The Masters of Enlightenment: Albert Einstein

The Low Density Lifestyle book is now out! You can check out an excerpt from the book, and buy it, at the Low Density Lifestyle bookstore.

The series on the Masters of Enlightenment continues today with a profile of a man who was one of the greatest scientists of all time, and who, through his blend of logic, creative intelligence and intuitive insights, opened our minds to the way the universe operates, and in the process, opened the doors of perception to the realm in which science and spirituality merge.

Albert Einstein was born on March 14, 1879 and died April 18, 1955. He was a German theoretical physicist who discovered the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics; his theories also provided the concepts and foundation for quantum physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics. He received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics “for his services to theoretical physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect.”

He escaped from Nazi Germany in 1933, where he had been a professor at the Berlin Academy of Sciences, and settled in the U.S., becoming a citizen in 1940. He taught physics at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, New Jersey, until his death in 1955.

Einstein published more than 300 scientific papers along with over 150 non-scientific works, and received honorary doctorate degrees in science, medicine and philosophy from many European and American universities; he also wrote about various philosophical and political subjects such as socialism, international relations and the existence of God. His great intelligence and originality has made the word “Einstein” synonymous with genius.

Einstein was a scientist, an artist, a philosopher, a rebel, and a mystic. He was an original thinker, and left his indelible mark in the collective consciousness of the world.

His life’s work earned him Time Magazine’s award in 1999, in their retrospective issue that looked back at the 20th century, as “Man of the Century.”

While growing up, Albert Einstein had such a spotty track record as a student that no one would have predicted where he would end up. One teacher told the young Einstein, “You will never amount to anything.” Einstein was later expelled from high school and flunked his college entrance exam.

The issue for Einstein as a student was that he did not think in a purely linear way, which is the way the education system generally teaches.

Sadly, the way the education system is constituted these days, it plays a major role in the repression of genius, human potential, and the potential for self-realization and enlightenment.

Many brilliant thinkers who have done much to change the course of humanity are not linear thinkers. They are creative thinkers who see the world in original ways.

If creative thinkers are expected to adjust their thinking from a nonlinear way to a linear one, in order to conform to the one-size-fits-all method of teaching that is the norm in education, they eventually lose their capability for original thinking. And sadly, when this occurs, the world becomes poorer for the experience.

Albert Einstein pointed this out in the case of the 19th century scientist Michael Faraday, who discovered electromagnetism. Einstein said of Faraday’s discovery, “Faraday’s discovery was an audacious mental creation, which we owe chiefly to the fact that Faraday never went to school, and therefore preserved the rare gift of thinking freely.”

Because of his own spotty track record as a student, once he graduated college, it was only thanks to a family connection that he got a job, as a civil servant in a patent office in Switzerland.

It was while working there in 1905 that he changed the course of history with his discovery of Special Theory of Relativity, which he wrote about in a published paper. Over the next few years, he expounded on Relativity Theory with papers on the nature of light and the General Theory of Relativity.

Einstein’s theories changed the notion of space and time, the notion of mass and energy, the notion of matter and light, and the way they are all perceived.

He opened the door to the understanding that the universe we live in is one ruled by quantum laws, a universe in which matter is primarily empty space rich in information and consciousness. Einstein’s perceptions showed that at its core, matter is not solid but comprised of waves.

Faced with such bold new assertions, it is understandable how Einstein and other scientists of the era who built on Einstein’s theories came to adopt a mystical worldview. They realized the universe was much different than what they had been taught, and that this new conception of the universe was closer in line with the teachings of Eastern philosophies than anything existing science could define.

But Einstein himself was always a mystic. His way of learning and perceiving, as I pointed out earlier, was a nonlinear one. He was a visual thinker, and stated, when asked about how his thought processes worked:
“Words and language, whether written or spoken, do not seem to play any part in my thought processes. The psychological entities that serve as building blocks for my thought are certain signs or images, more of less clear, that I can reproduce and recombine at will.”

Einstein was a brilliant creative thinker, one who saw the universe with fresh eyes. He had beginner’s mind – the mind of an original thinker – and maintained it his entire life. At his memorial, the scientist Robert Oppenheimer proclaimed: “He was almost wholly without sophistication and wholly without worldliness . . . There was always with him a wonderful purity at once childlike and profoundly stubborn.”

When you mix in his creative thinking and original mind with his tendency towards mysticism, you arrive at someone who is enlightened. And the beauty of Einstein’s enlightened mind was that he was able to articulate his vision clearly, for all to understand.

You may not be able to comprehend the profundity of his scientific achievements, but there are many other things that Einstein said that are equally as profound. Here is a sampling of them:

* “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.”
* “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
* “Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.”
* “I want to know God’s thoughts; the rest are details.”
* “Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
* “The only real valuable thing is intuition.”
* “A person starts to live when he can live outside himself.”
* “God is subtle but he is not malicious.”
* “Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.”
* “I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.”
* “The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility.”
* “Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing.”
* “Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind.”
* “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”
* “Great spirits have often encountered violent opposition from weak minds.”
* “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”
* “Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.”
* “The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.”
* “The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.”
* “Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal.”
* “Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.”
* “The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.”
* “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”
* “Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school.”
* “The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.”
* “Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater.”
* “Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the the universe.”
* “As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.”
* “Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.”
* “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”
* “In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must, above all, be a sheep.”
* “The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there’s no risk of accident for someone who’s dead.”
* “Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism — how passionately I hate them!”
* “No, this trick won’t work…How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love?”
* “My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.”
* “The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking…the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker.”
* “Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence.”
* “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.”
* “A man’s ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.”
* “The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge.”
* “Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
* “You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat.”
* “One had to cram all this stuff into one’s mind for the examinations, whether one liked it or not. This coercion had such a deterring effect on me that, after I had passed the final examination, I found the consideration of any scientific problems distasteful to me for an entire year.”
* “…one of the strongest motives that lead men to art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness, from the fetters of one’s own ever-shifting desires. A finely tempered nature longs to escape from the personal life into the world of objective perception and thought.”
* “He who joyfully marches to music rank and file, has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action. It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.”
* “A human being is a part of a whole, called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest… a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
* “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.” (Sign hanging in Einstein’s office at Princeton)

Creative Intelligence and Vision – Be a Dreamer, Be a Visionary

Can You Imagine?  Can You Use Your Creative Intelligence and Vision? Can You Dream, Can You Vision?

Today, for the series finale on Creative Intelligence, I present you with a video that I hope will inspire you and move you to continue to use your Creative Intelligence, and to Dream, Vision and Imagine.

In words and pictures, the video will tell the story.

Enjoy!

See you next time……

Creative Intelligence and Vision – One Company That Cultivates It

What happens if a company determines that they want to encourage Creative Intelligence and Visionary Thinking in all their employees? What could possibly result from it?

Imagine This

Before I tell you who the company is and some of the results of the creative intelligence of the employees, I just want to say that imagine if all companies cultivated creative intelligence and vision?

And how about schools? Imagine if creative intelligence and visionary thinking was the guiding force behind the education process? (Hint: creative intelligence is not cultivated in the education process and is usually squashed.)

So if all companies—and schools—truly cultivated creative intelligence and vision, all I can say is: Wow! This would be a world of creative thinking visionaries, people who were willing to dream up big ideas and put them into practice.

It would be a world filled with people living a Low Density Lifestyle.

Ok, so now back to about that specific company. You may have heard of them. Their name: Google.

Google

Google allows all employees to spend 20% of their time on whatever endeavors they fancy. They are totally allowed the free rein to do whatever they want with their work time, and to dream up ideas and then to see if they can come to fruition.

And this is why the folks at Google have created a cutting edge company that is never at a loss for new and fascinating ideas. By letting employees truly use their creative intelligence and by encouraging them to live a Low Density Lifestyle, they are a rich resource of original thinking.

How do I know Google encourages employees to live a Low Density Lifeestyle? Google offers a free dining facility for their employees that serves organic whole foods, offers free massage services to their employees and has places on their campus where employees can go to take a nap.  These things are part of the 12 steps to attaining a Low Density Lifestyle.

And so, whether you are a technophile or technophobe, it’s worth checking out some of the really cool things Google employees have developed, thanks to the corporate climate of encouraging creative intelligence. It may not be your inclination to think up these kinds of things, but I just wanted to show you the possibility of what can be done, if it is cultivated and encouraged, in order to inspire you:

IGOOGLE:  At iGoogle (google.com/ig), you can dress up all that white space with useful miniboxes containing additional info. Hundreds of useful displays are available: a clock, local weather, movie listings, incoming e-mail, news, daily horoscope, to-do list, Twitter updates and whatever-of-the-day (joke, vocabulary word, quotation, Bible verse and so on).

GOOGLE READER: Why spend your time finding and navigating to the Web sites that cover your favorite topics? They can all come to you — all nicely congregated on a single page, called Google Reader (reader.google.com).

You type in a topic, inspect the search results, and click the Subscribe buttons that look interesting. After that, Reader displays the first paragraph from each site or blog; click to read more. Star items to read later, or pass along your favorites to friends.

FLU TRENDS: Google figured out that whenever people get sick, they use Google to search for more information. By collating these searches, Google has created an early-warning system for flu outbreaks in your area, with color-coded graphs. Google says that Flu Trends (google.org/flutrends) has recognized outbreaks two weeks sooner than the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has.

GOOGLE MAPS: You probably know this one, but it’s still worth pointing out (maps.google.com). Choose the directions you want: by car, by public transit or on foot. Drag the path line with your mouse around construction sites or down interesting streets. View current traffic conditions. Turn on Street View to see actual photographs of your destination.

GMAIL LABS: Gmail is already the world’s best free Web-based e-mail service, with terrific organization tools and a superb spam blocker. But if you click Settings and then Labs, you find a huge list of on/off switches for cool enhancements.

There’s Text Message in Chat (send text messages to your friends’ cellphones from within Google Chat or Gmail); Offline Mail (work on Gmail when you’re not online); Canned Responses (build a menu of stock answers to your mail); Multiple Inboxes (manages mail by auto-creating multiple mail folders); and Send & Archive (one click sends your reply and removes the original from the list).

TRANSLATOR: Translate any text or Web page to or from 40 languages (translate.google.com). It’s not perfect, but you’ll get the gist of that spam from Russia.

800-GOOG-411: Possibly the best voice-recognition cellphone service in existence. Call the number, say what you’re looking for (“comedy clubs, Chicago” or “Domino’s Pizza, Cleveland”), and Google’s auto-voice reads off the closest eight matches. You can speak the number of the one you want, and he’ll connect your call automatically — no charge. You never know or care what the phone number was; it’s like having a personal secretary.

Or you can say “text message” at any time to have the address and phone number zapped to your cellphone in one second.

GOOGLE SMS: Send a message to GOOGL (46645). In the body of the message, type the sort of information you want: weather report (“weather dallas”), stock quotes (“amzn”), movie showtimes (type “slumdog millionaire 44120”), definitions (“define schadenfreude”), directions (“miami fl to 60609”), unit conversions (“liters in 5 gallons”), currency conversions (“25 usd in euros”), and so on. Five seconds later, Google texts back the details.

GOOGLE SETS: At labs.google.com/sets, type in several items in a series (like “cleveland browns” and “dallas cowboys”); Google fleshes out the list with others like it (all the other football teams). Great when something’s on the tip of your tongue (a kind of fruit, president, car, holiday, currency) but can remember only something like it.

GOOGLE SCHOLAR: You can search all published academic papers at once, at scholar.google.com, for whatever subject you are interested in.

SECRETS OF THE SEARCH BOX: Usually, whatever you type into Google’s Search box is treated as a quest for Web pages. Certain kinds of information, however, get special treatment.

For example, you can type in an equation (like “23*9/3.4+234”); press Enter to see the answer.

Think of Google, too, for conversions. For example, type “83 yards in inches,” “500 euros in dollars,” or “grams in 3.2 pounds”; then press Enter.

The search box can also serve as a dictionary (type “define:ersatz”), package tracker (type your FedEx or U.P.S. tracking number), global Yellow Pages (“phonebook:home depot norwalk ct”), meteorologist (“weather san diego”), flight tracker (“AA 15”), stock ticker (“AAPL” or “MSFT”), and movie-listings (type “movies:10024,” or whatever your ZIP code is).

And there’s more, but that’s all space allows.

That’s one company with mega amounts of Creative Intelligence and Vision.

Come back tomorrow for a final article on Creative Intelligence and Vision. It will be a video that will move and inspire you.

Vision – Quotes of Noted Visionaries of the 20th and 21st Centuries

I’ve been talking for a few weeks about Creative Intelligence, and the last few days about Vision and how being a Visionary is something innate we all have brewing within.

So today for some inspiration I would share with you quotes of some noted visionaries of the 20th and 21st centuries. I hope this gets your wheels turning and encourages you to start cultivating and evolving your own vision.

Words of Visionaries

Muhammed Ali: To be able to give away riches is mandatory if you wish to possess them. This is the only way that you will be truly rich.

Winston Churchill: We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.

Albert Einstein: The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.

Anne Frank: Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news. The good news is that you don’t know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is!

Buckminster Fuller: Everyone is born a genius, but the process of living de-geniuses them.

Mohandas Gandhi: An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.

Vaclav Havel: Genuine politics—even politics worthy of the name—the only politics I am willing to devote myself to—is simply a matter of serving those around us: serving the community and serving those who will come after us. Its deepest roots are moral because it is a responsibility expressed through action, to and for the whole.

Helen Keller: No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.

John F. Kennedy: The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were.

Robert F. Kennedy: There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why. I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?

Martin Luther King, Jr.: Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction. The chain reaction of evil—hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars—must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.

Dalai Lama: With realization of one’s own potential and self-confidence in one’s ability, one can build a better world.

John Lennon: My role in society, or any artist’s or poet’s role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all.

Nelson Mandela: I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.

Rosa Parks: I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear.

Pablo Picasso: The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.

Jackie Robinson: A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.

Eleanor Roosevelt: Do what you feel in your heart to be right—for you’ll be criticized anyway. You’ll be damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.

Franklin D. Roosevelt: In our personal ambitions we are individualists. But in our seeking for economic and political progress as a nation, we all go up or else all go down as one people.

Dr. Albert Schweitzer: By having a reverence for life, we enter into a spiritual relation with the world. By practicing reverence for life we become good, deep and alive.

Dr. Benjamin Spock: Happiness is mostly a by-product of doing what makes us feel fulfilled.

Mother Teresa: It is not the magnitude of our actions but the amount of love that is put into them that matters.

Desmond Tutu: If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.

Kurt Vonnegut: Just because some of us can read and write and do a little math, that doesn’t mean we deserve to conquer the Universe.

Vision – What is Your Vision Quotient/Vision Intelligence?

Every person takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world. – Arthur Schopenhauer

High IQ doesn’t guarantee being a visionary and a leader. It takes a different type of intelligence. It takes using your VQ – your Vision Intelligence.

When you live a Low Density Lifestyle, your Vision Intelligence will naturally be higher.

For most people, having a vision and being a visionary is a learned skill, even though it is innate in everyone. Over the years, the various impediments of life that stop us from using our visionary capabilities and also stop us from freeing our mind and tapping into our genius nature get in the way.

Here is a self-quiz, a VQ test, to see if you are using your visionary abilities. Actually, it’s not so much a quiz as much as a listing of the traits of a visionary. You can make it a quiz by asking yourself if you have each of these traits, and then score each trait that you have on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest.

There are 10 traits. Score it this way:
60 and under: Your vision hasn’t yet manifested.
61-70: You occasionally are able to see in a visionary way.
71-80: You are starting to become a visionary.
81-90: Your visionary abilities are shining through.
91-99: You are someone who has a strong vision.
100: You are a true visionary.

1. Mindfulness - Do you know who you really are? How much of the time are you present and fully aware?

2. Idealism – Are you an idealist and someone who prefers to live a principled life?

3. The Capacity to Face and Use Adversity – We all make mistakes and we all face adversity. Do you own your mistakes and use adversity and the pain that goes with it to learn?

4. Being Holistic – Do you see the interconnections between everything?

5. Being Open – Are you open to new ideas, to things that are different? Or do you just have a knee-jerk reaction when something comes your way that is not the same-old same-old?

6. Thinking with Head and Heart – Do you integrate critical thinking with what your heart tells you? In other words, do you think with both your head and heart?

7. Courage – Do you have the courage to be independent, to not do what is expedient or what the group wants you to do? Are you willing to stand on your own two feet for what you believe in, and to do the right thing?

8. Asking Questions – Do you take things at face value or do you want to know more, and to get at the heart of the matter, in order to form your own opinion and to think for yourself?

9. Re-Framing Ideas – Do you take things you are presented with and put it into a larger context of meaning, something that has practical value for you and others?

10. Spontaneity – Do you make decisions and react to things based on fear, so that you have an immediate and negative knee-jerk reaction? Or are your responses based on the situation at hand, so that your response is appropriate to the situation?

Creative Intelligence and the Creative Process

As a finale for the series on Creative Intelligence, here’s an excellent talk given in Feb. 2009 by Eat, Pray, Love author Elizabeth Gilbert about the creative process.

In the talk she states the same thing I have been getting at in this series on Creative Intelligence – that we are all geniuses, and that it is not just something that is bestowed on a select few.

We all have an inner Einstein, an innate genius lurking within. You just have to tap into its potential. The best way to do so is by living a Low Density Lifestyle.

By the way, this talk on Creative Intelligence and the Creative Process by Elizabeth Gilbert comes from the TED conference.

The TED conference is an annual conference that brings together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes.

Where Does Creative Intelligence Come From?

Deepak Chopra on Quantum Physics and Consciousness

Where does creative intelligence come from?  Yes, I know it comes from the mind, but it’s a different mindset to think in a creative fashion than it is when you are thinking logically.

When you use your creative intelligence, you are accessing the dreaming mind, the aspect of your mind that taps into a greater world.

You are actually accessing the world of quantum physics when you use your creative intelligence, a world that tells us of a vast and unlimited universe, a world of infinite energy, infinite potential and infinite information.

This is where the source of the creativity lies.

The Zero-Point Field

Quantum physics tells us that the source of all matter is what is called the Zero-Point Field. It lies at the core of the universe and it is where matter emanates from.

When you dream and use your imagination, you are tapping into the place where consciousness, stillness, breath and wisdom originate from, the place that Eastern philosophies call Universal Mind, or Big Mind. This might sound mystical, but you have to remember that the source for most famous ideas throughout history have come to their originator in a flash, often when they were least expecting something. The inventor Nicola Tesla said, “Creative ideas come to us like a bolt of lightning.”

To access the Zero-Point Field, it is a matter of being still and calm, and feeling your center. In other words, you become light of body and mind. And you know what we call that—that’s right, that’s the Low Density Lifestyle.

When you are in that Low Density Lifestyle mode, you don’t have blockages that impede your ability to access the Zero-Point Field in order to use your creative intelligence to your utmost potential.  When you are living a High Density Lifestyle, you have too much static and densities in body and mind, blocking your ability to fully utilize your creative potential.

This is why when someone gets a creative thought, a new idea or new insight that comes to them, it comes when they fully relax and allow themselves to just be in the flow.  That sounds familiar, right?  That’s because, as I’ve said before, to get into a Low Density Lifestyle, you have to be FREE—you have to Flow, Relax, and do things with Effortless Effort.

In the above video, Deepak Chopra explains the world of quantum physics. After watching the video, you may understand these heady ideas better.

As I have been saying throughout this series on creative intelligence, we all have it.  We all have tremendous innate genius potential, it’s just waiting to be utilized.  So start right now.

In tomorrow’s last installment from this series on creative intelligene (I know, I know, all good things must come to an end) we’ll hear from Elizabeth Gilbert, best-selling author of Eat, Pray, Love on genius and the creative process.

Creative Intelligence and and New and Visionary Ideas That Were Rejected – Part 2

One Idea That Was Rejected Was a Bunch of Blokes From Liverpool

I told you about Creative Intelligence and New and Visionary Ideas that were rejected in yesterday’s article. Because the list is long, I will tell you about more rejections.

It takes creative intelligence – which is a mix of creative and logical thinking and the imagination – to come up with new and visionary ideas.  But it takes no creative intelligence whatsoever to reject them.  People who reject them are too stuck in a High Density Lifestyle to recognize brilliance.

So let’s examine some more of the things that have become commonplace that were rejected at first.

How Could They Tell Them No?

The Beatles
“We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.” — Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962

Xerox
In 1938 Chester Carlson invented xerography. Virtually every major corporation, including IBM and Xerox, didn’t think much of his idea and rejected it. They felt that since carbon paper was cheap and readily available, no one would buy an expensive copying machine.

U.S. Patent Office
In 1899 Charles Duell, the director of the U.S. Patent Office, suggested that the government close the office because everything that could be invented had been invented.

The Radio
“The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?” –David Sarnoff’s Associates in rejecting a proposal for investment in the radio in the 1920s.

Talking Pictures
“Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?” –H.M. Warner (Warner Brothers) before rejecting proposal for movies with sound in 1927.

The Airplane
“Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.” –Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.

Nautilus Machines
“You want to have consistent and uniform muscle development across all of your muscles? It can’t be done. It’s just a fact of life. You just have to accept inconsistent muscle development as an unalterable condition of weight training.” –Rejection letter to Arthur Jones, who invented the Nautilus Fitness Machine

The Computer
“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”– Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.

The Personal Computer
“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” — Ken Olsen, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977

Tomorrow I’ll look at where creative ideas come from, and tie it in with ideas from quantum physics.

Creative Intelligence and New and Visionary Ideas That Were Rejected

Apple Computer – A Company Rejected by the Experts – and their Think Different TV Ad

When you use your creative intelligence – and remember, everyone has it – you are using the mind’s greater potential. You will be able to come up with new, visionary and brilliant ideas.

In yesterday’s article, I told you how you can use your creative intelligence to come up with visionary ideas. I also mentioned how some brilliant ideas are rejected when they are first proposed. They are rejected because the people who judge them have limited creative intelligence and are caught up in a High Density Lifestyle.

But because the people who came up with these ideas were visionaries living a Low Density Lifestyle, and believed in the power of their ideas, they were able to overcome the entrenched way of thinking of the experts and bring their ideas to fruition.

In today and tomorrow’s articles, I will tell you about some ideas, concepts and people who were rejected at first, but have gone on to tremendous success. So here goes – I think you will get a kick out of this:

How Could They Tell Them No?

Apple Computer
“So we went to Atari and said, ‘Hey, we’ve got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we’ll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we’ll come work for you.’ And they said, ‘No.’ So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, ‘Hey, we don’t need you. You haven’t got through college yet.’” — Apple Computer Inc. founder Steve Jobs on attempts to get Atari and H-P interested in his and Steve Wozniak’s personal computer.

Federal Express
Fred Smith, while a student at Yale, came up with the concept of Federal Express, a national overnight delivery service. The U.S. Postal Service, U.P.S., his own business professor, and virtually every delivery expert in the United States predicted his enterprise would fail. Based on their experiences in the industry, no one, they said, would pay a fancy price for speed and reliability.

Mrs. Fields Cookies
“A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make.” — Response to Debbi Fields’ idea of starting Mrs. Fields’ Cookies.

Handwashing for Doctors
In the mid-1800’s in Vienna, Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis, an obstetrician, proposed that obstetricians wash their hands before delivering babies to lessen the possibility of spreading disease. He even proved his point by doing a study that showed how washing hands would lessen disease in newborns. The physicians involved refused to believe his idea could make a difference and ran him out of Vienna. He ended up committing suicide as a result of the emotional stress he suffered.

The Telephone
In 1861, in Germany, Phillip Reiss invented a machine that could transmit music and was on the verge of inventing the telephone, but was persuaded there was no market for a telephone, because the telegraph was an adequate way to send messages. Fifteen years later Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone.

Tomorrow: More ideas that were rejected.

Imagination and Creative Intelligence

Check out those crazy hamsters! That’s really creative and imaginative.

“An act of imagination, a speculative adventure…underlies every improvement of natural knowledge.” – Sir Peter Brian Medawar (1915-1987) British Zoologist

“The imagination is not a State: it is the Human existence itself.” - William Blake

As I mentioned in my articles on Creative Intelligence and I.Q. Part 1 and Part 2: Imagination is an important part of creative intelligence.

And to repeat what I said in the articles on Creative Intelligence and I.Q., imagination, in combination with creative and logical thinking is what creative intelligence is about. And using creative intelligence is much more important than I.Q. in being able to access your innate genius potential.

The Imagination

So let’s talk some more about the imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge, Albert Einstein once said.

All the great artists and scientists throughout time have understood how important imagination is. Most great ideas don’t come when we use only our logical thinking capabilities. They mostly come when we let down our guards, enter into a Low Density Lifestyle, and let the imagination take hold.

Nicola Tesla, the great scientist and inventor, once said, “Creative ideas come to us like a bolt of lightning.”

Steven Weinberg won a Nobel Prize for physics for his electroweak theory and said the idea came to him in a flash one day, while he was driving his car.

Albert Einstein once wondered, “Why is it I get my best ideas in the morning while I’m shaving?” This is because when we allow ourselves to relax and let the mind space out, the imagination can take over.

History is filled with many stories of creative insights that arrived like flashes of light, whether in daydreams, creative reveries or dreams. When you let go of your current way of thinking in order to see something new, you are letting your imagination take hold.

Imagination is Infinite

Imagination is infinite. All it takes to touch it is to close the eyes, quiet the mind and be silent – in other words, to enter into a Low Density Lifestyle. And then it flows – it may be images, thoughts, ideas or whatever, but the key is not to silence it or to criticize it. You may then want to express what you imagined – through written or spoken words, images, musical notations, or however you are most comfortable.

The key is to go and use your imagination. We are not encouraged to. But it is an important part of our lives.

“The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious…He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead.” - Albert Einstein

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