Anatomy of a Breakthrough: How to get unstuck and unlock your potential

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Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All by Tom and David Kelley (2013) Alter was recently included in the Poets and Quants “40 Most Outstanding Business School Professors under 40 in the World,” and has written for the New York Times, New Yorker, Wired, Washington Post, and The Atlantic, among other publications. He has shared his ideas at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity and with dozens of companies around the world.

Anatomy of a Breakthrough: How to Get Unstuck and Unlock Your

Post-vaccination infections, or breakthroughs, might occasionally turn symptomatic, but they aren’t shameful or aberrant. They also aren’t proof that the shots are failing. These cases are, on average, gentler and less symptomatic; faster-resolving, with less virus lingering—and, it appears, less likely to pass the pathogen on. The immunity offered by vaccines works in iterations and gradations, not absolutes. It does not make a person completely impervious to infection. It also does not evaporate when a few microbes breach a body’s barriers. A breakthrough, despite what it might seem, does not cause our defenses to crumble or even break; it does not erase the protection that’s already been built. Rather than setting up fragile and penetrable shields, vaccines reinforce the defenses we already have, so that we can encounter the virus safely and potentially build further upon that protection. It’s tempting to surround yourself with people who are both competent and similar to yourself, but that’s a mistake. The best way to capitalize on the value of other people is to consult with those who are fundamentally different from you.The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power. The same is true in the worlds of business, art, and film-making: before you strike gold, you need to spend a period of time exploring different options, approaches, and techniques. According to one study, most of us experience at least one hot streak during our careers—a period of unusual progress and consistent success—and those periods almost always follow a burst of exploration, followed by a concerted attempt to exploit or mine the best option that emerges during that first phase. The lesson from Berkoff and these hot streaks: assume nothing till you’ve considered the alternatives, and once you’ve sketched the lay of the land, pursue the best option with laser focus. 5. Different is often better than good.

ANATOMY OF A BREAKTHROUGH | Kirkus Reviews ANATOMY OF A BREAKTHROUGH | Kirkus Reviews

Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace (2009) Adam Alter marries research-based solutions with genuine insight. This book is an invaluable guide to turning hurdles into breakthroughs. * Scott Galloway, NYU Stern professor of marketing and author of Adrift * In the best-case scenario, the virus might even be instantly sniped at by immune cells and antibodies, still amped up from the vaccine’s recent visit, preventing any infection from being established at all. But expecting this of our shots every time isn’t reasonable (and, in fact, wasn’t the goal set for any COVID-19 vaccine). Some people’s immune cells might have slow reflexes and keep their weapons holstered for too long; that will be especially true among the elderly and immunocompromised—their fighters will still rally, just to a lesser extent. A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.On the curiosity spectrum, you have children on the one end, constantly asking questions about everything. On the other end, you have adults, who assume things are the way they are for a reason. Adults question very little, and so we tend to herd together, doing most things the same way as other people do them. The exceptions—adults who ask questions like children—are known as experimentalists. They question everything. Sometimes they come to agree that a popular approach has merit, but often they stumble on superior alternatives. To understand the anatomy of a breakthrough case, it’s helpful to think of the human body as a castle. Deepta Bhattacharya, an immunologist at the University of Arizona, compares immunization to reinforcing such a stronghold against assault. The best examples of this come from elite athletes who sacrifice immediate performance for long-term dominance. For example, the greatest soccer player today (and perhaps ever), Lionel Messi, walks for the first few minutes of every game as he soothes his nerves and develops a sense of how the other 21 players on the field are behaving. He has never scored during the first two minutes of any game but has scored during every single other minute from three to ninety. That two-minute sacrifice pays dividends during the remaining eighty-eight-plus. “The idea here is to take a beat—whether a minute or a day or a week—before you act.” In art, music, writing, and business, the holy grail is an original idea—something revolutionary that no one’s considered before. The problem with ideas that appear revolutionary is that they’re almost never truly original. Instead, they’re what’s known as recombinations—the marriage of two old ideas to form something evolutionarily different. “When striving for new ideas, do as Dylan did by taking two or more good but disparate concepts, and seeing if you can merge them to form a novel recombination.”

Anatomy of a Breakthrough by Adam Alter - Audiobook | Scribd Anatomy of a Breakthrough by Adam Alter - Audiobook | Scribd

A new dichotomy has begun dogging the pandemic discourse. With the rise of the über-transmissible Delta variant, experts are saying you’re either going to get vaccinated, or going to get the coronavirus .

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The road to breakthroughs is a series of Zen paradoxes. One of my favorites is the idea that pausing is the best way to move forward in the long run. The idea here is to take a beat—whether a minute or a day or a week—before you act. By the mid 1990s, due to the work of hundreds of scientists, a working model of immune regulation had been established. One receptor, called B-7 works much like the ignition switch in a car, initiating the immune response while another, CD-28 acts as a gas pedal, stimulating the body to produce T-cells at a furious rate.