Harnessing Creativity: Traits of History’s Greatest Inventors

Without the inventions of the light bulb, telephone, vaccines, and so many other technological marvels, our society would not have advanced to the point it is today where smartphones, the modern Internet, and modern medicine have propelled society dramatically forward.

Quirky deep dives into exploring inventors spanning across time, gender, and location to examine what traits these remarkable humans share to produce and create the marvels many of us benefit from. From examining the lives of Marie Curie, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, Dean Kamen, Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, and Nikola Tesla, here are some takeaways:

Creative thinkers are people who pursue learning on their own through self study
May do poorly in school or be more driven to excel in some subjects they find interesting or useful than others
Started out with low financial help (not an exact requirement, but could spur inventors to get the next meal, etc.)
Right time and right place (series of events at that time period may culminate in the area that they pursue)
- Tech at the time enabled them to create their inventions
- People they knew propelled their track to discovery
Sleeping very little
Finding work pleasurable and fulfilling (motivating factor)
High dopamine levels causes more creative inclinations
Group think hampers creativity
- Group meetings to generate ideas can be counterintuitive; much more preferable to have individuals have the free time to think of new ideas
A healthy opposition/defiance to the norms
A belief that their idea is possible and a relentless drive to pursue it
More money does not mean more creativity