systems that work perfectly without a driver.

But the problem isn't just about drivers - it's about everyone. The same is true for the marine industry. Ships without a crew are already being tested. Before our eyes, the last few "lines of defense" are falling, which seemed to us unshakable.

It all started with chess. Everyone said that chess is a science combined with art, and therefore a machine can never compare with a person in this. After chess, they said the same thing about playing Go. The number of options for moves in it is greater than that of atoms in the Universe, so it was believed that it was impossible to calculate this “tree”.

And what's most interesting is that we don't even now understand how a computer learns to play Go. In fact, he plays millions of games against himself and thus hones his skills. The next line of defense was poker. It was believed, okay, chess and go are games with complete information. But poker is a psychology, bluff, an opportunity to push money and so on. But people are not competitive in this too.

Until a few years ago, the average holding time for one share was about four years. A person invested money and after four years decided whether to sell to him or not to sell this share, and a bank trader made about 50 transactions a day about buying and selling.

Today, in some markets, the average time of holding a share is four seconds, and one trading robot makes about 10 thousand buy-and-sell transactions per second. Do you understand that we are simply not needed?

The small balloon in the photo above is a Japanese robot floating on the ISS. It is controlled from the ground, weighs one kilogram and performs about 10% of the work of the entire crew.

Do you know how the war in Afghanistan is going on now? In Nevada - on the other side of the world - employees come into the office, sit down to the monitor and start flying drones. Those fly over the mountains and plains of Afghanistan, looking for the Mujahideen and destroying them at the command of operators from the Earth.

Of course, there are situations when communication is lost. The spooks also learned to use microwaves and jamming. In this case, the drone, on command, makes several circles, trying to find a connection, and then returns to base.

But while he is flying to the base, he has an automatic target search program. So this program is much more effective than any operator-gunners. The drone kills people, it distinguishes the "good" from the "bad" and kills the conventionally bad much more efficiently.

Another example: during the Franco-Prussian war at the end of the 19th century, it took 1,300 bullets to kill one enemy soldier. Do you think this figure has decreased over time? During the Vietnam War, 200 thousand bullets were required to kill one enemy soldier, today in Afghanistan - 300 thousand bullets.

There are concepts such as barrage fire, warning fire, square fire, and so on. Can you imagine how much it costs to kill one enemy? The sniper is the elite of the elite. To prepare one good sniper, you need to spend several years on hard training and shoot a wagon of ammunition. Special units work for one sniper. I don’t know if you’ve seen it - there is a film called "Sniper" about an American sniper in Vietnam.

I will briefly tell the story: this sniper died, and his wife, who has nothing to do with military affairs at all, was taken to this place. She is blind, works as a programmer. She was armed with a special intelligent rifle, which itself determines the enemy, the direction and strength of the wind, the number of charges in the cartridge and even tells the person who lies behind the other that it is time to pull the trigger.

This rifle was given to a woman who has no experience, well, perhaps knows how to pull the trigger. And held an open competition between her and the US sniper champion. As you can imagine, it was a rout. The American champion hit 58% of the targets, and the blind girl hit 100% of the targets with a rifle.

We are uncompetitive, we are forgetful, we operate with a very small amount of information. Our performance is not good at all.

Another extremely serious resource is big data. With the help of big data, human behavior can be predicted with very high accuracy. Recently in St. Petersburg they were looking for a serial killer and could not find it in any way - he did not leave a trace at all.

Then someone came up with a bright idea: we know several areas in which the murders were committed, and we know the approximate time of the crimes. Let's sift through all the phone numbers: was there someone who had a phone at all these points at a certain time. Thus, the killer was identified.

Facebook conducted a study last month on 86,000 volunteers. These people filled out a questionnaire of 100 questions. Facebook had the only source of information about a person - the likes they put. So, according to the data obtained, it is enough for a person to put ten likes on the Internet on what he likes, after which Facebook can predict his behavior.

Today, the average Facebook user has 270 likes and this number is constantly growing. Perhaps the social network knows more about your behavior than your next of kin.

By and large, I just want to scare you. While our country is pressing on Polish apples with tractors, a huge wave is approaching us in the meantime. It's even hard to describe how different the world will be. From my point of view, such a concept as "pension" will disappear. But it will be replaced by unconditional income, because this is the only way to avoid food riots.

Now let's finally get to the topic of thinking and how people think. I want to tell the story of the first superman in the history of European literature, who appeared before James Bond, Spider-Man and even before Sherlock Holmes. This is Rocumball. The author of "Rocambol" was the literary negro Alexandre Dumas (referring to the popular French novelist Ponson du Terrail - site), who wrote several novels for him.

The story about Rocumball was printed in parts, in paperback, and all of France was waiting for the continuation. Rocambol got into incredible troubles, got out of them brilliantly, fenced, seduced - a kind of James Bond of the 19th century. The only problem was that the rights to Rocumball belonged not to the author, but to the publisher.

As the popularity of Rocumball grew, the author's appetites naturally also increased, he wanted to get more money. The publisher at some point decided that he was paying the author too much, and that such nonsense in industrial quantities could be generated by anyone.

Then he said to the author: “My friend, I felt very good with you, but now you are finishing your last novel and we are saying goodbye. You cannot kill the hero, and several hungry journalists will add a sequel three times cheaper. "

“Good,” said the author of Rocumball. And the last book about the adventures of Superman ended in this way: the pirates caught the brave Rockumball, tied him hand and foot, locked him in a steel cage and threw him into the sea. And that's it, the author left, and the whole of France froze in anticipation. Everyone wondered what would happen next, the hero couldn’t die like that.

Then the budget successors got down to business, and they were at a dead end. Rockumbol had to be rescued somehow, but how to rescue him was unclear, because everything they proposed was of no use.

And a week after all these ethereal attempts, the publisher gave up: “Buddy, forgive me, I got excited. I am attractive, you are attractive as hell. Let's be best friends, I agree to your terms, save our guy, because France is waiting. "

A new edition comes out. Readers excitedly open the sequel and see: "Having got out of the deadly abyss, Rocambol swam to the shore with confident strokes." Everything. At this moment, everyone thinks the same thing: “What, it was possible?”.

So, from my point of view, the most important condition for productive thinking is courage. You may remember the story of the man who traded a paperclip for a house. In my opinion, in just nine operations a year. And what, so it was possible? Or about how the guys bought a site of 1000x1000 pixels, began to sell each one for a dollar, after which they earned $ 1 million. Was that also possible?

The fact is that the pressure of society on us is so great that we are all cowards and opportunists. We are very similar in the way we think. There was such an experiment with a hungry chicken, a transparent fence and feed. All the chicken had to do was run around the fence, either on the left or on the right.

But the chicken took several steps in one direction, then looked and thought, "Something I am moving too far away from the food," came back and took several steps in the other direction. Our brains work in much the same way. But Bill Gates once said well: "If no one laughs at your idea, then it is not good enough."

There is a very good exercise in thinking: always doubt the obvious, that which no one doubts. As a rule, this is where the most interesting lies.

For example: there is such a mode of transport - a trolleybus. For some reason, a trolleybus can only be entered through the front door, which is a very long time, because a passenger puts a bag, his sensor does not work, he turns over the bag, some grandmother buys a pass from the driver in the meantime, the queue grows, everyone swears.

And then there is another form of transport - a tram, in which you can enter any door. I can't even imagine what a titanic effort of thought will be required in order to take the risk and borrow the "tram" experience and apply it in a trolleybus. And so absolutely in everything.

In China, there are family doctors who receive money only when their client is not sick. As soon as a person gets sick, it means that the doctor is not doing his job well. Can you imagine how he runs after his client? “My friend, you sit a lot. It seems to me that you need to move more, let's revise your diet. "

Imagine we introduce the same system for road workers. The guys will receive money only when there is not a single hole on the road. Do you think these people will continue to lay asphalt in the rain? Don't stop doubting the obvious.

We all studied according to the so-called Prussian education system. All the children sit in silence; until the teacher asks, they are silent. And the worst thing is that until the dumbest one understands, the class does not move on. And this is a terrible catastrophe, because in fact, the only resource that a person has is his time. And it is spent at school very stupidly.

The entire school curriculum without overvoltage can be completed in two years. You cannot limit the maximum learning rate. Schools should dictate only the minimum speed: if a child is good at mathematics, let him be in the eleventh grade in mathematics, and in singing he will be on a par with the rest.

Another monstrous habit that is taught in school is punishment for mistakes. If you think that it is impossible with a child without punishment and twos, then I will tell you that people thought the same way, who believed that if the child is not flogged in class, then he will not study.

The fact is that the only way to learn new things available to a person is to consistently make mistakes. What is an experiment? This is when you consistently make one mistake after another. You put forward a theory and then you try to test it. Not everyone has the patience, like Edison, to do ten thousand experiments to find a spiral for a light bulb, but mistakes should be encouraged.

How is a good scientist different from a charlatan? If a good scientist has a hypothesis, then, first of all, he will not look for examples that confirm the hypothesis, but examples that refute it. because there are plenty of supporting examples.

Our tiny brain weighs about one and a half kilograms (give or take). It consumes up to 20% of the total energy of the body. Thinking is very expensive. That is why a person tries to do everything without thinking. That is, he once figured out how it works, and continues to perform all such actions automatically.

I hope the future is to translate learning into play. Because a person can work hard and hard for a short time, but he can play endlessly. I have read a huge number of books on the technology of thinking, but nowhere have I come across the simple idea that the most important thing in the process of thinking is yourself.

Because you have to think, you have to solve the problem. Therefore, you must know how to get yourself in the right frame of mind. How does an amateur differ from a professional, for example? An amateur can give a very good result if the work inspires him, if the stars stand up correctly, if he is in a good mood.

And a professional always gives a good result - regardless of whether he quarreled with his wife, whether his daughter's hamster died, or whether he has a toothache. The basis of professionalism is knowing yourself well. Know what gives you pleasure.

There was a German industrialist Krupp who brought Hitler to power. He was very much inspired by the "smell of nature" - as he called the scent of manure. He even specially conducted ventilation from the stable to his office. And Agatha Christie, for example, hated doing the dishes.

She did not understand why she, a great writer, should spend her time scrubbing plates of grease. And so when she needed to come up with a particularly sophisticated murder, she began to wash the dishes. And her hatred for this occupation was transformed.

Since we are not very different from animals - in fact, we are animals - such a thing as food reinforcement works very well for us. In other words, if you have something that you really love to eat - for example, a chocolate bar - then put it in front of you, but do not touch it until you solve the problem.

And when you do solve it, firstly, this chocolate bar will seem much tastier to you than usual, and secondly, an important process will take place in your head: between the center responsible for solving the problem and the organs responsible for pleasure, communication will be established. Your task is to strengthen this connection in every possible way, because as soon as you start to enjoy difficult things, your productivity will increase dramatically.

Americans have the so-called “rule of three Bs”. They believe that all the ingenious ideas were invented in just three places: the bus (bus), the bed (bed) and the bathroom (bathroom). I urge you to know what is the most productive time for you, and to protect it, because then it will be pleasant for you to work.

However, it seems to me that the list is missing another ingenious thing - a walk. A huge number of ideas were invented just on the go, when a person was just walking somewhere. Therefore, often to solve the problem, you should not sit still, it is better to distract yourself and take a walk, and the brain will continue to work at the same time.

By the way, another good example is traffic jam. For a modern person, this is a unique opportunity to be alone. At this time, you do whatever you want: you want - you listen to audiobooks, you want - music, you want - you think about anything. You will not get there faster from the fact that you are going to boil. It is a simple thought that with an effort of will, you can make yourself a much happier person.

There is a classic example given by Adam Smith. This example at one time had a very strong effect on Karl Marx and, among other things, inspired him to write Capital. There was such a thing as a large safety pin. In those days, the farm was extremely necessary, but expensive.

Because to make one pin, it was required to do 18 operations: stretch the wire, cut the wire, sharpen the wire, bend it - in general, the process is not quick. A good craftsman could make up to 20 pins in a day. This is not enough, that's why they were so expensive.

And then an amazing experience was carried out. Eighteen masters were chosen and each was given only one operation. It would seem that at school we were taught that the sum does not change from the rearrangement of the places of the terms. What's the difference: 18 multiplied by 20, or 20 multiplied by 18 - all the same, the output will be 360.

Imagine the surprise of those present when, by the end of the working day, 18 craftsmen had made not 360, but 48 thousand pins. Such a simple experiment led to the emergence of a conveyor belt - in fact, the most inhuman thing in the world. Because forcing a person to perform the same operation throughout his life is, in my opinion, a crime.

Why did I tell this story? To the fact that I wanted to do the same with the process of thinking. I wanted to break everything that our brain can do into very simple operations. And I came to the conclusion that there are far fewer of them than 18.

Folding 1 + 1 is an example of a simple thinking algorithm. Imagine we have a subset of whales and a subset of sharks. At some point they intersect, and this intersection gives us whale sharks. This idea of ​​adding two realities is very effective. I will explain now.

There is a Respublika store in Moscow. At one time it began as a bookstore, then book sales fell, and entrepreneurs began to sell, by and large, everything there. Including a lot of all kinds of Chinese, creative bullshit. They even have gum magnets, and I know people who think this is a cool idea.

I'll explain now: it works on the principle of two intersecting circles. Imagine that you are a company that produces these magnets, and you need to somehow diversify your assortment. In one set we have magnets, and in the other subset we have something that can hang vertically on the wall.

Then we get a huge number of options. It can be a screw, it can be a nail, it can be any small animal, from a fly to a gecko, and so on.

Or another example. There is also a stand for toothpicks in the form of a voodoo doll. Here we do the same: imagine that we are making coasters for toothpicks. To do this, we think about what something long and thin can stick out of.

The first thing that comes to mind is hedgehogs, porcupines, brushes, combs, Saint Sebastian, cactus and so on. Do you see how easy it is?

Another very good way of thinking is to think with things. The fact is that our brain is able to establish a connection between two objects, no matter how different they may seem. In the movies, this is called the Kuleshov effect.

If first we show the food, and then the person's face, then it will seem to us that the person is hungry. If at first we show a naked woman, and then the same person's face, then it will seem to us that he lusts. Etc.

I'll tell you a little story about an alpine ski resort that once ran into a problem. From time to time, the wires next to it froze due to accumulated snow and could break, in which case the resort was left without electricity. Then the owners invited a group of engineers and gave them a task. They fought for a long time, and then, when the group finally reached a dead end, the chief said: “Guys, the brainstorming session is over. Go to the village and have everyone buy an item and come back with it for discussion. "

One man walked through an alpine village and brought a pot of honey. “So what?” They asked him. “Well, how is that? We install a pot of honey on the top of the power line. Bears, attracted by the smell of honey, will climb on it, shake the power lines, then the snow will be shaken off them. "

Then another said: “Listen, we are constantly flying helicopters. They transport the sick, throw climbers and skiers on the mountains. Let the helicopters fly for a reason, but along or not far from the lines. Then they will solve this problem with snow practically free of charge ”.

Do you understand what I mean? It's good when a person thinks. There was such a thing on Kickstarter - a cube with different buttons, switches, shutters. In general, such a gum for the hands. And he enjoyed some kind of wild popularity. Well, it's very useful to keep something like that in a drawer. Many different things. And if a problem arises, just sort out and think about how you can solve it with their help.

Creative- the word overseas, in Russian it is often translated as creativity. Derived from the English word create / creation - to create / create. Accordingly, creativity is not the property and property of only artists, poets and musicians. As a person's ability to create something meaningfully NEW, different from the existing one, creativity is the essence and the key to the success of each particular business. Forgive me for the generalization, but everyone in the organization should be “creative” - from the janitor to the top manager, everyone, mainly, in the vector of their work tasks.

Markets and products change rapidly, create and disappear in just a couple of years, and sometimes months. The new strategy of the company has a chance to be implemented only with the coordinated creation of NEW products in each organizational link of the business. The owner's new ambition is transformed into a new product of the company, into new production technologies, into new forms of packaging, into new logistics systems, into new approaches to people management. Everything new is unique for a very limited period of time - competitors and antitrust committees do not allow us to enjoy our uniqueness for a long time.

But how we love to tell the client that we have prepared a unique commercial offer for him! And then we try to justify this very uniqueness to him. Colleagues, the uniqueness should be obvious! I am deliberately missing now such important business characteristics as applicability, economic feasibility and other criteria that, according to common sense, should accompany uniqueness. Here and now, my task is to slightly shake your interest in the ability to create something new, to create.

It's time to move on to our earthly tasks, namely, to create a unique commercial proposal. They say that every moment of communication is, in essence, the process of selling yourself. The term "commercial offer" also makes sense to understand quite broadly. Any message that you send to the environment is commercial. His others must, as it were, "buy".

Below are the principles of CREATING a commercial offer. However, these principles are universal and can be applied to the creation of a new product or idea. But even if you already have a product, idea or the essence of a commercial proposal, it makes sense to apply these principles here as well - at least to create a new attractive "package".

These principles are not so much techniques as basic attitudes that help in shaping the result. So.

Principle 1. There is no right solution.

When creating something new, we must "relax the brain", stop worrying about the existence of some correct solution that we do not know. The very task that you set yourself - to create a NEW - already presupposes the absence in the present of a solution prepared and tested by someone. This principle leads us to rethink the concept of "right". Of course, there is a correct solution, it will be more accurate in the future, but it will be found by you.
If you succeed in accepting this principle, then you will free yourself from the fear of making a mistake - for example, because of your alleged ignorance of "correctness".

Principle 2. Formulate ideal finite properties.

Any solutions, commercial proposals, any products are unique only if they have distinctive properties (or unique consumer properties, if we are talking about a product). If there are unique properties, then there is a unique offer.

Why is it so important to formulate exactly ideal final properties? Because it is often difficult to assume in advance what will become the filling (elements, parts, services) of the "commercial offer", but you must understand what properties your future creation should have. This allows you to clearly determine the direction of the search for solutions, to avoid empty trials and errors. The image of ultimate ideality provides clear criteria for setting, correcting tasks and evaluating the solutions found. So, the essence of the principle is first the properties, and only then the content.

Principle 3. Become a Figure in the background. Find a way to stand out.

Regardless of what exactly you want to create, a unique product or solution, it can be classified by related properties and attributed to a specific group of products, services, or inventions as such. Getting into a group of our own kind with our product or proposal, we want the uniqueness of our proposal to be obvious and clearly noticed by our target audience.

To implement the third principle, it is necessary to thoroughly study the properties of what will act as your "background". Explore the characteristics of other offers that are competing with you for audience attention. In essence, this is what advertisers usually call "detachment" from competitors. And you can use your competitors as a background if you study them well. This is why inside information is so expensive.

Principle 4. Combine the incompatible. ...

The lion's share of all emerging new unique solutions, inventions, concepts are formed by combining and interacting certain properties that were not previously connected with each other functionally or even thematically. To implement the fourth principle, human experience has accumulated many methods and approaches, only some of them we will name: synectics, bisociation, metaphorization, analogy, etc. All of them, one way or another, are united by a common detail - to find a new solution to a problem (problem), it is necessary to go beyond the area in which this problem arose, or to introduce into the starting conditions of the problem some properties from extraneous areas of knowledge and practice.

The following pattern often appears: the more varied your (or team's) knowledge, the more solutions you can develop. The consequence of this pattern has already become that many companies, whose success is based on innovative developments, have ceased to rely only on their "pocket" creative and design services, and have begun to take their unsolvable tasks outside the corporation, offering to brainwash everyone in exchange for reward. And it turned out that this approach quickly bore fruit, many problems that had not been solved over the years by professional engineers and creatives were suddenly solved by strangers, who often live somewhere on another continent.

Principle 5. Don't be better - become different.

The essence of the fifth principle is in distinguishing the future self from the present oneself. Many of us have been trying for a very long time and in vain to create something new, trying to change what is, improving what we already have. Become even smarter, more kind, sociable, etc. Yes, such improvement results in some changes, but often minor ones. If you want to achieve a truly qualitative leap, a transition to a new level of development in anything, in personal growth, in financial well-being, in business performance, then you will have to find a way to become different.

To qualitatively become different means to bring into yourself, into your product, into your commercial offer, something that was not there before. And sometimes it is necessary not to add, but on the contrary, to remove something from the already existing set of qualities, and then you get a new product of your creation.

The most difficult transformations are personal. But they are the most fruitful. If you manage to become different, then this will very quickly affect the innovativeness of those proposals, products, thoughts that you bring into the world.

Develop your creativity, knowing that the ability to create is not only a divine gift and the lot of innate talents. Technologies for the development of creativity and the development of new ideas for business can and must be mastered, especially in today's realities.

I would like to conclude my recommendations with the words of the most multifaceted and prolific creative person of all times and peoples, Leonardo da Vinci, who said: - “If you want to develop your mind, study the science of art; study the art of science; learn to see the world as a whole; understand that everything is interconnected ".

Admit it, sometimes you envy in a white way those who came up with some cool idea that the whole world has learned about. We read Harry Potter and think: "Oh, why didn't I come up with this story about the wizard boy from Hogwarts!" Or we watch the video that won the Cannes Lions festival and think: “What a brilliant and simple idea. Why didn’t it occur to me? ” Ideas are in the air, we all know that. But how to get an idea out of this very air that will “shoot”?

Creative expert Michael Mikalko, in his book Rice Storming and 21 More Ways to Think Outside the Box, talks about how to become truly creative.

The right to choose

Creative people are joyful and confident. They look at what is and what can be, not what is not. Instead of excluding possibilities, creators allow all possibilities, both real and perceived.

Can you imagine Leonardo da Vinci being too shy to claim a lot due to his lack of education? Albert Einstein, afraid to look stupid because the clerk from the patent office will not be able to present a theory of the universe? Michelangelo, refusing to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, because he had never painted frescoes before?

Or Vincent van Gogh complaining about the inability to sell his paintings as evidence of his lack of talent?

We choose what makes us significant or insignificant. We decide to be creative or indifferent. No matter how indifferent the world around us may be to our decisions, these decisions must be made by ourselves.

Ultimately, our own creativity is determined by what we choose to do or not do. And when we decide and choose, our destiny is determined.

Quota of Ideas and Thomas Edison

Set a quota of so many new ideas per day for your job, such as five ideas a day for one week. You will see that it is most difficult to give the first five, then they will come to mind on their own. The more ideas you put forward, the more chances of winning. Try to keep your quota, even if the ideas that come to your mind seem ludicrous or far-fetched at first glance.

Thomas Edison and his famous light bulb

Thomas Edison patented 1,093 inventions. He firmly believed that it was necessary to exercise his own mind and the minds of his employees, and believed that without a set quota of ideas he would not have achieved so much. His personal quota was equal to one small invention every ten days and one large one every six months.

Ideas magazine

The idea journal is great, you just need to know how it works. Usually they plan to “just write down ideas,” but this is not very effective. The most important task is to constantly consult the journal and find connections between the ideas written down and the problems of the day. This is how it works.

Imagine chewing gum to calm your nerves, and then a great idea descends on you: Why not create a gum to measure your stress levels? You write this thought in a journal and from time to time come back to the entry you made. A few months later, you read somewhere that pH is very important for human health. And then it dawns on you.

But what if you come up with a chewing gum that will serve as a kind of indicator and, based on the use of pH, show whether a person is healthy or not? Let's say you chew this gum for three minutes. If the gum turns red, you are healthy; if it turns green, you have to go home and go to bed.

Play with words

You can start by… changing the words. For example, a production manager at OV'Action from France faced the following challenge: how to develop a new, unique food product? He replaced the word “unique” with “amazing”, the word “develop” with “transform” and formulated the problem in a new way: how to transform a food product into something amazing?

He began to ponder what might surprise him. He would be impressed if some familiar object took an unusual shape, such as a cow-shaped plane, pyramidal tomatoes, or square potatoes.

The Japanese came up with square watermelons, -.

As a result, the solution came: square eggs. And he "developed" boiled square eggs with a yolk inside, with a shelf life of 21 days, suitable for heating in a microwave oven (how they compare favorably with ordinary eggs, which "explode" at the same time). Needless to say, OV'Action was confident that Americans would immediately rush to buy new amazing food as soon as it was on sale.

Leonardo da Vinci's method

Leonardo da Vinci's way of generating ideas was as follows: he closed his eyes, completely relaxed and streaked a sheet of paper with arbitrary lines and scribbles. Then he opened his eyes and looked for images and nuances, objects and phenomena in the painted ones. Many of his inventions were born from such sketches.

Here's a plan for how you can use Leonardo da Vinci's method in your work:

Write the problem down on a piece of paper and ponder over it for a few minutes.

Relax. Give your intuition the ability to create images that reflect the current situation. You don't need to know what the drawing will look like before you draw it.

Give shape to your task by defining its boundaries. They can be of any size and shape as you wish.

Practice drawing unconsciously. Let the lines and scribbles dictate how you draw and position them.

If you are not satisfied with the result, take another sheet of paper and draw another drawing, and then as much as necessary.

Examine your drawing. Write the first word that comes to mind for every image, every squiggle, line, or structure.

Tie all the words together by writing a short note. Now see how the writing relates to your task. Are there any new ideas?

Be attentive to the questions that arise in your mind. For example: "What is this?", "Where did it come from?" If you feel the need to find answers to specific questions, then you are on the right path leading to a solution to the problem.

And finally, remember that great ideas often float in the air and come to minds of several people at once. How to catch ideas out of thin air and make money on them, will tell you

If you need to get your work or project off the ground, develop a new direction and increase efficiency, both personally and in the entire production, generate a new concept. If you want to radically change something in your life, plan something large-scale - generate new ideas. How? There are many ways to come up with something original and get amazing results. We present you with a selection of the most popular methods.

1. Brainstorming

The effectiveness of this technique has been confirmed by many. During a brainstorming session, you do not need to understand whether a goal is achievable and whether this or that task is being solved. Initially, it is much more important to convey it to others in order to discuss together all the advantages and disadvantages, opportunities and limitations, etc.

During a brainstorming session, absolutely all ideas that come to mind, even crazy ones, are first written down - you generate a new one, like a dreamer with unlimited imagination. Then you think over each of the ideas as a performer - no matter how complex or simple they are, the main thing is that you write down all the steps for their implementation, understand all the advantages. Nothing invented is discarded.

Only then, when the flow of ideas ends, you become a sane executor who determines how this or that thought is suitable for you or your company. In this way, the most difficult and ineffective decisions are discarded. As a result of brainstorming, as a rule, a couple of thoughts of average complexity remain, as relevant and effective as possible.

2. Wish cards and mindmaps

To start the process of change, to come up with something new, you need to imagine what you want - create a picture of your desires or fix it on paper in the form of the so-called. mindmap. The picture of desires is magazine clippings and beautiful pictures that visualize your desires after fulfillment - a happy family, three children, a Labrador near the car, a slender body, pumped up muscles, etc.

A mindmap is a key idea or theme (eg, "finding a vocation", "increasing income") in the center of a sheet of paper with branches. These are secondary ideas or steps to implement the main idea, which, in turn, can also have offshoots.

For example, let's say you want to build a house. Write “home” in the center of the sheet. To build a house, you need (make separate branches from the word "house" for each sub-idea on the sheet) - create a layout, choose a team of builders and architects, a place and materials for construction. Or maybe you intend to build on your own? Each branch expands with detail and you see the entire process of creating a house.

Everything you want should be in front of your eyes - so you can make changes, add or remove something, understand where you are missing an intermediate link in the implementation. An important point - after creating a mindmap, be sure to take the first tiny step towards the goal that you have defined for yourself.

3. Two in one

The essence of the method is to implement the characteristics of one object in another. To do this, he takes two ideas / objects that are not directly related to each other, and begins a search for how to implement the properties of a non-key object in a key one. According to this principle, shopping bags were created, which, when folded, look like a strawberry. Here, such characteristics as brightness, shape and unambiguous attractiveness of the berry for a female audience came into play. Or, for example, think of tea bags that look like humans and animals taking a bath.

You can combine different features, and thus you can find different solutions to a specific problem and choose the optimal one. On the one hand, this is a warm-up for the brain, on the other, you learn to see the hidden, find and apply not obvious associations in your work.

4. Dissection of the whole

The essence of the method is dividing an object or general idea into several parts. All parts are analyzed separately to identify one or more strong or non-obvious characteristics. Thanks to this, you either get a new, more specific and vivid idea, or collect the discovered signs into a new object or idea with a cool set of properties and details. The same can be done when solving one big problem - the best solutions for each specific small problem become a common way to achieve the goal.

5. Selling sand in the desert

The task is simple - you need to sell something, of which there is a lot and, in fact, no one needs it. For example, snow in winter and sand in the desert. A frivolous, at first glance, game will turn on your imagination and push you to unusual decisions. If you play it often, you will find that you find interesting approaches even to ordinary affairs. It may be difficult for you to come up with what to sell and to whom - connect your friends, write yourself 10 likely sales targets and train whenever you want.

6. The invention of the bicycle

It seems that everything in the world has long been invented. But no. Train your brains by perfecting one detail, part of an object or idea. So, take a problem that has been tormenting you for a long time, and those solutions that have already been proposed - and "finish" one of them. Perhaps what you once invented will do quite well today, both for the same problem and for a similar one.

7. "Hunt" for ideas

A person's operative memory cannot record all the fleeting ideas that arise during the day. In order not to forget anything, write down interesting thoughts and important details - on a voice recorder in your phone, a notebook, or just on pieces of paper. At the end of the day, collect them in one place and analyze them. Surely, you have already thought of something very original today.

8. Six hats

The essence of this method is simple: trying to come up with something impressive, a person takes turns putting on imaginary hats of different colors. This divides the thinking process into six modes. You can try on hats yourself, you can distribute imaginary hats among the participants in the discussion.

So, a white hat means analyzing all the facts and figures on a particular issue, it is also checked whether there is enough information to generate a particular solution. Black - search for negative characteristics of the issue under discussion, yellow - analysis of positive features, green - generation of new ideas, modification of an existing idea, red - the emergence of a bright emotional color, expressing emotions related to the topic of discussion. And the blue, the last hat, is worn to summarize at each stage and summarize all the work. This mechanic allows you to quickly organize the process of generating a new idea, get a variety of objective results and add a game moment to the analysis.

We are what we do all the time.
And perfection is not an act, but a habit.
~ Aristotle

Scientists have long suggested that for those with at least a little willpower, it takes about 30 days to form a new habit. As with any new endeavor, the most important thing in this is to get started and get over the first awkward steps. This is 80% of the success. That is why it is so important to make small but positive changes in your life for at least 30 days.

You've heard the old saying: “How to eat an elephant? One piece at a time ”? The same applies to changing your own life. Trying to bite off more than you can swallow will only choke. But biting off a little at a time - for example, starting to eat a little healthier, playing a little more sports, slightly reorganizing your workflow - you yourself will not notice how the elephant will be swallowed, and the goal is achieved.

Below you will find 30 challenges that can be completed within 30 days. I am ready to testify - each of them has the potential to create a new positive habit in your life. Yes, some of them overlap slightly. And no, you don't have to tackle all 30 challenges at the same time. It is better to choose from 2 to 5 tests for the next 30 days - but take them with all your heart. And once you're comfortable with them, pick a few others for the next month.

1. Use words that promote happiness... - Usually, when I ask someone "How are you", they answer me something like "Normal" or "Okay." But one sleepy Monday morning, a colleague of mine answered a similar question, "Just great!" It made me smile and then think. I asked him what happened to him so wonderful, and he replied: “Well, how is it - I'm healthy, my family is fine, and we live in a free country. Isn't that wonderful ”? But the difference between his life and mine was in the smallest - the attitude to this very life. His life was not necessarily better than the others, but he looked twenty times happier than them. So try to use more smiley words over the next 30 days.
2. Try something new every day.... - Variety adds spice to life. You may see or do something a million times, but only once the first time. Our first impressions often leave a mark on our minds for the rest of our lives. Try learning or experiencing new things every day for the next 30 days. It can be anything from a new hobby to a conversation with a stranger. And as soon as you get a taste, believe me, these new impressions will sooner or later open the door for you to a whole world of new possibilities that can change your life.
3. Try to do some kind of selfless act every day.... - No wonder they say that you reap what you sow. And when you positively influence someone's life, at the same time you change yours. Do something selfless, something that makes someone else happy, or at least less unhappy. I promise this will be a very enjoyable experience. Perhaps one that you will remember for a lifetime. Of course, your choices in this regard are limitless, but if you can help someone, and it costs you nothing, do it.
4. Learn and practice one new skill every day... - If you can rely on yourself in any situation, then you will certainly live a happy and productive life. And to rely on yourself, you need to acquire as many useful skills as possible, becoming a kind of jack of all trades. And despite all the stories that jack of all trades, they say, are not good for anything, in fact they are much more adapted to life than specialists in any one narrow field. Plus, learning new skills is fun.
5. Teach Someone Something New Every Day... “We all have our natural strengths and talents that can significantly help people around us. What is easy for you can be quite difficult for others. We take these gifts of fate for granted, often hardly realizing how much we can offer other people, and therefore we rarely share anything with them. But these invaluable gifts can help us to sow happiness and the will to live around us. What do people most often thank you for? What do they most often ask you to help with? Most hobbies and inner talents can help in some way those who are in their social circle. For you, this may turn out to be drawing, teaching mathematics, the ability to cook delicious meals, or even a place for a teacher of some courses. Try to share your talents and experiences with others over the next 30 days.
6. Set aside at least an hour every day for what you are truly passionate about.... - DO NOT forget to pursue your hobbies. It could be anything. Some people enjoy participating in the political life of their city, others find solace in faith, others participate in clubs that unite people with similar hobbies, and for some, their hobbies may be the most important in life. But each of these cases is actually similar to the others. All of these people are doing something that they are really passionate about. And this hobby fills their lives with happiness and meaning.
7. Be kind to everyone. Even to those who are rude to you.- If you speak kindly with someone who dislikes you, this does not mean that you are hiding your feelings. Rather, it means that you are a truly adult person, and are able to control them. Treat everyone around you with kindness and respect, even those who do not treat you in the best way - not because they are good people, but because you are that kind of person. Try doing this for the next 30 days, and little by little you will see the rudeness around you slowly dissipate.
8. Try to maintain a positive attitude at all times.... - Truly successful people always try to be optimistic. They nurtured the ability to independently create their own happiness and the desire to create. No matter what situation you find yourself in, remember: any successful singer was once an ordinary girl who always managed to find positive in her life. She knows that any mistake is just an opportunity for personal growth, and a chance to learn something new. Optimistic thinkers see the world as a place chock-full of endless possibilities, especially during difficult times. Try looking at the bright side of this world for the next 30 days.
9. Always be grateful for the lessons life situations teach you.... - It is important to remember that whatever you come across is a life lesson. Everyone you meet, everything you come across, and so on. All of this is part of that great life lesson that we call life. Try to always be grateful for him, especially when things don't go the way you want them to. And if you didn't get the job you dreamed of, or your personal relationship hasn't led to anything serious, it just means that somewhere ahead of you, much better options await you. And the lesson you just learned is just the first step towards this best option. For the next 30 days, try to write down all the lessons life has taught you in your journal for the next 30 days.
10. Pay attention to your life - and enjoy it... “When I watched the Oscars a few months ago, I realized that most of the speeches given by the award-winning actors and actresses began something like,“ This means so much to me. My whole life seemed to have led to this moment. " But do you know what the truth is? The life of each of us leads to this moment. Yes, yes, to this very moment in which we are now. Think about it. Everything that you have done in your life - bad, good and neutral - has brought you to the moment you are in now. Ask yourself, how much are you really living your life? And if you're like most people, the answer is most likely not enough. So try to focus a little less on getting things done and more on just living. Remember - we live in one moment. Life is here and now. So try to spend the next 30 days truly living.
11. Try to get rid of at least one thing a day for the next 30 days.- We live every moment of our lives surrounded by a huge amount of garbage and unnecessary things - and it doesn't matter where we are at that moment (at work, in the car, at home or somewhere else). We are so used to it that we do not even notice how it affects us. But if you clear out the external debris, a fair amount of the internal debris will go along with it. So try to choose one unnecessary item every day and get rid of it in one way or another. It's actually very simple, although at first you may not think so. But sooner or later, you will get rid of your "squirrel syndrome", and your mind, cleared of trash, will say "thank you" to you.
12. Try to create something new in these 30 days... - Creating something new ... ah, this feeling cannot be compared to anything. Using your own creativity to the fullest and creating something new with your own hands will give you an inexpressibly pleasant feeling of completeness, which simply does not exist. The only "but" - you have to create something that you really like. If you make financial investment plans for your clients all day long, hating every second of the process, then it doesn't count. But if you find a hobby for yourself that you really enjoy and create something that is related to it, it can change your whole life. And if you haven't created anything with your own hands lately just because you feel like it, give it a try. Let your creativity free - at least for the next 30 days.
13. Don't lie a word for the next 30 days.... - Yes, it may seem difficult, if not impossible, because "white", "innocent" lies often pour out of us in a continuous stream. But you can. Stop deceiving yourself and others, speak, looking for words that come from your heart, speak the truth.
14. Try to wake up 30 minutes earlier every day.... - Try to wake up 30 minutes earlier every day so as not to run in the morning like a rabbit bitten by a kangaroo. These 30 minutes will help you avoid speeding tickets, tardiness, and other unnecessary headaches. Give it a try - at least for the same 30 days - and see how it affects your life.
15. Get rid of 3 bad habits in the next 30 days.- Eating too much junk food? Play too much video games? Fighting with your relatives? In short, you yourself know your bad habits. Pick 3 of them and try to get rid of them in the next 30 days. Dot.
16. Try to watch TV no more than half an hour a day.... - Better entertain yourself with something from the real world. The best memories remain with us from the wonderful events that happen to us in real life, and only in it. So turn off your TV (or computer if you're watching TV) and go outside. Take a look at the world, enjoy nature, embrace the simple joys that life has to offer, and just watch it unfold before you.
17. Set one worthwhile goal for yourself, and work on it for at least an hour a day.- Break your big, ambitious goal into small pieces, and focus on doing one piece at a time. Yes, like that, taking one step at a time will get you the fastest, but taking the first step is usually the most difficult. Try to spend at least one hour a day over the next 30 days doing what you've always wanted to achieve. Take your dream and make it a reality.
18. Read one chapter of a good book every day.... - Now, when the Internet opens before us an endless stream of information, articles, dialogues and discussions, people are spending more and more time reading online. And yet, all this cannot replace the proven wisdom of some classic books that have been sharing (and will be sharing) their wisdom for many generations. Books open many doors, both in your mind and in your life. Search the internet for a list of classic books and visit your local library. Then spend the next 30 days reading at least one chapter a day until you finish reading the entire book. Then choose another one. And further. And further.
19. Try to watch or read something every morning that will inspire you to do something new.... - Sometimes, in order to fill yourself with energy for the whole next day, you need just a little. So in the next 30 days, before you leave the house for 3 days, watch a motivational video, or read something (quotes, blog post, short story) that can inspire you.
20. Do something every afternoon that makes you smile.... - Watch a funny YouTube video, read your favorite comic, or find a couple of fresh anecdotes online. A healthy laugh stimulates your mind and replenishes your energy reserves. And it's best to do it in the afternoon, when you need your energy most.
21. Give up alcohol and drugs for the next 30 days.- How difficult this test will be - depends only on you. If you are susceptible to alcoholism or drug addiction, it is not advisable to try to quit this addiction on your own. See a doctor who can help you quit substances slowly and gently. But if you only drink from time to time or "indulge" in drugs at parties, try to give it up at least for the next 30 days. Trust me, if you want to cheer up, there are healthier ways to do it.
22. Exercise for at least 30 minutes every day... - Your health is your life. Don't miss it. Eat right, exercise and don't forget about physicals.
23. Try to find yourself in an uncomfortable, fearful situation every day.- Having adopted the strategy of small forays into unfamiliar and uncomfortable territory, we often manage to bypass the most serious obstacle on the way to positive change - fear. Sometimes we are afraid that we will not succeed. Sometimes we are afraid that we will succeed, and we will have to deal with all the changes and growth that success will bring to our lives. Sometimes we are afraid of rejection or we are afraid to look stupid. The best way to overcome fear is to face it. Face your fear, feel it in your mind, become aware of it and understand what to do with it next. Greet him by name if you like. "Hello, fear." Fear can become your friend if you learn to fearlessly meet it, and listen to it only when it fulfills its true purpose - it warns you of danger. Try to spend at least an hour a day over the next 30 days sorting out the fear that keeps you from moving forward.
24. Cook one new, healthy meal every day.... - Cooking is not only fun, but also healthy - properly cooked food will provide your body with the necessary nutrients and vitamins. In general, a useful activity, whatever one may say. So find a more voluminous cookbook - and go ahead to conquer the culinary Olympus! Try to cook at least one new and healthy meal every day for the next 30 days.
25. Spend 10 minutes every day remembering what good happened to you today.- For the next 30 days, spend 10 minutes each day thinking about those small successes that happened to you today. It will help you remind yourself how lucky you are with life, and understand how much better you have become today compared to the past day.
26. Try to talk to someone every day that you don't normally communicate with.... - People are very interesting creatures, and you will never find people alike, like two peas in a pod. By communicating with different people, you open your time to new ideas and perspectives. So for the next 30 days, try to talk to someone you don't normally talk to, or even a stranger, every day. Find out what kind of people they are.
27. Pay off your debts in the next 30 days, and do not start new ones... - Live within your means. Don't buy things you don't need. If you are contemplating a major purchase, think it over as carefully as possible. Make a budget, savings plan for yourself, and stick to them. For the next 30 days, pay for the item in cash and consider every waste - even a penny.
28. Give up at least one relationship that does not bring you anything useful.... - Try to keep only those people next to you who really love you, motivate, inspire you, make you better and happier. And if someone you know doesn't do any of the above, isn't it time to get rid of them, making room in your life for positive relationships. So if there is a person in your life who constantly hurts you and only takes from you, without giving anything in return, try to get rid of him in the next 30 days.
29. Forgive those who deserve a second chance... - Sometimes good relationships are cut off only because of our inflated egos and lonely quarrels. And if there is someone in your life that deserves a second chance, give them one. Try to write a new chapter in your overall story over the next 30 days.
30. Document every day you live with one photo and one paragraph of text... - For the next 30 days, take your camera with you wherever you go. Try to take one photo each day that best represents the day. And before going to bed, write in your diary one paragraph at a time that best describes your day. If you do this digitally, you can even combine a photo and text (for example, on a personal blog), which will make it easier to view in the future. And many years later, this collection of old photographs and notes may well remind you of pleasant memories that you would otherwise have simply forgotten.

As you progress through these challenges, remember: - This is a slow, painstaking process. It cannot be forced. You need to work on it every day. Trust me, you still have enough time to become who you want. And settle for less than you deserve, or less than what you are capable of. And most importantly, whatever challenges you face along the way, never give up. You are braver than you think, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. You are at least twice as capable of the maximum that you have defined for yourself.