Think Like a Genius [Hardcover]

Todd Siler (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1997

Not everyone can be a genius.  But everyone can learn to think like one.  That's the focus of this unique, inspiring, and irreverent book that helps unlock the creative power within each one of us.  Using your own curiosity and imagination, you'll learn dozens of practical methods, exercises, and games that will have you saying "Eureka!" in no time.

Are your mind and body working against each other?  Here are strategies to reconnect with yourself and raise your genius quotient.

Do you always take the straight and narrow road of habit?  The road of genius involves choice.  Be adventurous for a change.

  Paradoxes are the womb out of which genius is born.  All you have to do is learn how to ask the right questions.

As a matter of fact, most of the answers you're searching for in life are hidden in your own mind.  Tapping into your inherent genius is easy, fun, and rewarding.  You'll find you're able to work more productively, form better relationships, and realize your most ambitious goals.  What's more, you'll evolve into the highly creative, unique person you were born to be.  Don't waste a minute.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Siler (Breaking the Mind Barrier, LJ 1/91), founder of Psi-Phi Communications, a company specializing in multimedia learning materials, introduces "metaphorming"?an integrative, interdisciplinary approach to problem-solving and creative thinking. Siler provides a four-step process (connect, discover, invent, apply), an acronym (CREATE?Connect, Relate, Explore, Analyze, Transform, and Experience), and 31 metaphorms, or exercises in creativity and self-improvement, each illustrated with a drawing or humorous anecdote. A unique feature of the metaphorming process is expressing ideas as stories, metaphors, drawings, and models, and turning discoveries gleaned from these activities into inventions or practical applications. Stylistically, this book recalls Roger von Oech's A Whack on the Side of the Head (Warner, 1990), and some may prefer the approach in Jordan Ayan's Aha! 10 Ways To Free Your Creative Spirit and Find Great Ideas (LJ 4/1/97), but overall this is recommended for public libraries.?Lucille M. Boone, San Jose P.L., Cal.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"This book challenges the reader to think and perform on an inspired level.  Siler's simple approach to individual genius' is the key to every great success story."
--Michael R. Bloomberg, CEO and founder, Bloomberg News

"Siler's approach is simple, practical, fun, and most importantly, highly productive."
--Peter M. Senge, author of The Fifth Discipline

"Think Like a Genius is an excellent and practical guide for anyone who wishes to become more original in their thinking and to use creativity more effectively."
--Daniel L.  Ritchie, Chancellor, University of Denver

"An ingenious and useful tool for enhancing everyone's creative thinking."
--Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, author of Flow and Creativity --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Bantam; First Edition edition (October 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553107321
• ISBN-13: 978-0553107326
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 7.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,948,202 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A lucid, convincing way to learn how to live at your peak, January 28, 1999

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Think Like a Genius (Paperback)

Todd Siler is an world recognized artist who couldn't satisfactorily answer his own questions about how our minds --specifically our imaginations --work. So he ended up doing brain research at MIT and getting their first ever interdisciplinary doctorate. His work revealed that though geniuses all excel in different areas, they often use the same mental processes and approaches. His insights into peak performance and creativity are not only easy to absorb, they really make sense. Also, even if you think you cannot possibly think like a genius (you may surprise yourself!)along the way to thinking at higher intensity there are numerous side benefits: faster integration of lots of disparate information (i.e. information overload);enhanced memory; greater inventiveness and perspective. I found that it gave me two instant jump-starts on frustrating problems (one of them was a writer's block...) Deceptively simple and easy to read, this is a very intelligent little book.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Think Like a Genius by Todd Siler, June 14, 2006

By 

Joseph S. Maresca "Dr. Joseph S. Maresca CPA,... (Bronxville, New York USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Think Like a Genius (Paperback)

The author presents some theoretical concepts relevant to the

formulation of new ideas/knowledge. Some reviewers of the work

were not enthused; however, others found it very helpful. I gave

the book a good rating because the author addressed some highly

complex thinking processes utilizing simple steps. The word CREATE

is utilized as a key to doing the following:

- Connect (ideas)

- Relate ( explain the ideas in a story format)

- Explore ( test the idea in its major manifestations)

- Analyze ( perform a rigid analysis)

- Transform ( make the idea into a practical reality)

- Experience ( cast the idea into the experiential domain)

The book encourages us to design our own learning environment,

to record everything we think relating to major ideas , to

simplify and persist until success is achieved. Role playing

is another key ingredient for testing our ideas within a

practical context. This book is well-written and the ideas

contained are practical. The appeal is to a wide audience of the

reading population.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book, November 17, 1999

By 

Dick Baumbusch - See all my reviews

This review is from: Think Like a Genius (Hardcover)

THINK LIKE A GENIUS is the single simplest thing I have read which allows us to understand the ways in which we ordinary folks may be like geniuses. It's not saying that anyone can be a genius --that takes a special kind of "what" in the brain, but it is saying we can use the "how" that great thinkers often use. The "how" of great ideas is creativity -- not a mystical gift bestowed on a few, but a human survival skill that most of us never bother to really develop. Or, to be fair, which school and corporate life, etc., beats down until our creativity is like a whipped dog -- not willing to come out of the shadow. The way Siler writes is deceptively simple -- a sort of DUMMIES GUIDE TO THE BRAIN -- but things like intelligence and creativity are pretty difficult to describe -- in technical or any other terms. The bottom line is that he makes sense and this is a book that will wake you up.