What is the key to being creative? What is the factor behind it? I believe that the answer to this question is important. After all, being creative is essential in this age of automation. More and more routine tasks are being automated, so your creativity can make the difference between thriving and sinking. I already wrote about creativity before (here is one), but this time I’d like to take a different view. I’d like to focus on what I believe is a key factor to being creative: diversity.
I just finished reading Think Again by Adam Grant. It’s a book about rethinking, both at individual and group levels. Here I’d like to discuss one part of the book. It’s about the importance of experimentation. Here is an excerpt:
Do you want to be excited about your day? Do you want to go through your day with enthusiasm? While I still have a lot to improve, I can attest that I’m often excited about my day. As a result, I go through it with enthusiasm and end the day feeling fulfilled. How could that happen?
I’m currently reading A Man for All Markets, a memoir by Edward O. Thorp. It chronicles his story as a mathematics professor who tried to beat the casinos in gambling games. Later, he did something similar in the financial markets. He eventually became the pioneer of quantitative finance. I enjoyed the book and learned a lot from it. Among others, the book taught me about calculating the odds before making a bet and balancing risks and returns.
You only get a few opportunities, and you have to grab them aggressively when they come because even in the most favored life, they’re really rare. – Charlie Munger How do you reach your full potential? A big part of that, I believe, is making the most of your opportunities. The more you can capitalize on the opportunities that come your way, the better off you will be. But if you don’t make the most of them or – worse – miss them altogether, you wouldn’t do well. So how do you make the most of the opportunities?
I recently read This Kind of War by T.R. Fehrenbach. It’s a history book about the Korean War. It had sat in my Kindle library for a while and one day I decided to read just a bit of it. But then I couldn’t stop reading it!