The MultipleMind Method

The MultipleMind Method

Steve W Roche

Published by Dragonwood

First Published 2012

To discover other titles by Steve W Roche visit www.steveroche.com

ISBN 978-0-9571826-2-2

Copyright © Steve W Roche, 2012

The right of Steve W Roche to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988.

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Table of Contents

PREFACE

EUREKA IDEAS

THE IDEAS AGE

IDEAS PEOPLE

THE MULTIPLEMIND METHOD

STEP 1 - FOUNDATION

STEP 2 - CLARIFICATION

STEP 3 - SATURATION

STEP 4 - TECHNICATION

STEP 5 - GESTATION

STEP 6 - ILLUMINATION

STEP 7 - FRUITION

CONGRATULATIONS

APPENDIX 1 - A SYSTEM FOR SOLVING ENGINEERING PROBLEMS

APPENDIX 2 - RESOURCES

PREFACE

For over 30 years I have been fascinated by new ideas and the people and companies who come up with them.

Where do Eureka Ideas come from? Is it just luck?

- Is there something different about the way that inventive people think and innovative companies work?

- If so, is there a method that anyone can learn and use to become creative?

So to write this book I embarked on what became an enormous research project to find the answers to these questions. In the end it took the best part of 18 months and 1,400 hours of study.

- I read about the lives of the legendary and modern-day inventors, entrepreneurs and people from the world of arts and the creative industries.

- I delved into the history and workings of the great innovative companies.

- I looked for the timeless wisdom on the subject.

- I discovered the methods and techniques for creative thinking.

- I learned from the modern-day experts on the subject.

- I studied the latest scientific research on how the brain works.

The more I found out, the more captivated I became. I tested out the mindsets and techniques for myself and others.

In looking for a theory and a system, I had a Eureka moment of my own. It all came together. I identified the common traits and the essence of how Eureka Ideas are born and Ideas People work.

I have not discovered anything new, as such. However, what I have done with The MultipleMind Method is bring it all together into a philosophy and a set of techniques which anyone can use.

EUREKA IDEAS

According to myth, Archimedes was asked by his king to find out whether a crown was made of pure gold. The king thought that the goldsmith might have added silver. Archimedes knew he had to find a way of measuring the volume of the crown. He would have known what to do if it had been a standard shape.

Archimedes struggled to find the answer to the problem. That was until one day when he went the public baths. The answer came to him in a flash. When the idea struck he leapt out of the bath and ran home naked shouting, Eureka!

His Eureka Idea came as he climbed into the bath. As he did so he noticed that water was displaced. Archimedes realised that the volume of water displaced was equal to the volume of the object placed into the water. This meant that he could measure the density of the crown and compare that to a bar of pure gold. In a flash he had found a way to work out the purity of gold by applying the principle of specific gravity.

What is a Eureka Idea?

A Eureka Idea is when the answer to a problem suddenly occurs to you seemingly out of nowhere. Eureka is a Greek word which means I have found it.

The moment when a Eureka Idea hits you is also sometimes known as an insight or an epiphany.

A Eureka Idea feels different to when you have an ordinary idea. You feel triumphant and have a sense of achievement.

Examples of Eureka Ideas

Trace most brilliant ideas back to where they came from and you find that they originated from a Eureka moment.

One night in 1902, for example, a young American engineer called Willis Carrier was waiting for his train to arrive. He was watching as the fog rolled in across the platform when a Eureka Idea hit him in a sudden flash.

He realised that he could use the principle of fog to cool buildings. Carrier patented the idea and went into business. He turned his insight into the invention we know now as air conditioning. He made a fortune from his insight.

Jacob Davis ran a shop in Nevada making wagon covers and tents. One day in 1870 a customer came to him asking if he could make a cheap pair of trousers for her husband who was a gold miner. Her problem was that the pockets on his current trousers tore when he put the nuggets of gold he found into them. She begged him to make the trousers as strong as possible.

It was this comment that triggered Jacob's Eureka. His idea was to strengthen the pockets and button fly with the same copper rivets that he already used to attach straps to horse blankets. Right then, the idea for Levi's jeans with copper rivets was born.

Your very own Eureka software program

Your brain is no different to that of Archimedes, Willis Carrier or Jacob Davis. It has the same ability. It runs the same software.

Think about a computer that you own. Is there a useful bit of software on it that, for a while, you didn't know was pre-installed? Perhaps you found it because one day someone told you about it. Or maybe you discovered it by accident. Or possibly there's a handy software program that you used to use but had forgotten about and have recently rediscovered.

Well there's the equivalent of a software program that is pre-installed in your brain. Let's call it the Ideation software program. At the heart of every computer there is what is called the operating system. A computer is just a dumb box without it. At the heart of your brain's operating system is the Ideation software program.

You may have used Ideation a few times in the past, particularly when you were a very young child. You were almost certainly not told about it at school. If you were, you probably weren't told how to use it properly. You certainly wouldn’t have been given an instruction manual.

What is really interesting about the Ideation software program inside your head is that it is like a computer software program that can connect to the Internet. A computer program that connects to the Internet is more powerful than one that doesn't. It can do more because it is not a standalone system. It is connected.

The Ideation software program inside your brain can connect with the brains of other people. As you will learn later, it does this in obvious and mysterious ways. It is hugely more powerful at what it does because of this.

Ideation

The word 'ideation' means the process of forming an idea. In other words, it means to conceive or imagine. How often do you hear people using the word ideation in everyday life? Did you have ideation lessons at school alongside core subjects like Maths, Science and English? Or have you ever attended a training course at work to learn about ideation?

In fact until now, have you ever heard anyone actually use the word? But, arguably, ideation is the single most important thing that any of us should be doing at school or work.

What you’re going to learn here is how to become an ideation expert. The MultipleMind Method is your instruction manual for your Ideation software program.

Think like a child again

You come alive again when you use your creative abilities. You become a kid again. Children are full of ideas. They are wonderfully enthusiastic and open to new things. They have fun and live with a spirit of adventure. They're imaginative and endlessly curious. It's such fun being around young children. They ask great questions. They take stuff in and they have wonderful ideas. They don’t care what other people think and they are daft. These are some of the traits of highly creative people and the great Ideas People from history.

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up. - Pablo Picasso

As we get older we start to lose our sense of fun, adventure and curiosity. Perhaps 'lose' is the wrong word, though. 'Neglect to use' might be a more accurate way of describing what happens.

Rediscover your passion for life

So many adults don’t enjoy their lives. They hate their jobs and their home life suffers. It’s not meant to be this way. We're not meant to live 'buttoned down' lives.

Think back to when you last had a really good or great idea. It may have been a really long time ago but if you think hard enough you will remember a Eureka moment. Do you remember what you were like? Recall the sense of