Joseph Rooks

“It doesn’t matter how many times you have failed in the past; what matters is the successful attempt, which should be remembered and reinforced.”
― Michael Michalko, Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques

“A popular children’s puzzle shows six fishermen whose lines are tangled together to form a sort of maze. One of the lines has caught a fish; the problem is to find which fisherman it belongs to. You are supposed to do this by following each line through the maze, which may take up to six tries, depending on your luck. It is obviously easier to start at the other end and trace the line from the fish to the fisherman, as you have only one possible starting place, not six.”
― Michael Michalko, Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques

“Instead of presenting a catalog of all known creative techniques and abandoning you to puzzle out which ones actually work, I started with the ideas (fish) and worked backwards to each creator (fisherman). Then I identified the technique that caught the idea.”
― Michael Michalko, Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques

“Set yourself an idea quota for a challenge you are working on, such as five new ideas every day for a week. You’ll find the first five are the hardest, but these will quickly trigger other ideas. The more ideas you come up with, the greater your chances of coming up with a winner.”
― Michael Michalko, Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques