Isaac Asimov's hidden guide to generating ideas... written for a secret U.S. project

Notes on giants - Number 17

Welcome to Mental Garden. The following letter is part of our "Notes on giants" collection, in which we explore the thoughts of humanity's greatest minds.
To see the full library, click here.

🏷️ Categories: Creativity.

---

In 1959, writer Isaac Asimov received a very unusual offer…

To participate in a secret U.S. government project called GLIPAR, whose goal was to come up with radically new solutions to defend against ballistic missiles. They weren’t looking for traditional engineers or obvious answers.

They wanted free minds. They wanted true creativity.

Asimov attended a few meetings but soon withdrew—he didn’t want to be bound by classified information that might limit his freedom of expression. However, before leaving, he left behind something incredibly valuable: a short essay titled On Creativity, in which he reflected on where ideas come from and how the members of the secret project could apply that understanding.

That essay, never officially published, can help you today.

If you’re a creative person, this is for you.

Let’s talk about the keys Asimov shared. Author of over 500 books, science fiction genius, and one of the great minds of the 20th century. You’ll see how new ideas are born—and more importantly, how to never run out of them.

Here we go...

1. The Origin of Ideas

Isaac Asimov made one thing very clear:

A new idea is nothing more than a new combination of existing elements.

Creativity is not invention from scratch.

A brilliant example: the theory of evolution.

Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace independently reached the same conclusion about the evolution of species at the same time. Surprising? There’s an explanation... They both traveled to distant lands, both observed nature across many ecosystems, and both read Malthus’s Essay on Population.

Then they made the novel combination.

Malthus said that overpopulation creates a struggle for survival among humans… But that also applies to animals and plants! Which leads us to the first key takeaway:

To generate valuable ideas, you need to learn about topics as diverse as possible. Only then can you combine the pieces in new ways.

When you see that novel combination, it will feel obvious. As Thomas Huxley said after reading On the Origin of Species: “How stupid of me not to have thought of that.” Huxley had the same pieces as Darwin, but didn’t make the connection.

That’s what will set you apart: your boldness in playing with and combining ideas.

It’s not enough to know a lot.

2. Skills and Personality Required

2.1. Learn from Diverse Topics

No one makes valuable connections without a solid foundation.

The ability to connect unrelated things arises in people who never stop learning, who continuously feed their minds with new and varied ideas. You’ll never connect what you don’t even know exists. So start here: research everything that draws your attention—dive deep into every topic.

Make curiosity your way of life.

2.2. Be Bold

As Asimov warned early on, it’s not enough to know—you have to dare to combine.

“A person willing to challenge reason, authority, and common sense must be someone with great self-confidence.” — Isaac Asimov

• Someone who once thought the Earth was round instead of flat.

• Someone who believed the Earth moved, not the Sun.

• Someone who argued that objects require force to stop them, not to keep them moving.

These three ideas sounded insane in their time—but they were simply novel combinations of pieces formed by three geniuses: Aristotle, Nicolaus Copernicus, and Galileo Galilei. New ideas rarely sound good at first. They often seem wrong or revolutionary.

To be creative, you must be brave. You must step outside the mainstream.

“The person most likely to have new ideas is someone with a strong background in their field and unconventional habits.” — Isaac Asimov

2.3. Be Self-Taught

Creative people don’t always follow the pre-designed path. They learn on their own.

A major mistake is believing that learning ends with a diploma. It’s quite the opposite. Finishing formal education means you’ve matured and now have the tools to learn independently and question what you’ve learned.

The education system gives you knowledge—pieces—but it doesn’t train your creativity.

By rewarding the “right answer,” the system discourages exploration. It gives you basic pieces year after year, but the work of exploring and combining them with many other pieces falls to you—and that’s what almost no one does.

To be truly creative, learn twice as much outside the classroom as inside it.

2.4. Mental Toughness

Creativity comes with a high cost: being criticized.

If you do something different—if you step outside the established norms—you expose yourself. Even if you’re right, you risk being rejected just for stepping outside the norm. And yet, that’s where the opportunity lies. The world moves forward thanks to those who dare to break the rules, not those who repeat them.

“It is better for your reputation to fail conventionally than to succeed unconventionally.” — Keynes (1936)

There you have it.

If you’re going to be creative, you’d better be ready to be judged.

3. You Need to Be Alone

Even with all that knowledge and the right mindset, you need the right environment.

Creativity cannot emerge in the urgency and speed of today’s world. On this, Asimov is blunt: “In terms of creativity, isolation is required.” The creative mind needs slowness and silence—you need to spend quiet time alone.

A beautiful example of this: the story of benzene.

August Kekulé was a chemist who once fell asleep in front of a fireplace. He dreamed of a snake biting its own tail, forming a ring. That image inspired his theory that the structure of benzene wasn’t linear like other known carbon compounds, but cyclic. His dream changed chemistry.

You can do the same while wandering aimlessly and letting your mind connect ideas.

“The presence of others inhibits the process, because creating is embarrassing.” — Asimov

Creating means failing, saying silly things, feeling shame. And for that, you need privacy.

4. How to Generate Ideas in Groups

4.1. Cerebration Sessions

Asimov proposed what he called “cerebration sessions.”

As mentioned earlier, you need privacy to create, so these sessions aren’t for that. They’re spaces to enrich the collective mental warehouse—to exchange pieces, to give and receive elements you might later combine.

Asimov knew that brainstorming doesn’t work.

“The point is not to think of new ideas, but to educate the participants in facts, combinations of facts, theories, and stray thoughts.” — Asimov

A knows something B doesn’t.
B knows something A doesn’t.
And C combines A + B and sees something new.

The magic lies in cross-pollination between minds.

4.2. Session Characteristics

Asimov was precise. For a cerebration session to work, you need:

• Small groups—no more than 5 people.

• Informal settings—homes, cafes, dinners.

• Total absence of judgment (though not embarrassment at saying wild things).

• No hierarchy—no one can be anyone’s boss or leader.

Why? Because fear of ridicule and direct pressure kill creativity.

“The world disapproves of creativity. Being creative in public is especially bad. Even speculating in public is unsettling.” — Asimov

4.3. The Role of the Facilitator

A cerebration session can’t be rudderless.

It needs a moderator who asks questions, redirects when necessary, and maintains the rhythm—without dictating the content. “The moderator should play a role similar to that of a psychoanalyst,” wrote Asimov. That is, asking reflective questions so others arrive at their own insights.

4.4. The Idea Warehouse

All the pieces you collect need to be stored somewhere.

It could be a notebook using the root method, a digital folder, a Zettelkasten… You need a space to write down everything that catches your attention. Quotes. Ideas. Thoughts. Curiosities. It doesn’t matter if you don’t know what they’re for.

What matters is that they’re there.

Because one day, without warning, while rereading a line you underlined years ago, that piece combines with an idea you came across just yesterday—and a brilliant new idea is born.

Now that you know all this, the question is no longer “How can I come up with ideas?”

The question is: Am I doing what it takes for ideas to come to me?

✍️ Your turn: What system could you use to store the pieces you might later combine into creative ideas?

💭 Quote of the day: “Ideas are cheap. What counts is what you do with them.” — Isaac Asimov, The Secrets of the Universe

See you in the next letter, may you have lots of ideas! 👋

References 📚

1. Asimov, I. (1959). “How do people get new ideas?” MIT Technology Review. URL

2. Keynes, J. M. (1936). The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money.