Expect the Unexpected (Or You Won't Find It): A Creativity Tool Based on the Ancient Wisdom of Heraclitus [Hardcover]

Roger Von Oech (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 4, 2001

Heraclitus was famous for his provocative sayings. For example: "you can't step in the same river twice"; "dogs bark at what they don't understand"; "expect the unexpected, or you won't find it, because it leaves no trail". Today, more than 2500 years after they were written, his ideas about life, nature and the cosmos remain as startlingly original as ever. Roger von Oech uses 30 of Heraclitus's epigrams as a springboard to innovation. Treating each saying as a creativity exercise, he supplies mental puzzles, amusing anecdotes and intriguing questions designed to topple old habits of thought and fire the imagination.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus was the first "creativity teacher," says Roger von Oech, whose bestselling book A Whack on the Side of the Head set the standard for out-of-the-box thinking. In Expect the Unexpected, Von Oech uses 30 of Heraclitus's pithy and paradoxical epigrams to approach problems in a fresh manner. He explains his premise: "Creative thinking involves imagining familiar things in a new light, digging below the surface to find previously undetected patterns, and finding connections among unrelated phenomena."

Von Oech uses the epigrams as creativity exercises--accompanied by mental puzzles, anecdotes, questions, and punchy footnotes--to demonstrate that Heraclitus's 2,500-year-old creative insights have aged well. With his whimsical wand, von Oech transforms the epigram "A Donkey prefers garbage to gold" into an exploration of values. He uses Heraclitus's observation that "A wonderful harmony is created when we join together the seemingly unconnected" to examine the use of metaphors in understanding problems. When Heraclitus observes that "Dogs bark at what they don't understand," Von Oech crafts a meditation about criticism. Executives, students, teachers, and parents will find an exciting and entertaining map for changing thought patterns, tolerating ambiguity, confounding expectations, and searching for hidden meanings. --Barbara Mackoff

From Library Journal

Von Oech, a creativity consultant, lecturer, and president of Creative Think, penned the best seller A Whack on the Side of the Head: How You Can Be More Creative (1986). Not as dry as the subtitle makes it sound, his latest book has certainly benefited from his recent studies of the creative process. Even though Von Oech does cite Heraclitus extensively (in Greek, no less), this is no classics text. Instead, Von Oech presents and offers his take on 30 of Heraclitus's epigrams, such as "On a circle, an end point can also be a beginning point" and "When there is no sun, we can see the evening stars." He then lists questions to help readers apply the insight gained from the epigrams to their own situation. Each of the 30 chapters is bite-sized but substantial. Recommended for all public libraries; academic libraries would probably also benefit.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Free Press; 1st edition (September 4, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743222873
• ISBN-13: 978-0743222877
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 5.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #183,851 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Roger von Oech is the founder and president of Creative Think, a California-based consulting firm that specializes in stimulating creativity and innovation. He has given seminars and presentations to corporations worldwide, including Coca-Cola, GE, Disney, Intel, MTV, Microsoft, NASA, Apple, Citigroup, and the United States Olympic Committee. He is the author of two previous creative-thinking books, A Whack on the Side of the Head and A Kick in the Seat of the Pants, as well as the popular Creative Whack Pack card deck. He lives with his wife and children in Atherton, California.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

54 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars New Windows and Mirrors to Stimulate Your Mind, August 26, 2001

By 

Donald Mitchell "Jesus Loves You!" (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 110,000 Helpful Votes Globally) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Expect the Unexpected (Or You Won't Find It): A Creativity Tool Based on the Ancient Wisdom of Heraclitus (Hardcover)

I have long been a fan of Roger von Oech's work on creativity (see A Whack on the Side of the Head and the Creative Whack Pack card deck). I found this book to be a pleasant and valuable addition to my resources for stimulating my thinking in new ways.

The book's core are 30 epigrams ("a terse, witty, and often paradoxical saying") of the 125 that have come down to us in the quotations of other authors from Heraclitus, as written 2500 years ago. Mr. von Oech has taken the traditional translation and updated it into more conceptual English in many cases, which makes the material more accessible. "All things happen according to the logos" (from Heraclitus by T. M. Robinson, University of Toronto Press, 1987) becomes "The cosmos speaks in patterns." Each epigram begins with an imaginative line drawing to give you an initial impression of the concept. Mr. von Oech goes on to provide some key subpoints in a brief essay, some examples of the concepts and subpoints in action, and occasionally gives you puzzles and brain teasers to play with (the answers are at the end of the book).

The longer the section, the better I liked it. So I left the book wishing it had been longer. That's my usual test of how helpful a book was to me. While many of these epigrams meant nothing to me on first reading them, Mr. von Oech's explanations soon made each an old and valuable friend.

Mr. von Oech suggests three ways to use the book. First, you can read it from start to finish as a creativity workbook. Second, you can take one epigram a day and make it the focus of a meditation for that day. You can repeat the list at the end of 30 days ("You can't step into the same river twice" so you should get new insights each time). Third, you can use the book as an oracle. When you have a question, randomly pick an epigram (there's a random number table in the book to help you do this) and apply it to the problem. I would like to suggest a fourth application, as well. You could use the epigrams to stimulate group creativity in problem-solving situations involving others.

Space does not permit (nor would fairness allow) publishing all the epigrams here, but let me share the ones that had the most impact on me.

"That which opposes produces a benefit."

"A wonderful harmony is created when you join together the seemingly unconnected."

"I searched into myself."

"Many fail to grasp what's right in the palm of the hand."<P "When there is no sun, we can see the evening stars."

"Things love to conceal their true nature."

"Those who approach life like a child playing a game, moving and pushing pieces, possess the power of kings."

"Sea water is both pure and polluted: for fish it's drinkable and life-giving; for humans undrinkable and destructive."

"It is disease that makes health pleasant, hunger that makes fullness good, and weariness that makes rest sweet."

"The way up and the way down are one and the same."

"A thing rests by changing."

"Donkeys prefer garbage to gold."

"Every walking animal is driven to its purpose with a whack."

"Your character is your destiny."

"The Sun is new each day."

The summary combines all thirty epigrams into a brief essay. I encourage you to take one of the epigrams above and apply it today. If it helps you, go on to use another one tomorrow. If that is working, order this book and keep using other epigrams daily until the book arrives. Then, see how Mr. von Oech's thoughtful ideas about the epigrams expand your thinking even further!

Be prepared to find diamonds in your coal mine!

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A New "Classic" in Creative Thinking, December 8, 2001

By 

Robert Morris (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Expect the Unexpected (Or You Won't Find It): A Creativity Tool Based on the Ancient Wisdom of Heraclitus (Hardcover)

The fact that von Oech draws heavily upon the "ancient wisdom of Heraclitus" in this book correctly suggests what a creative mind such as von Oech's can accomplish when seeing direct and useful correlations between an ancient Greek philosopher (other than Plato and Aristotle) and intellectual challenges in the 21st century. Von Oech describes Heraclitus as "the world's first creative teacher." He recalls being "infected" (happily) with the Heraclitean "bug" while studying in Germany 30 years ago. Now von Oech has written a book in which he brilliantly and entertainingly examines concepts such as symbol, paradox, and ambiguity in relation to creative thought. He offers 30 "Creative Insights" of Heraclitus which include, for example, these five:

#2. "Expect the unexpected or you won't find it."

#4 "You can't step into the same river twice."

#12 "Many fail to grasp what's right in the palm of their hand."

#26 "Donkeys prefer garbage to gold."

#29 "Your character is your destiny."

Individually and even when clustered with the other 25, these "Creative Insights" may seem unworthy of careful consideration. In fact, von Oech provides a brief but insightful analysis of each which effectively demonstrates the wisdom of #12. Truly creative thinkers are always alert to what I call "the invisibility of the obvious." They are not threatened by or even uncomfortable with symbol, paradox, and ambiguity. On the contrary, their minds are stimulated by them.

Throughout his book, von Oech inserts a number of brief puzzles for the reader to solve. (The correct answers are included and explained within the "Final Thoughts" section.) These puzzles are fun to grapple with, of course, and presumably most readers will solve them of them. My point is, the answers to the unsolved puzzles are no less obvious than the answers to the others, no matter which specific puzzles the reader is unable to solve.

Frankly, when I began to read this book, I really did not know what to expect. What of value could I possibly learn from a relatively obscure Greek philosopher? However, von Oech had already convinced me of the value of an occasional "whack on the side of the head" and "kick in the seat of the pants" so I gave him the benefit of the doubt. (See #12.) As always, von Oech is immensely entertaining. He has superb writing skills. And of course, he is an immensely creative thinker in his own right. I strongly recommend this little (in length) book to literally anyone who wants to put white caps on her or his gray matter. Those who share my high regard for this book are strongly urged to read all of von Oech's previous books as well as those written by Guy Claxton, Edward de Bono, Lynne Levesque, and Michael Michalko.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great brain work out........., July 29, 2002

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MotherLodeBeth "MotherLodeBeth" (Sierras of California) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Expect the Unexpected (Or You Won't Find It): A Creativity Tool Based on the Ancient Wisdom of Heraclitus (Hardcover)

This gem of a book is shy 200 pages and is set in four sections beginning with Stir Your Mind with Heraclitus, then The Creative Insights of Heraclitus, Final Thoughts and Answers to Puzzles. It's nice that on page 5 the author tells the reader who are unfamiliar with this Greek sage, who he was and when he lived. 500 BCE. "This means that he was an almost exact contemporary of the Chinese thinkers Lao-tzu and Confucious, the Indian contemplative Siddhartha Gautama (the historical Buddha) and was only a little younger than the Persian prophet Zarathustra."

On page 12 and 12 the author lists thirty epigrams which he believes best express Heraclitus' philosophy of the creative spirit. And being a mathematical and puzzle solving family we were intrigued with the puzzles of life that the author discusses. I think great thinkers love math and life puzzles.

As an example the letters of the alphabet can be grouped into four different categories (1)A,M (2) B,C,D,E,K;(3)F,G,J,K,L; and (4) H,I. Figure out the pattern and place the remaining 13 letters in their appropriate categories.

Or how about Find what the following words have in common: laughing, starburst, calmness, crabcake, stuffed, canopy, hijack.

Now the book is much more than mind games. It is after all about thinking outside the box, or simply thinking, which sadly many people are afraid to do. The author like his subject knows the value of straining ones brain. Asking questions and looking for more than one answer. Dissecting life's challenges and seeing each lesson as the next step to the next lesson and in the end wisdom.

The author realizes that digging deeper for questions and answers produced gems of wisdom and solutions and that we simply need to be open to the possibilities. Optimistic rather than pessimistic. This is a book that men as well as women will savor. And one both my husband and I find ourselves opening and re-reading and realizing that new lessons and gems of wisdom are there no matter how often we re-read the book.

And if you end up with a headache when reading this book it is my opinion that your brain has had a good workout.