Som Bathla Quotes

Repetition is the mother of learning, the father of action, which makes it the architect of accomplishment.” ~ Zig Ziglar

The future is not something we enter. The future is something we create

once your brain is filled with all these negative emotions, you don’t really have a space to think anything other than a vicious cycle of negative thinking only. All creative people are joyful and positive about life.

Developing ideas is also like building muscles. If you want to build muscles, you work out with heavier weights and stretch your muscles.

That’s what procrastination does. It gives you enough time to consider divergent ideas, to think in non-linear ways, and to make unexpected moves.

Here is the key. Procrastination is a vice when it comes to productivity, but it becomes a virtue for creativity.

Stay relaxed and wait for your Eureka moment. It will come at a time and places generally when you least expect it to come.

Often, we already have the answers to our problems, but we don’t quiet ourselves enough to see the solutions bubbling just below the surface.

If I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning.” ~Gandhi

Belief is not merely a vital part of any major accomplishment; rather, belief is EVERYTHING before you take even the first step in any direction.

If you don’t believe (or maybe you don’t’ want to believe) that you can climb the Mount Everest, you won’t take any action.

You don’t always need to run around and struggle finding your purpose. Sometime your life’s purpose is just under your nose.

The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why. ~ Mark Twain

But beware. When it comes to the question of why should you do it? No one else can help you out. It’s only you who can answer that question. And the only way is to keep asking yourself what to do.

While we are awake, our brain works in Beta brainwaves, which is not an ideal condition for ideas to come up. To generate creativity, you need a calmer and relaxed state of mind that comes with Alpha brainwaves.

Instruct - Instruct your subconscious mind to find the answer. Incubate - Now, leave the problem aside - don’t work on the problem, go and do something else. Maybe take a shower or go on vacations, etc. Eureka- the moment will jump out of air suddenly, and you will be supplied with the great idea that can transform your life.

बहुत अधिक स्पष्ट सोच के लिए एक व्यक्ति को एकांत के नियमित समय की व्यवस्था करनी चाहिए, जब वे ध्यान केंद्रित कर सकते हैं और विचलित हुए बिना कल्पना कर सकते हैं।

The box of our mind is designed by involuntary influences (almost most of the times) of our parents, teachers, immediate friend circle, the society we live in or the religion we follow, since our childhood till we start to live independently financially.

Most of the decisions we make for our every day matters, as well as important life decisions, are strongly affected by the ingrained belief system due to years or decades of social conditioning.

if you are born and brought up in a family that believes in taking life as an adventure, and about experimenting, you will think life as a journey of exploration.

Majority of the people live their entire life thinking “inside the box” only

the pre-conditioned thinking mode only.

How Thinking Inside the Box kills Growth

Thinking digital in the wave of the internet was definitely an out-of-the-box thinking approach by Netflix.

Most people mistakenly believe that not all people are capable of thinking creatively- they think that some people have their brain designed that way that they think differently, while most people can’t think beyond what they can see.

But neuroscience and advancement of technology have proven that each of us is equipped with the required machinery in our brains to do out-of-box-thinking.

She described L-mode as basically a verbal, analytic, sequential mode of thinking, and R-mode as basically visual, perceptual, and global.

Study a variety of literature.

Don’t always stick to reading something that is related to your profession or industry only.

Select your reading material carefully.

You should be cautioned that you don’t merely slip into reading what solely entertains you instead of educating you.

Take notes while reading: Write notes everywhere in the book to identify and distinguish different facts.

Read biographies:

Read how to books on different subjects:

Read magazines on a variety of subjects like science, business, politics, fashion, and others to get an idea of the current trends in different industries.

If you are into business, try to hire people who are successful in other industries. They

Attend as many business conferences, seminars or events as you can, related to your profession

Do Content Analysis: You need to analyze the different form of content passing through your desk or otherwise. Here is how you should do content analysis:

Scan your junk mails before discarding

When you are traveling or on the road, look for different newspapers, magazines, local radio stations.

This will give you a perspective on the local trends, business opportunities, people’s lifestyle, some better marketing or advertising approach. Later on, you can use them in your area.

Therefore, feeding your mind is the first step to pump your mind. This is the foundational work, and you can’t generate any ideas if you don’t have enough information stored in your head currently.

Idea Fusion to Generate Idea Babies

There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope.

We give them a turn, and they make new and curious combinations. We keep on turning and making new combinations indefinitely; but they are the same old pieces of colored glass that have been in use through all the ages.

Was Facebook a brand new earth-shattering idea?

No, there were already Friendster and Myspace. But Facebook made a different combination of features, user interface, and engagement algorithms that made them a highly profitable business idea.

Was Google a novel idea to become a hit in 1996 as a search engine?

No, Lycos (1993) and Yahoo (1994) and few others were pre-existing. But again, Google applied some more improvements over the previous ones. For example, adding the feature of filtering out the relevancy and utility from the user’s perspective and adding some other features available, so it became a grand success.

It’s not always a brand new innovative idea that flourishes versus the people who make improvements over the previous innovations.

Rather, the people or companies who improve on the existing projects get better chances of success.

There was a case study done on 50 different products to compare the failure rate amongst the startups, who were the first movers, i.e., who created an entirely new product or market, and the improvers who introduced something different and better than the original movers. The study concluded that the first movers had an average failure rate of 47%, as compared to the improvers, whose failure rate was 8% only.

Also, logistically, it's much easier to improve on somebody else's idea than it is to create something entirely new from scratch. Therefore, to be creative thinker, you don't have to be first. You just have to be different and better.

How fusion of different idea works?

It’s a great example of synthesizing ideas and relationship between unrelated things – like a chair, wheel, and basket and combining them to form a moving shopping cart.

Let’s take another real-life example. Scott Adams, author of How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big,

Choose one thing and become a master of it. Choose a second thing and become a master of that.

When you become a master of two worlds (say, engineering and business), you can bring them together in a way that will a) introduce hot ideas to each other, so they can have idea sex and make idea babies that no one has seen before, and b) create a competitive advantage because you can move between worlds, speak both languages, connect the tribes, mash the elements to spark fresh creative insight until you wake up with the epiphany that changes your life.

Generating ideas is the capacity to synthesize rather than to analyze. It’s all about seeing the relationship between unrelated things;

to see the broad pattern instead of seeing the specific answers, and to invent something new by combining something that wasn’t paired by someone else earlier.

while the left hemisphere is more responsible for doing analytical work.

One of the best ways to fuse ideas is to do it by way of mind mapping, a technique invented by Tony Buzan, a brain expert, and author.

mind map is a diagram used to visually organize information. A mind map is hierarchical and shows relationships among pieces of the whole. It is created around a single concept, drawn as an image in the center of a blank page (i.e., your key challenge), to which representations of ideas such as images, words, and parts of words are added as branches to the central idea.

You begin with your challenge or problem and start drawing branches of interconnected ideas related to that topic that can be shown as words or images.

Once you have multiple ideas appearing on paper in front of you, you start to build connection, and this will help you come out with a unique combination that you couldn’t have thought of, had you not been able to see all of them together at one place.

Do SCAMPER to get Loads of Ideas Instantly The SCAMPER method offers you a checklist for idea-spurring questions. It provides a structured way of assisting students to think out of the box.

Bob Eberle in his book, SCAMPER: Games for Imagination Development.

S = Substitute something C =Combine it with something else A = Adapt something to it M = Modify or Magnify it P = Put it to some different use E = Eliminate something R = Reverse Engineer it.

How to use SCAMPER Technique Step 1: You have to isolate your challenge into different parts or stages. Step 2: After that, apply each of the seven elements of the SCAMPER method to each of the stages of your project for asking questions and generating ideas.

Researching a café franchise or brand

Negotiating a good deal with the franchisor and sign the agreement.

Finding out the best location for your business and getting the best deal for lease.

Advertising and inviting customers to visit your café.

Actually, your mind has an unlimited potential that needs to be tapped by asking the right set of questions and the SCAMPER method does the very same thing by asking different set of questions in an intelligent manner. SCAMPER offers subtle cues or triggers that trigger your mind to come out with various alternatives.

How to implement SCAMPER in your personal or work life?

After you have finalized the project, divide the project into as many small steps as it makes sense to do in a way that each step can be ascertained separately.

Now, take any one stage of your important project and apply each of the SCAMPER questions on that step, and keep noting down different ideas on your note pad or laptop.

How Multi-tasking This Way Improves Creativity

there is a different type of multi-tasking that is in fact recommended when it comes to giving space to let the creative thinking emerge.

fact, Einstein always kept working on different types of projects at the same time. He used to start multiple projects as they came to his mind. However, he worked long enough on one project and then used to take a break from one project and then started to work on a different project.

Take another example. Michael Crichton, the director and producer of movie Jurassic Park, worked on the movie and alongside that, he wrote novels and one more non-fiction book. What’s happening here?

how does slow multi-tasking helps get more done?

Here are the reasons: It helps them keep working on other projects if they get stuck in one project, and that way, they keep making progress in another project.

Switching between different projects slowly satisfies the need of novelty for the human brain.

Also, this type of slow multi-tasking is like cross training of our mind.

Also, if you can learn to do one thing well, it helps you to do other things also well.

Therefore, if we want to do something in a much better way, we should often get disconnected with the main project for some time.

You never know when you get excited about a different thing in your life, and then those creative insights sparked through you will turn out to be a treasure.

How should you apply this technique to your life?

During your walking session, keep walking and think about the projects that you started earlier in life, but quitted sooner without giving your full shot to those projects.

An hour worth of walk is something that will sweat you out physically and stretch you mentally as well.

Now, you need to draw a mind map of different projects branching out from the center in a way that you could draw out various sub-branches as well. For example, your branches could be:

Your contribution to the society Physical Health. Children growth-related projects Your long desires for creating something that will contribute to the world. And many more, as you can think of.

Now, once you have listed some projects, take a few different color markers or pens and start highlighting with different colors with different categories,

Become an Idea Machine- Set up Daily Idea Quota

As I emphasized in the previous section, you need to have a clear problem and convert it into a challenge before you can invite new ideas. Therefore, the kind of ideas should be related to your core problems.

In the world of creativity, the greater the number of ideas, the better your choice will be. Quantity of ideas will lead to quality of ideas.

shows that the best ideas often come to us while doing nothing and just letting the mind reel and think whatever comes. In other words, big ideas pop up out of boredom.

Neuroscientists and psychologists have been doing their research on the subject, and they discovered that while we are getting bored, it activates the default mode network of the brain. In fact, there are two different types of network in the brain: Active Network Default Mode Network (DMN)

DMN is called the imagination network of the brain.

But the irony is that the modern technology doesn’t leave any scope for any of us to get bored, as compared to even one generation before, who didn’t have their eyes consistently glued to their smartphones.

In a nutshell, our minds are constantly in switch mode. Neuroscientist, Dr. Daniel Levitin, said that shifting your attention from one work to another – requires the brain to do a neurochemical switch that uses up the nutrients in the brain.

If you keep on switching from one distraction to another, you are using up the glucose of your brain very fast. Glucose is the energy – the willpower of your mind.

The social media and video platform are being designed with a mission to glue your attention to them almost all the time.

Netflix stated its biggest competitors are Facebook, YouTube, and sleep.

Therefore, the strategy here is to get ready for boredom for sometime during the day.

To help you smooth the transitioning process, keep a journal with you, where you can scribble anything. Just write whatever comes to your mind. Allow the different thoughts to pop up.

Therefore, you need to embrace boredom to let a new space form in your mind, where ideas can germinate, flourish, and soon you will start loving this boredom more and more.

Feed your head with a variety of information as a base before you can generate ideas.

Use Idea Fusion:

Slow Multi-tasking improves creativity. You should not switch between different tasks in your day to day work, but you should get yourself involved and working on different projects simultaneously.

Use SCAMPER Method. This method equips you with 7 different ways you could ask questions from yourself. SCAMPER is an acronym, and each letter gives you a specific way to ask a question to generate ideas. It means: S = Substitute something C =Combine it with something else A = Adapt something to it M = Modify or Magnify it P = Put it to some different use E = Eliminate something R = Reverse Engineer it.

Set a Daily quota for generating ideas:

Use Boredom to Invite Brilliance: Getting bored means to not get continuously driven by your frequent cravings and getting distracted often. If you are not doing anything, you’ll feel bored. But the benefit of getting bored is it activates your default mode network (DMN) i.e., imagination network of your brain.

By always getting engaged in something puts your other network i.e., Active Network, in continuous mode, and not let DMN offer you the required insights generated by imagination. Therefore, make boredom a part of your life.

In the previous chapter, you learned many ways to think out of the box. I hope you have found them useful and try to implement them in your life. Now let’s continue to explore a few more strategies that can help boost your creativity enough.

Doubt Every Default or Assumption

He outrightly rejected those candidates who sprinkled salt in the soup without testing it.

Edison believed that anyone who wants to invent things should have the ability to doubt the default. In his view, if someone already assumed that the soup didn’t have salt in it, they didn’t question or test the assumption before taking further action.

Take another example. There was an assumption in the industrial age that the manual workers need to travel physically to the respective processes used in heavy machinery, and vice versa was not possible. But Henry Ford doubted this assumption and the result was the invention of the assembly line in the automobile industry.

The item being manufactured would travel to the skilled worker through the assembly line, and that itself revolutionized the productivity and speed of the manufacturing process manifold while saving time, energy, and efforts of the manual workers.

There could be two types of doubts: Self-Doubt – It is paralyzing, because you get demoralized and don’t take any action.

Idea doubt- In this approach, you make it more interesting, you take this as a challenge and try to find out the real solutions by doubting the validity of the idea.

In order to be more creative and generate a new set of ideas: You should start doubting any and all kind of default settings as the only way to go for.

You need to develop the habits of questioning the assumption. The common assumption is that every employee needs to be at work for 8 hours.

But have you ever asked why each employee needed to spend the same amount of hours at work? You

You can question that what if someone finishes their work in 4 hours, then why shouldn’t they be allowed to spend their time meeting someone out of office, or attend some event or program or meet new people, that can bring more business to the organization?

Doubting the default is the first step in innovating things. If you are already fine with whatever is there, then you’d never think of ways to improve it.

Therefore, you need to start doubting the assumptions more often to trigger a challenge in your mind to do better.

Questions. Questions. Questions = Ideas. Ideas and Ideas

Great innovators always ask questions and a variety of questions every time they encounter some problem or challenge. It’s the quality of question that determines the quality of life. Questions cause you to stretch, grow, and think beyond what’s real on the ground and activate your imagination.

When you know that you are certain, you don’t explore much, but when you invite uncertainty in your life, you want to come out with better ideas.

Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, once said, “We run this company on questions, not answers.

The Focusing Question is: “What is the one thing that I can do, such that by doing that thing, all other things become either very easy or become unnecessary

Therefore, to generate a new set of ideas, ask a newer set of questions.

Here is what you can do to make questioning a daily habit of your life in all areas by asking some standard questions.

Why is it that I’m following a particular approach to handling my most important project?

What else can I do to speed up the execution of my work?

Who should I be meeting or consulting that can improve the pace of my growth in my life?

When is the optimum time to do any particular thing, so that I generate maximum ROTI (return on time invested.)

How should I improve the quality of my personal life, relationship with others, and live in a more fulfilled way?

I’ve listed some sample questions to give you an idea. But what you should do now is to take a pen and paper and list down your most important projects, be it your personal life, work, relationship, family, adventure, spirituality, and ask these questions from yourself.

But the key is to keep asking yourself questions. Don’t accept the status quo or don’t let life keep moving as it has been. You can generate

Talk to Non-Experts For Great Ideas

In 1861, A German scientist and inventor, Philip Reis, had gone way ahead in his research of inventing the ways of transmitting speech by technology.

But he stopped at the advice of experts, who told him that there wouldn’t be any commercial viability or the need of transmitting speech, as “the telegram was good enough.

And just 15 years later, Alexander Graham Bell registered a patent in his own name for inventing the telephone.

What’s common in all the above examples from history? All the predictions about the new ideas by the experts almost went burst; rather, those ideas turned out to be a breakthrough success in history.

Arthur C. Clarke, a British science fiction writer, very rightly said: “If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible, he is almost certainly right; but if he says that it is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

The key takeaway here is – if you want to generate innovative ideas, don’t seek advice from experts.

Experts have a deep perspective of just a limited subject, which is a good thing for gaining knowledge about that subject, but that limits their understanding about other aspects.

The more a person is an expert in one area, the more difficult it becomes for them to form a new idea related to their own subject.

Based on their years of experience, they form a certain thinking pattern, and it becomes difficult for them to see through beyond that pattern.

On the other hand, the non-experts (about your subject) do not really have an expertise to draw the borders to any idea related to your subject.

They will think openly, widely, and probably their questions might sound quite naïve to the experts.

They can see your problem from a distance as an observer (which you can’t see because you are too closely associated with the problem) and might come out with some suggestions or advice that gives you an entirely different perspective of looking at the things.

Breakthrough ideas come only through the ability to look at your idea from an independent non-expert’s point of view.

Here is what you should do to implement this technique:

Talk to someone who is outside your field and listen to his ideas and thoughts about how to solve your problem.

For example, if you want to generate new ideas to improve your marketing and sales, then meet doctors, engineers, or lawyers, or other unrelated industry people, and understand what would be their process, and ask them what they would think as an observer about your process.

Surround yourself with idea-oriented people who are exploratory in nature.

Whenever you meet strangers in any setting, show curiosity in what they do and listen deeply about the way they think about their life and work in general. This may generate some new ideas in your mind.

How to use Procrastination to incubate Ideas

Adam Grant, in his famous TED speech, talks about how procrastinators develop more creative ideas.

The research was done on a few people who were asked to develop some new business ideas.

Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein said, “All great ideas come in the bus, bed, and bath.” This is also called three B’s of creativity. It means the best ideas come when you are not thinking about them.

Though you get away from the challenge, but your subconscious mind continues working on the original challenge in the background.

Incubation helps you put the challenge in perspective. When you leave a problem and come back to it again, you will have a fresh perspective of looking at it.

Here is the step by step process for activating incubation Identify - What are the challenges you want to solve and how would the solution look like? Prepare - Prepare as thoroughly as you can from all the sources.

What you should do now? Whenever you come

Whenever you come across a challenge, the first step that is needed is to do enough research about all aspects of the problem. Read enough literature. Google all the information, search videos, blogs, podcasts on the subject.

Now, get away from the challenge for a day or two, or engage yourself into some other project.

Just Chill Technique

Ideas are already there in the air. Your brain is like a radio station, and only when you tune into the right frequency will you be able to catch the respective radio station.

Alpha brainwaves have a frequency range of 8 Hz to 12 Hz, this is a moderate level. If you are under the influence of these brainwaves more, you get in the state of daydreaming, too relaxed, and unable to focus on any one thing.

Here is the road map for getting into Alpha Brainwaves state: Below are the elements that help you transition into an Alpha state smoothly: A quiet environment: you should be in an entirely undistracted and quiet environment. Use specific mental relaxation technique: You have to choose any of the relaxing technique that helps you to enter into a deep meditative state. If you already follow some relaxation technique, be it some kind of mindfulness meditation or any other practice, you should get into a relaxed state of mind, as it is a prerequisite to get into Alpha-brainwave state.

Doubt the Default- Question the Assumption:

The Power of Questions: The quality of your life depends on the quality of the questions you ask yourself. All great innovators like Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, Elon Musk have the habit of asking powerful and imaginative questions.

Talk to Non-Experts to get creative ideas. While experts have a deep understanding of one subject, but at the same time, they have very limited knowledge about other broad areas.

So you should look out for non-expert people’s views on things when your objective is to generate innovative ideas.

Procrastination boost Creativity: While Procrastination is a vice for productivity, it is a virtue for creativity.

Chilling out technique: This is more of a passive technique to generate innovative ideas.

Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.

In the end, the out of box thinking or creativity is nothing but the ability to produce the work that is novel (original, unique), and useful.

Though learning any musical instrument is a faster way to increase neuroplasticity due to the benefits it provides, but that is not the only way to do it.

By trying a new route to your workplace. - Eating food at different restaurants with different cuisines. - Playing different types of sports. - Listening to and playing with kids often. - Join different meetup groups, where you interact with different sets of people. - Reading books on subjects not related to your subjects. - Traveling to different places and understanding their culture and lifestyle.

Anything which gives you a different experience beyond your routine will help you build your creativity and let you generate more ideas.

Exercise activates a compound in your brain that boosts cognitive performance. This compound is called Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor, or BDNF for short. BDNF is responsible for increasing the connection between your different brain cells.

creativity is nothing but making different permutation and combination of various ideas.

The more you remember your experience through your memory, the more you are able to form new ideas. Someone rightly said that creativity is nothing but a fusion of memory and imagination.

Taking a Shower A shower is a place where you get ideas shower too.

enhancing creativity is dopamine, a neurotransmitter that plays an active role in the centers of pleasure and reward in the brain.

Mindfulness Meditation Improves Creativity Studies[6] have associated mindfulness meditation with many cognitive and psychological benefits, such as:

Improved task concentration Sustained attention, empathy, and introspection Enhanced memory Improved learning

Open-monitoring, which involves observing and noting phenomena in the present moment and keeping attention flexible and unrestricted, and 2) Focused attention, which stresses concentrating on a single object, such as breathing, and ignoring other stimuli.

How to do Open-Monitoring Meditation?

Here is how to get started: “[In open monitoring mindfulness meditation]…..we open up our awareness to everything that we’re experiencing regardless of its origin.

The openness extends to thoughts. Although we don’t try to engage in thinking, thoughts will inevitably arise anyway. In open monitoring meditation, we don’t try to stop them. We just watch them rising up and falling away.

Watching television is the mental and emotional equivalent of eating junk food.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, have found that prolonged television watching is actually correlated with increased anxiety and low-level depression.