Cambridge Business Association
Accidental Genius
Book

Accidental Genius

Revolutionize Your Thinking Through Private Writing

Mark Levy
Berrett-Koehler, 1998
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Editorial Rating

5

Qualities

  • Applicable
  • Engaging

Recommendation

Mark Levy’s short, snappy guide teaches you private writing, which opens the door to expressing, exploring and playing with your thoughts freely - without showing them to anyone else. This ongoing exercise is valuable for sparking creativity, imagination and problem solving. Levy’s ideas are presented directly and humorously, with plenty of examples. The author has an extensive background in publishing, particularly sales, which comes through in his style - part sales team rally, part lingo-ridden pep talk. This approach, however, works. getAbstract recommends this book to anyone who would like to explore idea-generating methods, or to apply some structure and purpose to all those notes you’ve been writing to yourself.

Summary

Thoughts as Currency

Private writing teaches you to "use writing as a world-examiner and perspective-twister for greater success in business and in life." You don’t have to be a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, or even a halfway decent writer, to achieve results using private writing. That’s because style, grammar, and all other elements of "good writing" don’t count in private writing - only thoughts and ideas do. Besides, you’re never going to show any of this stuff to anyone. Private writing will improve your qualitative thinking and you’ll delight yourself with vivid demonstrations of your own natural genius. That’s what you’ll learn: mind-popping methods of bringing your own genius to bear on business achievement.

Today’s business climate is unique. We’re living in a time where companies are making Godzilla-sized fortunes without inventories, buildings, or even workers. Hard assets are out; invisible assets are in. Ideas rule the business day. Microsoft, for instance, has only $1.5 billion dollars in hard assets, yet (as of this writing) has a market value of more than $318 billion. What does this mean? "The ’invisibles’ of the company, that is ’good will,’ perceived...

About the Author

Mark Levy is Director of Special Projects at the international book wholesaler, Bookazine. He has been a book publishing sales rep and has been nominated three times for the prestigious Publishers Weekly "Sales Rep of the Year" award. Levy has also written for many newspapers and magazines, including The New York Times. He is a magician who serves as co-creator (with David Pogue) and magic consultant on Magic for Dummies. He is the co-author of another book on magic, Mac King’s Tricks with Your Head, which will be published by Crown. He is a writing, creativity and sales coach who regularly presents seminars and workshops.

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