The Hidden Habits of Genius

Outline

The Hidden Habits of Genius (2020) explores what the world’s greatest minds have in common. Craig Wright examines figures such as Leonardo da Vinci, Marie Curie, Mozart, Shakespeare, and Steve Jobs, and identifies habits that helped them change the world, including curiosity, persistence, imagination, and the ability to connect ideas from different fields. The book shows that genius involves more than natural talent.

• Great minds from Leonardo da Vinci to Steve Jobs shared common habits that helped them change the world.
• Curiosity is one of the habits that Craig Wright finds across history's most creative thinkers.
• Persistence, not only natural talent, helped figures like Marie Curie and Mozart reach their achievements.
• Imagination is a habit that can be practised, and the book treats it as part of what makes genius.
• Connecting ideas from different fields is a skill that the book links to the work of the world's greatest minds.

Craig Wright is an American musicologist and professor emeritus at Yale University, where he taught a popular course on the nature of genius. He is an expert on the history of music and has written widely on composers such as Mozart. The Hidden Habits of Genius grew out of his teaching at Yale.