Mindfire: Big Ideas for Curious Minds

by Scott Berkun

This definitive best-of collection of one of the web’s best young writers is packed with provocations and entertainments, guaranteed to make you think and smile. You’ll learn to find passion, think free, manage time, pay attention and more. Fast paced, inspiring and memorable, you'll find new ideas and inspirations on every page.

Essays

- How to be a free thinker
- The Cult of busy
- Why smart people defend bad ideas
- Street smarts vs. Book smarts
- Hating vs. loving
- Why the world is a mess
- How to make a difference

Genres: Nonfiction, Business, Self Help, Philosophy, Personal Development, Psychology, Essays

196 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 5, 2011

About the author

Scott Berkun is the author of four popular books, Making Things Happen, The Myths of Innovation, Confessions of a Public Speaker and Mindfire: Big Ideas for Curious Minds. His work as a writer and speaker have appeared in the The Washington Post, the New York Times, Wired, the Economist, Fast Company, Forbes, CNBC, MSNBC, CNN, National Public Radio and other media. His many popular essays and entertaining lectures can be found for free on his blog at http://www.scottberkun.com, and he tweets at https://twitter.com/berkun.

Reviews

[Aaron Bolin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Smart, Kind of Pretentious, Not Very Useful

Mindfire makes a big title promise - big ideas for curious minds. In my opinion, Scott Berkun falls far short of that promise. A better title would have been: Very Well-Written Essays by Someone Who is Smart and Pretentious.

In all fairness, Scott Berkun has talent. He writes very well and has a very good explanatory style. With a different subject, I imagine that he would be absolutely brilliant.

However, the only thing he explains in this volume is how he is smarter than everyone else. The first few essays are cute; the style is a little refreshing. The second few essays start to be irritating; this guy really thinks he is brilliant. By the 10th essay, I was bored - with only 20 more to read.

My biggest disappointment with this book was that it wasn't at all useful. The idea behind reading BIG IDEAS is that they will be useful. These ideas were not exactly big and were not at all useful. Well, not unless you wanted to worship at the altar of Berkun's intellect.

I'd recommend watching this author (he's a good writer), but I don't recommend this book.

[Gina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Did anyone else find this to be a collection of BFO (blinding flash of the obvious) essays? The author's preface suggests we'll be challenged and think big thoughts. I didn't find that. Anyone?

[Dave Bolton · Rating 2 out of 5]

I bought this book on the day I found Scott's blog. Interesting stuff. But after having subscribed to his blog for a few weeks, I've found the insight ratio to be lower than I was hoping for. And so it goes for this book, which is really just a collection of blog posts.

Perhaps one in five chapters is profound or insightful, with the rest being almost offensive in that the author must believe he is adding value, but in reality it is mostly banality.

For instance, there is a chapter "On God and Integrity" that lambasts sportsmen for expressing any evidence of faith, and trots out the tired and obvious line that they should not point to the sky, but instead point to the guy who threw the pass.

Anyway, I found most of this lacked depth, but there were the odd interesting pieces. "Big Ideas for Curious Minds" is overselling it though.

[Ellen Chisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mindfire is a collection of Scott Berkun's essays. You *can* read them all off his website, but I really liked reading them end to end in the book.

Reasons you should get the book instead of just going to the website:

1) It's easier to read on paper (or Kindle) especially for a long time.
2) I tend to cite a lot of his essays in conversation (notably, the Cult of Busyness). You can now go straight to the source of where I get some of these thoughts!
3) A lot of people lose sight of *how* they want to work in the day to day of working. I think this book tends to call out a lot of ways to watch for that.

I'm writing a review (unlike myself) because it's a self published book, and I do think a lot of people would like to read it.

[Andrey Maksymenko · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite several comments that the ideas are obvious, I found the collection to be quite meaningful. The ideas are not big and grand, but as thought starters they are good.

[Tara Gold · Rating 5 out of 5]

I might be slightly ridiculous at times. I dance around my media center, make stupid jokes, have Justin Bieber posters in my office, buy everything in pink, and watch waaaaaay too much reality television. However, at my heart I am a very logical, driven person. Everything I do is purposeful, even if I try to make life fun. Scott Berkun's book speaks to that side of my personality. I'd like to give one big Jersey Shore-style fist pump to Scott Berkun for being logical, objective, driven, intelligent, humble, and awesome.

Mindfire is a collection of thirty essays organized into three categories: Gasoline, Sparks, and Fire.The essays were all previously published on his website, but he has handpicked from his many other essays to create this thematic collection. I've read short stories and non-fiction before, but this is my first experience reading an essay collection. Based on Berkun's praise of essay collections at the end of the book, I may read more in the future.

He won me over with the first essay, "The Cult of Busy." It's like this man is in my head! Busy people like to say and believe that they must be more important because they are so busy, but sometimes it actually means they are not very efficient. I see this all the time in the education field! We've got these martyr teachers who stay at work until seven every evening and work on stuff all weekend and all break and all summer and never have enough time and are sooooo busy. I leave every day at 4:00 because I either A.) use my time wisely while I'm at school or B.) determine that some tasks are not important enough to spend my time on. Less busy people are not necessarily doing less and we certainly are not less important. I wish I had a copy of "The Cult of Busy" to hand to every person who ever snidely told me, "I wish I could leave every day at 4:00. Must be nice."

It is nice. You should try it.

Other great essays included:

"There are two kids of people: complexifiers and simplifiers"
"How to give and receive criticism"
"On God and integrity"

Logic and objectivity run through each of the essays, but those three really stood out in terms of personal value. Some of the essays, though good, didn't really hit close to home for me because they were about worlds that I don't really live in. I guess they are applicable to education, but not as much is they would be applicable in the business world.

Final Grade: A-

It would be hard for a non-fiction book to reach a full A, but this one got bumped up from a B+ because of the sheer number of times I chanted, "AMEN! For real!" to myself while reading it.

[Chung Chin · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is a collection of essays published by Scott Berkun on his personal website. As the author wrote in the Preface:
1. These essays have been published elsewhere before. Do not panic.
2. If you are so inclined, you can find them for free by poking around on scottberkun.com or elsewhere online.

However, the author does not recommend that because, "this book serves as a fantastic introduction to a decade of effort." And "if you've previously enjoyed my work online, please pay a few bucks in return for the value my free work has provided."

It is a personal preference, but I am biased towards "lean" writing. Writers such as Joshua Field Millburns, Chip and Dan Heath are my models as they write succinctly. Each word is considered for its purposes and sentences are crafted so that the reader can grasp the point quickly and easily, and they are lead to keep reading.
However, this book feels a lot like a collection of blog posts by Scott Berkun and hence, the writing are at times windy.

As for the content, there are some really good sharing in the book. If you are reading this book to mine for ideas - you can put it back on the shelf. This book doesn't necessarily gives you any ideas to change the world. What it does share is the author's experience and personal thought on some issues, such as how to detect bullshit, whether transparency matter, and how he found his passion. Personally, I do not find the content very helpful, although I do agree with his viewpoints on certain things.

[Ravi Warrier · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's very little than cannot be said as praise for this book. And ironically, all that can be said can be summed up in just a few words. But, I'll take the longer route.
Scott Berkun is one of those writers of this era who can be called a free thinker and a philosopher of the new age. His indie style allows him to be candid and yet get down on a personal level with you as as a reader. His words are easy to read and comprehend and even better, relate to. He makes his lessons personal and there are hardly any essays in this book that you couldn't read and go, "hmmm, I totally get that!"
Scott is an inspiration to read and follow. And this book balances the weight of philosophical ideas by being light, practical and personal.
Technically, this may not be a philosophical book, but any book based on the lessons of life is in my view a book on philosophy and this one is the best I've read in a while.

[M Sheik Uduman Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very crisp and neat book. It does not waste our time to learn the tricks and tips which is actually the objective of this book.

How to be a free thinker and good in time management. Some from this book are:

If you say "I'm busy", then there is a problem. Busy people do not think. They are poor in time management.

Good ideas starts while walking or playing card with friends. Brain tends believe what it likes to believe. strip away.

Traditional educations teach us to follow or copy other people theories.

Why nicotine is legal and marjuna is not? Why do we believe what we believe? How do we know what we know?

Being wrong...all the theories are arbitrary...eating by left hand is wrong in India....wrong side fork usage is wrong in french

Be alone...we are like fish in a tank. Jump out..

Don't miss this book.

[Kit Brown-hoekstra · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book, and I want to go back and re-read it because there is so much good stuff in it. Though it's actually a very quick read, it took me a long time to finish it because it was on my phone, so I only read from it when I was waiting for appts., etc. Honestly, I wish I'd bought the hard copy. There is something about the tactile aspects of holding a book...

I think this is a must-read for anyone in a creative profession. It's intended to fire up your imagination and get you thinking about how you structure your work and whether that structure facilitates or inhibits creativity. The first chapter re the Cult of the Busy resonated painfully--I think we are all guilty of this at times. I loved the chapter on Dr Seuss and constraints as well.

[Lasse Olsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is honestly one of my top books I've read this year. It's the first book I read by Scott Berkun and I love his writing. He is a combination of very smart with a witty sense of humor.

I had no expectations of this book, but it touched on so many things I find interesting: The culture of being busy, be a free thinker, religion, why things are how they are etc. This isn't a recipe book for creating big ideas in that sense, but rather a collection very short and interesting essays that can push you to think big.

[Alhad Barbadikar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Personally, I'm a huge fan of Scott Berkun's level-headedness, bluntness in communication & succinctness. This book was self-published (by him, obviously) & features 30 essays from his blog. While, I haven't read his blog in a while now, I've always found his books thought-provoking & would recommend you read any of his work, if you're probably looking for advice on how to peek beyond the curtains & understand the world.

[Mal Ross · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a collection of Scott Berkun's essays and it's... okay to decent. And ended on an up for me, so that's a positive.

I only really got it in the first place because it was by Scott Berkun and because it was in a Kindle sale at about 99p. 20-plus years back, I had a major work-crush on this guy. He was in the software business working for Microsoft, doing UX, and he was a good, engaging writer at a time when corporate blogging was very much still in its infancy. Ever since then, I've kept tabs on him, albeit periodically. (Sounds a bit stalkery, that. :-/)

Anyway the essays in this book are a mixed bag. Some I found genuinely inspiring while others left me feeling a bit like I'd been addressed by a motivational speaker (which isn't really my bag) and unable to predict the point he was trying to make. Many are just plain interesting and thought-provoking. And the notes and references section at the back was interesting for giving a bit of background on each of the 30 essays and tips for other writing to look up.

If you're at all curious and want to check out his work without shelling out, I think all of the essays were originally posted on scottberkun.com and can still be found there (search the blog). I just enjoyed reading them in this curated format.

[Ixby Wuff · Rating 4 out of 5]

This definitive best-of collection of one of the web's best young writers is packed with big ideas and fun, guaranteed to make you think and smile. You'll learn to find passion, think free, manage time, pay attention and more. Scott Berkun is the bestselling author of Making Things Happen, The Myths of Innovation and Confessions of a Public Speaker. His work has appeared on CNBC, MSNBC, NPR and in The New York Times, Forbes, The Economist, The Washington Post, Wired, and other media. His famous lectures and popular blog can be found for free online at www.scottberkun.com.

[Sean Goh · Rating 4 out of 5]

The tagline of big ideas is spot on, though the fact that this can easily be read on his blog detracts from its value-add somewhat. The notes at the end are a nice read though, to see the behind the scenes work of the essays.

Take a moment to list your beliefs. If you're careful, you'll find wants lurking inside them. It's good to want things and fight for them, but misplaced belief is not the way to wisdom.

Questions help us discover the ideas that bind us.

It's good to think differently about life than you did before, it's a sign future progress is possible.

How do you know what you know?

Great teams and families help each other find truth, both in others and themselves, as sometimes the real deceptions we need to fear are our own.

When you behave oddly on purpose, others feel more embarrassed than you do. They don't know how to respond, so they'll leave you alone.

Most are worried more about standing out than enjoying this world. This is the challenge of indifference.

They are fully present, and give us a chance to join them in the moment, but only if we stop to listen.

I learned I could outwork people who were better than me, provided I converted my passion into work.

If you want to find your passion, put yourself in different situations, with different people, and see how it makes you feel. Pay attention to your own sense of excitement, not others, and write down your responses. Some of what you try will bore you, some of it you'll hate. You may notice you take pleasure in something, but its the approval of others that's the source, and not the activity itself. But with each experience you'll have a growing sense of who you are, what you actually care about, and what you're good at doing.
Pick something. Do it with all your heart. If you can't keep your heart in it, do something else.

If all you know is judgement, that's all you'll express even when you're trying to love, and on it goes.

To make a difference you simply need to question the value of what you're doing and do something about your answers.

Annoy me with praise! It made me think about how many times I'd seen or read things that mattered to me, yet how rarely I had offered any praise.

The gift of shared time.

If you're not sure what you're doing, you're following.

They're afraid of revealing themselves to others and are uncomfortable with being accountable for decisions that effect other people.

Leading means you shape the opinions and decisions around the greater good of the project you are responsible for. This requires sacrificing your own interests and wants in favour of the project's needs, and the people who work on it. Of course it's possible to find ways to match your interests with the needs of the project, but it's the project, and the people on it, that comes first.

The value of a leader is their positive effect on the team, not the force or power they have at their disposal.

To be street smart means to have situational awareness. You can assess the situation you're in, who's in it, and the available angles.

You'd have to risk all you care about to explore a new belief, which is scary. It's safer to avoid questions, or to pretend and keep your beliefs to yourself.

Perhaps the true greatness, or a truly great person, is someone who does the right things for the right reasons without expecting grand rewards.

Good criticism generally comes with some degree of humility and respect for the other equally valid points of view. The better the critic, the more holistic their sense of how their own perspectives and tastes fit into the diverse pool of informed opinion.

It is entirely possible to offer criticism, commentary and advice without attaching negative energy.
If you can't separate your personal preferences from more abstract analysis, you will rarely provide much useful feedback.

Admitting you need help and asking for it often requires more courage than trying to do it on your own.

If you saw something stupid happening, you were obliged to raise your hand and say "I think this is stupid" and explain why.

An idea is a combination of other ideas.
Creative people simply filter our fewer ideas than the rest of us.

Half the challenge is experimenting to find out which ones work best, the other half is honouring them despite how inconvenient or unexpected they might be.

The more open-minded, creative and courageous a group is, the wider the pool of ideas they'll be capable of exploring.

Actually experience life by going to places you don't usually go, spending time with people you don't usually spend time with. Be in the moment and be open to it.

Some call this wisdom, in that the wise know what to be thinking about, whereas the merely intelligent only know how to think.

(On pool) He'd watch me miss easy shots because I tried to force them in with authority. I chose speed and power over control, and I usually lost.

What matters are the deep, intimate moments that refuse division.

If you participate in potentially intimate activities, like sports(?), conversation, or non-casual sex, treating them with split attention will inevitably make them non-intimate experiences.

The compulsion for more is driven by lack of confidence in what we already have.

Every important ambition for your life is best served by treating your attention with the conservation it deserves.

To make God and faith about yourself violates the principles of every religion I've ever studied, yet it's common practice that goes uncriticised.

[Reza PH · Rating 2 out of 5]

An eye-catching title together with a misleading blurb is, more often than not, a surefire recipe to draw the readers in; however, it’s the walkthrough that decides which book enjoys fame and success and which drives off the cliff. In this case, the “Mindfire” is a bold claim, hollow inside and unable to live up to the expectations it creates.

Born to a make-believe world originally for the purpose of food-for-thought, the book certainly lacks depth and cannot earn the reputation as thought-provoking.
As for the author, being cooped up in that world; he’s out of touch with reality and therefore, affected by his optimism bias. Contrary to his subjective standpoint, the middle ground is where a sound argument should, for the most part, develop.

Tony Robbins once said: "Question the wisdom of everything". What some fail to understand, Scott included, is that distortion of reality in order to make a point is both, in theory and practice, wrong and far from wise.

The poor use of language, paradoxical examples, a rather untactful approach and loaded questions, I presume, are among the reasons why the author doesn’t prevail to make a compelling case.

On balance, the writing is straightforward, easy to grasp and somewhat inspirational and works its magic through a nudge to remind us of values like forward-planning, focus, productivity and out-of-the-box thinking.

[Regina Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

J

[Mikolaj · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good ideas, thought-provoing at times, yet slightly difficult to read.

[NJ Wong · Rating 5 out of 5]

Scott Berkun offered this book as a free download. Piqued, I read the first essay, and slowly finished the entire book at a single seating (it is a short book - and I finished reading it within 3 hours). I subsequently watched a YouTube video of him talking about his previous book: Myths of Innovation, which I have started reading after completing Mindfire.

I share and agree with many observations made by Berkun about the creation of ideas. Berkun articulates them well (he reads like another Joel Spolsky). These book of essays offers many interesting observations about ideas - but not necessarily how to generate ideas. Personally, I believe generating ideas are innate to a person. You either have it, or you don't. However, exposure to lots of good ideas is useful because you can then re-use these ideas as your own, even if one is not blessed with the gift of generating original ideas.

[Roy Tang · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been following and reading Scott Berkun's blog on and off for the past 5 years or so, so I already have a passing familiarity with this work. Mindfire collects some of the best essays from his blog into an easy-to-read format that you can digest in one-to-two sittings. Berkun writes about a number of diverse topics such as how to think critically and how to interact with other people and how to spend your attention. Maybe "Big Ideas" is a bit grandiose, as many of these essays tackle things that seem more like they should be common sense but aren't. But as Berkun himself states in one of the essays, the size of the idea isn't indicative of its quality - smaller ideas can generate a lot of value too. Pretty good read.

[Nicolle · Rating 5 out of 5]

As you can see, I clearly loved this book. It's a collection of well-written essays that are meant to get you thinking about your life and the world.

Berkun is concise in his writing and has a great sense of humor, and I love that there's enough room at the end of each essay for notes and thoughts. For the most part, I read the essays in order, but a couple titles caught my eye so I just jumped straight to them.

"How to detect bullshit", "Hating vs. loving" and "Attention and sex" are just a few of the topics you'll explore.

This is definitely a book that I will always come back to.

[Robert Chapman · Rating 5 out of 5]

In my opinion, one of the great wonders of reading is that no matter how much you think you know, a well written book can always remind you of the things that matter. This book did just that and it did it in an easy and pleasurable format.

The book is a series of distinct short essays, a format which was new to me, and the reason why it flowed so well.

My favorite essay was about the difference between "complexifiers" and "simplifiers", it really resonated with me as I have lived it. I won't say any more as this review would become a spoiler.

This book should certainly be added to your reading list.

[Lars-Christian Elvenes · Rating 5 out of 5]

5/5 stars for Mindfire: big ideas for curious minds by Scott Berkun.

I’ve had this for quite a while, but somehow didn’t get around to reading it. I’ve previously read his book “Confessions of a public speaker” which is great as well, and after this, I’ll look into more from him.

Mindfire is a collection 30 essays on a variety of topics. I found useful thoughts and insights in most of them. “How to make a difference” and “How to give and receive criticism” stood out for me, and there were lots of interesting things in “Creative thinking hacks” as well.

This is a quick read of about 200 pages, and you could definitely do worse. I recommend picking it up.

[Jayne Bowers · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most thought provoking books I've read in a long time, Scott Berkun's Mindfire is well worth an investment of your time. From the title(based on Emerson's reference to the creative mind as a fire) to the epilogue, the book is filled with essays about topics of interest to any and all readers who are willing to truly "think" about where their ideas came from and perhaps even be willing to challenge them. For starters, there's the essay entitled "How to Be a Free Thinker," a personal favorite.

The writing is clear, crisp, and easy to understand...a definite plus.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was able to finish this book in two sittings, only because of how short it was. While there were certain points that made me stop and think in a new inspirational light, there were also many instances that I was wishing the chapter would end. It didn't feel like there was an organized flow of the overall book and I often forgot what a certain essay was originally about. There were unnecessary explanations and I found a lot to be boring. This gets three starts because of the occasional excerpts that sparked my mind.

[William R. J. Ribeiro · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got this book for free as a "gift" from the author himself via Twitter and I must say it really impressed me. You know that kind of things that you have no expectation and they turn out to be great?! That was exactly my feeling.

I'm the kind of guy that really like questions and points of view and this book has a lot of it. And also a lot of silly jokes. I had lots of fun reading it and some nice insightful moments.

[Ramón Nogueras Pérez · Rating 3 out of 5]

El libro no hace honor a su título. No es por ello un mal libro, pero es lo que hay.

Es una colección de ensayos que eran entradas de blog, y se nota. Las ideas están bien presentadas y explicadas, pero no son la clase de idea revolucionaria que te cambia la vida.

Aún así, es un ameno conjunto de reflexiones sobre distintos aspectos relacionados con el trabajo intelectual y sus cosas. Me alegro de haberlo leído, aunque su impacto en mi vida no será el que el título promete.

[Elaine Nelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Took me forever to finish - I started not long after downloading, which would've been sometime in early 2012, but didn't get back to it until today. But then I finished it in a single evening. An interesting compilation of bits of philosophy and psychology, some of which I'd already read on the blog. Gave me things to think about.

[Vladimir Tarasov · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'd never thought about is it really possible to rate the book in other way than the impression it leaves. I guess I found out another one after completing this book — the amount of bookmarks made! Some of them to come back to the thoughts later, some of them to quote the clearly formulated thoughts that I totally agree. Great book and to my mind a 'must read' one for everybody.

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

As individual essays these are all good and worth reading. As expected some are more relevant and pertinent than others, but they're all well written. However, as a collection I felt it was missing something. Possibly something to join them into a cohesive whole rather than just a collection of essays.