Edison’s real gift may have been identifying things that could be improved.
Genius is about action. Everyone gets great ideas. Hardly anyone follows up on them.
What do Thomas Edison, Lil Wayne and J.K. Rowling have in common? Note-taking! Writing down their thoughts helped make them all successful, and it can do the same thing for you. Take school for example. My friend and co-author Rob Gilbert says the quality of a student’s notes will correlate strongly with the student’s grade. […]
Here’s a fascinating look at the brain of Albert Einstein. Written expertly by Amy Nutt of the Star-Ledger in New Jersey, it details research almost from the moment of Einstein’s death. With all due respect to the scientists and to the news reporter, Einstein himself said, “I am no genius. I merely stay with problems […]
Spring has brought the usual array of new baseball books, and one of them should catch the eye of coaches everywhere. It’s called “The Genius in All of Us: Why Everything You’ve Been Told About Genetics, Talent and IQ is Wrong,” by David Shenk. The content shouldn’t come as any surprise if you’ve read books […]
Yesterday I spent a pleasant hour helping two athletes work on their free throws. We used the model for deliberate practice: Conscious effort to improve. Task is just outside your area of competence. Many repetitions, with feedback. I encouraged them to use their own feedback, namely, look where the ball went and make adjustments. And […]
“I feel sorry for the person who can’t get genuinely excited about his work. Not only will he never be satisfied, but he will never achieve anything worthwhile.” — Walter Chrysler Yesterday I had the occasion to walk through Times Square. Having done it thousands of times, I now enjoy the tourists more than the […]
“He led no armies into battle, he conquered no countries, and he enslaved no peoples… Nonetheless, he exerted a degree of power the magnitude of which no warrior ever dreamed. His name still commands a respect as sweeping in scope and as world-wide as that of any other mortal …” — Said of Thomas Edison On this […]