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May 4, 2007
Getting Paid to Think
Posted by Brad Abare | Filed under: Inspiration
If you can get past the pompous posture of the author, Thinking for a Living by Joey Reiman is an excellent read. Although the book has been around for several years, it came at a particularly helpful time for Personality™ as we've been navigating our way through the development of several new processes that involve a whole lot of thinking.
"Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably why so few engage in it." -Henry Ford
Reiman is the founder of an ideation company that started after he launched and sold an advertising agency. He got out of the ad business because clients were paying for the execution of ideas, not the ideas themselves. I've talked before about this broken agency model.
"An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an invasion of ideas." -Victor Hugo
Some have said that we use only 10 percent of our brains to think. Reiman thinks this is too little of a space for big ideas, and suggests nine characteristics of thinkers that are using more than their 10 percent.
- Big thinkers are on fire.
- Big thinkers never lose in their imaginations.
- Big thinkers bet the farm.
- Big thinkers marinate in thought.
- Big thinkers think better together.
- Big thinkers don't take no for an answer.
- Big thinkers turn reality into fantasy.
- Big thinkers live their lives with a purpose.
- Big thinkers think with their hearts.
Reiman also suggests four stages of creativity that are not only a roadmap for great thoughts, but a process he has built his business around.
- Investigation
Detect, study, explore, gather - Incubation
The longest stage, quantity over quality, can involve blending, traveling, polarizing, walking, meditating, praying and sharing - Illumination
The editing of stage two, illuminate the big idea, the "Aha!" moment - Illustration
Portray and personify the big idea, design, create
The book is packed with quotes and short stories of great thinkers, including some not-so-great thinkers like:
"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
-Charles H. Duell, Director of U.S. Patent Office, 1899"Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?"
-Harry Warner, Warner Brothers Pictures, 1927"Sensible and responsible women do not want to vote."
-Grover Cleveland, 1905"There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom."
-Robert Millikan, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1923
Contrary to so many books, Thinking for a Living gets better and better toward the end. Reiman does a nice job of giving tangible takeaways for applying his admonition to think, both in corporate and personal envrionments.
Three applications for Personality™ would be:
- Foster an environment that is conducive to thinking (make time for it!).
- Play with Reiman's 4 I's--investigation, incubation, illumination and illustration, and learn how they work in our context.
- Continue down our path of selling ideas over execution.
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