Discover Your Genius: How to Think Like History's Ten Most...

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 384 pages
• Published by: Harper Paperbacks January 21, 2003
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0060937904
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0060937904
• Book Dimensions: 8.5 x 7.3 x 0.8 inches
• Weighs: 1.3 pounds

Product Review
The introduction to Discover Your Genius shows off the double meaning of the book's title in plain language: it is meant to help you find both your own potential for greatness and a meaningful role model to provide focus. In an effort to lead you to both simultaneously, Michael J. Gelb has created a combination workbook, guided journal, and historical biography of ten outstanding humans.

Arranged chronologically, Discover Your Genius begins with Plato and ends with Einstein, meeting up with Brunelleschi, Columbus, Copernicus, Elizabeth I, Shakespeare, Jefferson, Darwin, and Ghandi in between. Each chapter highlights a few specific achievements while analyzing the methods and motivations of the geniuses in question.

Accompanying exercises encourage you to talk with friends, create lists and goals, seek additional reading and musical selections, and uncover your dreams. From designing a personal coat of arms filled with meaningful symbols to developing the habit of taking regular walks, these exercises balance quickly achievable activities with ongoing life changes. Several chapters urge you to involve your friends, with evenings of special, themed dinners, like the toga party with Symposium Lamb Delight, gallons of wine, and recitations of personal "odes to love."

What you'll get out of all this is dependent on your own individual views of history and politics, but keep in mind it's hard to find a truly great figure who is not controversial. If you are able to overlook the inherent hypocrisy in, for example, Thomas Jefferson (slave owner) as bastion of personal freedom, and the great explorers' (Columbus) direct responsibility for a number of known atrocities, you'll find plenty to ponder and enjoy. --Jill Lightner --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal
Strategies for thinking smart drawn from Plato, Queen Elizabeth I, and more.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

Reader Reviews
This review is from: Discover Your Genius: How to Think Like History's Ten Most Revolutionary Minds (Hardcover) Much like Michael Gelb's brilliant "How to Think Like Leonardo DaVinci" this book succeeds in giving the reader engaging and informative biographies, while at the same time encouraging you to live and think like them. The book is written in an easy, conversational style that gives the reader the feeling that he/she is having a delightful talk with the writer about the world's greatest thinkers. Many times I have attempted to read up on geniuses like Plato, Darwin, and Ghandi with the intent of modeling my life after their examples, but I couldn't find the time to finish the marathon-length biographies I came across; "Discover Your Genius" is exactly what I was looking for--it gave me vast amounts of interesting information on each of the ten geniuses and immediately showed me what I can do to improve myself with their examples. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has ever wondered what a genius is like and how you can enrich your life everyday by emulating them.