Break Smart Rules

“Smart people are a dime a dozen & often don't amount to much. What counts is being creative & imaginative.”
- Walter Isaacson, CEO of The Aspen Institute, author of the “genius series” (Einstein, Franklin, Jobs, Da Vinci and others)

While intelligence may be table stakes for genius, there’s no way to smart your way to genius. Imaginative leaps of genius require something entirely different from “smarts,” something that often appears counterintuitive to my well-trained, ex-financial analyst, recovering management consultant, eye.

The way creative geniuses work often looks “dumb” to the typical “smart” person. For example, Charles Dickens took a 3-hour walk through the countryside and city streets every afternoon, “looking for some pictures to build upon.” Maya Angelou shunned a pretty work space — as did Picasso, and Edison — saying, “It throws me.” Igor Stravinsky did hand stands when he was stuck. Tina Fey procrastinates. Frank Lloyd Wright often napped twice daily. Kim Scott pulls weeds. Claude Shannon juggled. Joyce Carol Oates routinely walks up the same hill, confident an idea is waiting up there for her.

And what’s worse, creative masters often violate their own rules, wondrously indifferent to the apparent contradictions.

For this reason, I love giving seemingly contradictory advice. It’s just the kind of thing that makes smart people like me go crazy. But sometimes, even when you have great rules, you’ve got to break them.

Look For What’s Right, but Look For What’s Wrong, too…
Carry A Notebook, and Take Notes, and Re-Read Them, but Throw Them Away, too…
Don’t Clean Up — in fact, let your Junk Pile Up, but Dig Through Your Junk, too…
Look At Nothing, but Look For Connections, too…

In fact, the whole premise of embracing contradictions is strangely at odds with my vendetta against hypocrisy.

How fitting!

Related: Don’t Be Efficient

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