Genius Thinking: Lessons From History’s Greatest Minds on Innovation, Creativity, and Intelligence

By Peter Hollins

Learn from some of the greatest thinkers in history. Study their patterns and stand on the shoulders of giants.

How does one think like a genius? Is there a set definition for this? Well, no. But if you study the greats, you’re bound to learn something.

Learn the five “genius traits” and how to apply them in your daily life.

Think Like a Genius is a look through time and history. We climb into a time travel machine and examine flashpoints in the lives of famous geniuses. They are all household names, and now you can better understand what made them tick.

Learn their traits, absorb their techniques, and forge your own path of genius to accomplish whatever you set your mind to.

Walk away with a framework of how to simply think better.

Nick Trenton grew up in rural Illinois and is quite literally a farm boy. His best friend growing up was his trusty companion Leonard the dachshund. RIP Leonard. Eventually, he made it off the farm and obtained a BS in Economics, followed by an MA in Behavioral Psychology.

The most helpful mental models directly from their sources.

•How Einstein’s hobbies helped his genius.
•Napoleon's key to conquering nations and cementing his legacy
•What Descartes had to say about demons.
•Darwin’s Golden Rule and how it changed his life.
•Tesla, Edison, and the battle of approaches and philosophies.
•Copernicus, Galileo, and the values of non-convention.
•The unique team that Abraham Lincoln surrounded himself with.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publishdrive
• Release date: Jun 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9798399888712

Peter Hollins

Pete Hollins is a bestselling author and human psychology and behavior researcher. He is a dedicated student of the human condition. He possesses a BS and MA in psychology, and has worked with dozens of people from all walks of life. After working in private practice for years, he has turned his sights to writing and applying his years of education to help people improve their lives from the inside out. He enjoys hiking with his family, drinking craft beers, and attempting to paint. He is based in Seattle, Washington. To learn more about Hollins and his work, visit PeteHollins.com.

Book preview

Genius Thinking:

Lessons From History’s Greatest Minds on Innovation, Creativity, and Intelligence

By Peter Hollins,

Author and Researcher at petehollins.com

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CLICK HERE for your FREE 14-PAGE MINIBOOK: Human Nature Decoded: 9 Surprising Psychology Studies That Will Change the Way You Think. > >

--Subconscious Triggers

-- Emotional Intelligence

-- Influencing and Analyzing People

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Table of Contents

Genius Thinking: Lessons From History’s Greatest Minds on Innovation, Creativity, and Intelligence

Chapter 1. What Makes a Genius?

Intellectual curiosity

Willpower and discipline

Intellectual honesty

A dash of polymathy

Chapter 2. Einstein and Combinatorial Play

Einstein: not a one-trick pony

The power of the possible

The strength of non-conventionality

Chapter 3. Socrates’ Endless Questions

Understanding the spirit of the Socratic method

Applied curiosity

The Socratic method as a thinking technique

Turning the questions on ourselves

Chapter 4. Darwin’s Golden Rule

Darwin’s uncommon talent

Truth > being right

Consistency > brilliance

Chapter 5. Rene Descartes and Starting From Zero

Starting from zero

Meditation 1

Meditation 2

Meditation 3

Descartes the man

Chapter 6. Tesla and Edison: Two Paths to Success

Edison—a teacher and rival

Tesla’s lesson: Pursue goals obliquely

Edison’s lesson: Pursue goals incrementally

Contrasting genius

Chapter 7. Copernicus and Galileo: The Courage to Go Against the Grain

What it takes to be different

Geniuses are leaders, not followers

Navigating rejection

Resist Determinism

Own your work

Have faith in yourself

Chapter 8. Napoleon: No Time for the Trivial

Informational Triage

Some Problems Solve Themselves

It Can Be Smart to Focus on the Negative

Chapter 9. Abraham Lincoln and his Team of Rivals

Keep your enemies close

Unconventional Genius

The power of mindset

The secret ingredient: humanity

Summary Guide

Chapter 1. What Makes a Genius?

What is a genius? Perhaps the first answer that pops into your mind is the popular depiction of geniuses in TV shows. You know the kind: smart-talking, slightly arrogant black sheep who seem to solve the crime or win the chess tournament without breaking a sweat. People have always been fascinated with genius, and with the ability to wield superior intellectual mastery. Whether we admire geniuses in the arts, science, or business, there’s something so irresistible about the idea of a human being operating at their fullest potential.

If you’ve picked up this book, it’s likely you too are interested in what exactly sets geniuses apart. Are they just born that way, and us mere mortals can do nothing but look on in admiration? Or perhaps there is no such thing as genius at all, only years of punishing, diligent hard work that pays off eventually?

In this book, we’re going to take the perspective so often adopted by geniuses themselves: we’re going to approach the idea of intellectual mastery and success as our topic, and study it as Einstein studied physics. In other words, we’ll become students of human success, and look closely not into any one subject, but into the way we think about those subjects, and how we can optimize our learning and abilities. We’ll observe, take notes, and see what we can learn from the great thinkers of our time—and there’s a lot to learn, for those who are willing to pay attention.

What genius can you think of, off the top of your head? In this book, we’ll look at the lives and works of people like Socrates, Einstein, Descartes, Darwin and Copernicus, among others. Despite living in different cultural and historical periods, and despite having different interests and ideas, these men in fact share a surprisingly predictable set of personal characteristics. So, what are these traits? Before you carry on reading, close this book and see if you can zoom in on just one or two qualities or attributes that you think make the essence of a genius.

Intellectual curiosity

Chances are, you thought of something along the lines of a genius is intellectually hungry and curious about everything. No matter the chosen outlet, intelligent and highly conscious people tend to want to know why. It’s this active, deliberate perspective that sets them apart from others who are happy to take things as they are, without ever looking more deeply into them.

When we are children, we are perhaps more like natural geniuses than at any other time in our lives. We are the proverbial learning sponges, soaking everything up, asking a million questions a day, wanting to know how things work just for the joy of having that knowledge. When we grow up, adults around us indoctrinate us into certain educational conventions and institutions that dull this natural curiosity. We learn the rules, the right answers, and which authority to defer to. In other words, we stop relying on our own innate fascination with the universe around us.

For a genius, curiosity never seems to subside. No matter how old they are, they seem to have a knack for looking at the world with the wonder of a little child seeing it all for the first time. They are enraptured by things that other people think are commonplace. They want to understand how it all works, what it means, how it fits together, and they don’t stop investigating until they find out!

And this leads us to conclude something interesting: that people like Socrates and Einstein aren’t in possession of something superhuman; rather, they may have merely figured out how to retain a certain mindset that all humans are typically born with. We’ll be focusing on such people in this book because their lives are a matter of public record, and it’s easy to see what might have worked for them, but geniuses are all around us and more common than we think.

Granted, many people in the world are dogged in their pursuit of knowledge. Picture a journalist relentlessly pursuing the truth or the next scoop, or an academic going over their field with a fine-tooth comb as they compile a PhD thesis. The difference here, though, is that such people may be pursuing knowledge and intellectual mastery for some secondary gain. For example, they choose to learn and develop skills so they can make money, or win the esteem of their peers, or satisfy the expectations of others. The genius, on the other hand, doesn’t care about these things, or at the very least, these benefits are a distant second to the main reason for learning: just because. And this is arguably why they can go further!

A genius pursues knowledge and understanding for its own sake. The thrill of learning, of peering into the mysteries of life, of gaining a grasp of what was once unintelligible—these things are seen as rewards in themselves, and they are their own good worth chasing. You can see this in the fact that many geniuses will pursue knowledge and understanding despite the fact that it actually compromises things like money, security, and social approval. As we’ll soon see, many of the most celebrated geniuses throughout history were actually reviled by their peers at the time, or sacrificed relationships and financial security in order to pursue the object of their intellectual fascination.

Geniuses are never lukewarm about the unknown, and they certainly don’t fear it. Instead, they are enchanted with it, and seek to satisfy their curiosity. Their attitude is one of the natural scientist—they want to engage with the deeper functioning of the universal machine, rather than simply accept the surface manifestations.

Is this a trait that you can actually develop in yourself, though? Absolutely. Remember, we are all born with an innate curiosity—we wouldn’t know what we know now or indeed have survived to adulthood unless we were 100 percent fine-tuned natural learning machines! It’s a question of reconnecting with that inborn curiosity and yearning to understand. There’s no point in pretending we are all born with the same talents, intelligence levels, and aptitudes, but remember that this is only part of the picture. If you can imagine an intelligent person who has lived an unremarkable, unexamined life, or if you can imagine a person who has learned much despite being only moderately talented, then you can see immediately that raw aptitude is nice, but attitude makes the difference at the end of the day.

This attitude is one and the same with being open-minded. It’s curiosity. When last were you genuinely curious?

Try this: Just for today, go out into the world and literally imagine that you are a child again and everything is new to you (or maybe imagine that you are an alien who is seeing Earth for the first time and trying to make sense of it). Spend a day asking questions of the things that happen around you. Notice where your own curiosity is piqued. Where do you feel that rush of excitement and energy, that feeling that is as exhilarating as discovering a chocolate bunny on an Easter egg hunt?

When you notice yourself feeling this curiosity, pay attention. Go more deeply into the questions you have. Think creatively about what you see, and ask yourself, In what ways could this be different? Don’t rush in to squash that uncertainty and mystery with a canned explanation, but rather relish the unknown. Many geniuses are able to make enormous breakthroughs in their field precisely because they were able to see the profoundly obvious facts of existence that everyone else has dutifully trained themselves out of noticing. Look for problems, and daydream about novel solutions to them.

We tend to think of geniuses as serious, joyless people, but nothing could be further from the truth. The start of every marvelous idea or innovation is essentially play. To access this state of mind, ironically, asks us to drop our ideas of being smart, of being right or admired by others. It asks us to forget about the goals we might attach to being intellectually superior. Many of the world’s greatest discoveries were made by accident, when people relaxed their minds and simply looked at the same old things in a slightly different way.

We’ll explore the fundamental value of curiosity, open-mindedness and a perspective of goalless play in subsequent chapters, but for now, imagine that a genius is nothing more than a child who sees the entire world as a vast and wonderful playground. With this mindset, you are halfway to being a genius yourself.

Willpower and discipline

Of course, it’s not all just fun and games. Though many Eureka moments have happened in the ways described above, this is only the start of the journey. A person who is blessed with loads of natural curiosity will find plenty of interesting avenues of enquiry, but may never actually muster the energy and discipline to go all the way in any single one of them. This is because another quality is essential for