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David Wilson

The 5 Elements of Effective Thinking
by Edward Burger, Michael Starbird
Princeton University Press
David Wilson 
 
So you want to be brilliant, but you worry that you lack the necessary in-born traits? Never fear. Nearly anyone can achieve mental brilliance, if they choose the right habits, according to American professors Edward Burger and Michael Starbird in their new guide to better mental agility.
"A wondrously romantic belief is that brilliant students are born brilliant and brilliant thinkers magically produce brilliant ideas: A+, the star student aces the exam; click, Edison invents the light bulb; liftoff, the Wright brothers soar into the sky; abracadabra, J.K. Rowling apparates Harry Potter; yea, the Founding Fathers resolve the Bill of Rights; whoosh, Ralph Lauren turns heads on fashion's runways; eureka, Einstein teases his hair and relativity falls out," Burger and Starbird write.
"We can all marvel at these fanciful visions of leaps of genius, but we should not be fooled into believing that they're reality. Brilliant students and brilliant innovators create their own victories by practising habits of thinking that inevitably carry them step-by-step to works of greatness."
That virtuoso statement gives a sense of how well they write, making a potentially stolid subject engaging. The framework for their guide to developing brilliance is classical Greek philosophy's four elements.
In their eyes, the first element - earth - means taking the time to ground your thinking and gain deep understanding. The second, fire, means "igniting insight through mistakes" - giving yourself the freedom to err and learn. The third, air, means nurturing your curiosity and constantly asking questions - literally conjuring them out of the air: "Be your own Socrates," the authors urge.
The fourth, water, means following the flow of ideas - tackle tasks fast then iterate in pursuit of incremental progress, they argue. They also highlight the virtues of a fifth "quintessential" meta-element: change. Translation: be ready to follow the advice contained in the guide and embrace its lessons.
"Just do it," they say, and spice up the guide by invoking the likes of Winston Churchill, Warren Buffett and Michael Jordan.
The most surprising and potentially inspiring quote in the book comes from German-born American physicist Albert Einstein. "I know quite certainly that I myself have no special talent; curiosity, obsession and dogged endurance combined with self-criticism have brought me to my ideas," Einstein said. The statement bolsters the authors' tenet that anyone can rise above mediocrity and beyond.
Burger is a mathematics professor at Williams College, Massachusetts. Fellow maths maestro Starbird is University Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Texas in Austin.
If you remember being told by your teachers to think harder and having no idea how, The 5 Elements of Effective Thinking should help.
One grumble: the guide's bold, life-changing tone sporadically borders on glib, as in a mass-market "pop psych" publication. Some may sneer at the premise that almost anyone has Einstein-like potential.
This is a snappy, illuminating read that should appeal to anyone who has ever dreamed of being a genius and is willing to strive, step by step, to become one.


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So you want to be brilliant, but you worry that you lack the necessary in-born traits? Never fear. Nearly anyone can achieve mental brilliance, if they choose the right habits, according to American professors Edward Burger and Michael Starbird in their new guide to better mental agility.
