July 2023 Archive

A bicycle handlebar is not a work of art. Neither does the saddle on which the cyclist sits to pedal. But when Pablo Picasso put these two pieces together, he saw a bull’s head in them. And he created an artistic sculpture.

Something by chance? Perhaps yes. But how often do we do things at random and not realize what’s behind them?

Maybe you are familiar with the case of Art Fry, then a scientist at 3M, the multinational giant that, among a variety of products, is the world leader in high-adhesion adhesives.

Fry and I have something in common: we share the same pleasure of singing in a choir. And when you have a large repertoire of songs, it ends up being common to mark the scores with a piece of paper.

One day, accidentally dropping his sheets with the songs, Fry had his eureka moment: he remembered that a colleague had developed a pressure-sensitive substance, but with poor adhesion. From there, the idea of a bookmark began to germinate.

The scientist’s flash ended up becoming the most famous yellow pad in the world: the Post-it.

Creativity, in short, is something that applies to you too, regardless of your professional field. She is not a gift. It is not exclusive to artists and designers.

It’s just another activity you exercise.

But I confess that I still haven’t found a creative way to sing without being out of tune.

Bill Gates says he reads about 50 books a year, most of which are non-fiction, and help him explain in some way how the world works.

Elon “Mars” Musk, when asked how he learned to build rockets, was synthetic: I read books!

According to Tom Corley, analyzing the role that reading plays in personal success, the rich ones read to educate themselves and self-improvement. The poor ones read mainly to entertain themselves.

But, going back to Bill and Elon, I ask: what do guys like them, multibillionaire tech exponents, have in common?

The fact is that they still rely on one of the oldest instruments of information: printed books. Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, when he launched the Kindle was right when he said that “the book is so highly evolved and so suited to its task that it is very difficult to replace it”.

After all, reading books is a sensorial experience: we like to touch and feel the texture of the paper. I sometimes went further and even sniffed the leaves. Nowadays I don’t get to that much, but I still keep the addiction to reading.

Becoming a billionaire is just a matter of time.