Book Review: Borrowing Brilliance by David Murray

Borrowing Brilliance is an ode to creativity, to ideas that can be made real, and to constructing something new out of other things. It is a deeply personal book, partially the story of business failure and success and partly a hymn of delight to the amazing abilities of the human mind.

Read Borrowing Brilliance for the Stories

The basic principles are in the two pages at the end of the book. They can be pulled from the book’s website or from my previous blog posts about the book. You don’t read this book for the basic ideas. You read it for the stories and the passion behind them that embeds them into your mind so you can make use of them.

If you understand this, then I recommend this book highly. You won’t find specific techniques on working with your team or shifting company culture, or anything like that. But you will find a framework and a method for developing your own inspiration without requiring a muse, plus receive permission to get things wrong, and develop a way to talk about what you’re doing when 

The Spiritual Essence of Borrowing Briliance

In the very last chapter of his book, David Murray describes four paradoxes that I feel capture the spirit of the book as much as the six steps are its body.

Material Paradox – originality results from thievery

The book is called Borrowing Brilliance for a reason. We build on what has come before and by combination and incubation with a goal in mind we come up with something unexpected.

Wisdom Paradox – with age comes mental vigor

The continued use of our minds makes them better and more suited to being creative in whatever field or in any field.

Lover’s Paradox – love creating but not the creation

Becoming attached to either the borrowed or the new is a step in the wrong direction. He tells stories of mountain climbing and surfing and that’s part of the deal here.

Genius Paradox – need for left and right brain

We break down and we build up again. Reduction and holism are needed side by side and step by step, so that the steps repeat themselves.

I enjoyed reading this book and found it personally inspiring. If innovation is part of what you do, or should be doing, then I recommend giving it a read.

Take a look at my views on the body of Borrowing Brilliance and Murray’s six steps to business innotivation.

1. Build a Foundation for Innovation with Problem Definitions
2. Use Existing Ideas to Construct New Ideas
3. Innovate Through Metaphorical Connections
4. Give Your Subconscious a Turn
5. Compare the Solution to the Problem
6. Iterate, Recycle, and Evolve Your Way to 
7. Book Review: Borrowing Brilliance by David Murray