Really, why aren't people more successful? If you've ever had that idea that made you go 'Aha!' or made that proverbial light bulb go off in your head, you've probably had an idea that was a game-changer: the type of idea that makes life better, easier or more enjoyable for all who use it, and makes you rich and successful by implementing it. We all have great ideas at one point in time or another, but few of us have confidence and know-how to follow through with the idea to completion. In each chapter, I lay out the process of preparing yourself to be a game-changer, and show you how to take an idea from concept to its complete manifest form.

In a book perfect for readers of Charles Duhigg’s The Power of Habit, David Eagleman’s Incognito, and Leonard Mlodinow’s Subliminal, the cognitive neuroscientists who discovered how the brain has aha moments—sudden creative insights—explain how they happen, when we need them, and how we can have more of them to enrich our lives and empower personal and professional success. Eureka or aha moments are sudden realizations that expand our understanding of the world and ourselves, conferring both personal growth and practical advantage. Such creative insights, as psychological scientists call them, were what conveyed an important discovery in the science of genetics to Nobel laureate Barbara McClintock, the melody of a Beatles ballad to Paul McCartney, and an understanding of the cause of human suffering to the Buddha. But these moments of clarity are not given only to the famous. Anyone can have them. In The Eureka Factor, John Kounios and Mark Beeman explain how insights arise and what the scientific research says about stimulating more of them. They discuss how various conditions affect the likelihood of your having an insight, when insight is helpful and when deliberate methodical thought is better suited to a task, what the relationship is between insight and intuition, and how the brain’s right hemisphere contributes to creative thought. Written in a lively, engaging style, this book goes beyond scientific principles to offer productive techniques for realizing your creative potential—at home and at work. The authors provide compelling anecdotes to illustrate how eureka experiences can be a key factor in your life. Attend a dinner party with Christopher Columbus to learn why we need insights. Go to a baseball game with the director of a classic Disney Pixar movie to learn about one important type of aha moment. Observe the behind-the-scenes arrangements for an Elvis Presley concert to learn why the timing of insights is crucial. Accessible and compelling, The Eureka Factor is a fascinating look at the human brain and its seemingly infinite capacity to surprise us. Praise for The Eureka Factor “Delicious . . . In The Eureka Factor, neuroscientists John Kounios and Mark Beeman give many other examples of [a] kind of lightning bolt of insight, but back this up with the latest brain-imaging research.”—Newsweek “An incredible accomplishment . . . [The Eureka Factor] is not just a chronicle of the journey that numerous scientists (including the authors) have taken to examine insight but is also a fascinating guide to how advances in science are made in general. Messrs. Kounios and Beeman examine how a parade of clever experiments can be designed to answer specific questions and rule out alternative possibilities. . . . Wonderful ideas appear as if out of nowhere—and we are delighted.”—The Wall Street Journal “An excellent title for those interested in neuroscience or creativity . . . The writing is engaging and readable, mixing stories of famous perceptions with explanations of how such revelations happen.”—Library Journal (starred review) “A lively and accessible ‘brain’ book with wide appeal.”—Booklist “[An] ingenious, thoughtful update on how the mind works.”—Kirkus Reviews “The Eureka Factor presents a fascinating and illuminating account of the creative process and how to foster it.”—James J. Heckman, Nobel laureate in economics

Draws on expertise from psychology, neurology and evolutionary psychology to illuminate the process of spontaneous flashes of human insight, surveying engaging examples from the fields of religion, science, math and art.

This book is about having ideas and—a much longer haul—making them work. David Jones, best known for his Daedalus column, tells a multitude of stories about creators and their creations, including his own fantastical-seeming contributions to mainstream science such as the unrideable bicycle and chemical gardens in space. His theory of creativity endows each of us with a Random-Ideas Generator, a Censor, and an Observer-Reasoner. Jones applies his theory to a wide range of weird scientific experiments that he has conducted for serious scientific papers, for challenging printed expositions, and for presentations to a TV audience. He even suggests new ones, not yet tried! Creativity is as essential to science as curiosity, physical intuition, and shrewd deduction from well-planned experiments. But, says Jones, ingenuity is very uncertain. Even for the greatest inventors, about 80 percent of ideas fail. Jokiness can help, and so can lots of random data. Jones has plenty of clever advice that will help spark that madly brilliant private thought in the first place—and will encourage you to take it further. Neither dense nor demanding, The Aha! Moment is engrossing, edifying, and scientifically serious; yet it is lightly written and asks lots of silly questions. As Jones shows, it can often pay to take an absurd idea seriously.

Creativity of an Aha!Moment and Mathematics Education introduces bisociation, the theory of Aha! moment creativity into Mathematics Education. It establishes relationships between bisociation and constructivist theories of learning laying down the basis for the new theory integrating creativity with learning.

Sudden flashes of inspiration have triggered many discoveries and inventions throughout history. Are such aha! moments merely random, or is there a way to train the brain to harness these seemingly unpredictable creative insights? This fascinating overview of the latest neuroscience findings on spontaneous thought processes, or "snaps," describes how everyone—not just geniuses—can learn to improve the likelihood of their own "eureka" moments by adopting certain rewarding attitudes and habits. As the author explains, snaps are much more than new ideas. Snaps are insights plus momentum—they instantly compel or snap us toward action. They often occur after ordinary problem solving hits an impasse. We may feel stuck, but while we’re in a quandary, the brain is rebooting. Then, when we least expect it, the solution pops into our heads. She describes the results of numerous scientific experiments studying this phenomenon. She also recounts intriguing stories of people in diverse disciplines who have had a snap experience. Both the research and the stories illustrate that it’s possible to enhance our facility for snap moments by training ourselves to scan, sift, and solve. In the emerging economy, businesses and individuals need new strategies, and it’s clear that just thinking harder no longer works. People who can snap are often a step ahead: they have a vigilance advantage from exercising brain cells that build mental agility. While snapping is rewarding, fun, and good for improving our mental skills, it’s also much more: people who snap life-changing ideas that affect many others will redirect our future. Written in an accessible, jargon-free narrative that weaves together the latest research with illuminating stories of innovative people, this book teaches us how to cultivate our own inner epiphanies to gain an edge in our imaginations, our careers, our goals—indeed, in every aspect of our lives.

An expert shows how to cultivate "aha" moments—flashes of insight—that lead to business innovation and personal success. Insight: Encouraging Aha! Moments for Organizational Success helps individuals and organizations create the conditions that lay the groundwork for the distinct "Aha!" instances of insight—when connections between different pieces of information are revealed and ideas come together in ways that have never existed before. Insight examines three stages of the Aha! experience, from the early confusion and chaos of "too much information," to how people organize and try out what they learn, to the "Aha!" moment itself. It then examines techniques people use to spark the creative aha experience—techniques that will work in a private business, education, government, nonprofit, and any other organizational setting. The book is based on interviews with over 100 people of all ages, backgrounds, and professions—from software developers to dancers, from detectives to football coaches—as well as the latest research results from management, psychology, and neuroscience studies about the workings of the brain in creative situations.