Find a scenius, pay attention to what others are sharing, and then start taking note of what they’re not sharing. Be on the lookout for voids that you can fill with your own efforts, no matter how bad they are at first.

Look for what you notice
but no one else sees.

"If you believe in the lone genius myth, creativity is an antisocial act, performed by only a few great figures — mostly dead men with names like Mozart, Einstein, or Picasso. The rest of us are left to stand around and gawk in awe at their achievements. Under the "scenius" model, great ideas are often birthed by a group of creative individuals — artists, curators, thinkers, theorists, and other tastemakers — who make up an “ecology of talent.” Being a valuable part of a scenius is not necessarily about how smart or talented you are, but about what you have to contribute — the ideas you share, the quality of the connections you make, and the conversations you start. If we forget about genius and think more about how we can nurture and contribute to a scenius, we can adjust our own expectations and the expectations of the worlds we want to accept us. We can stop asking what others can do for us, and start asking what we can do for others.

Think about what you want to learn, and make a commitment to learning it in front of others. Find a scenius, pay attention to what others are sharing, and then start taking note of what they’re not sharing. Be on the lookout for voids that you can fill with your own efforts, no matter how bad they are at first. . . . Share what you love, and the people who love the same things will find you."

Don't read what everyone else is reading. Check them out later, cautiously.

Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell others.

Break habits.
Look for differences.
Notice connections.

Listen to everything that is said, and see everything that is done. Observe the looks and countenances of those who speak, which is often a surer way of discovering the truth than from what they say. But then keep all those observations to yourself, for your own private use, and rarely communicate them to others. Observe, without being thought an observer, for otherwise people will be upon their guard before you.

Look out for number one and try not to step in number two.

To know what people really think, pay attention to what they do, rather than what they say.

It is more useful to pay attention to people who disagree with you than to pay attention to those who agree.

Don't just listen to what the person says; watch what they do. Because what people say is one thing, but what they do reveals the truth about them.

Watch what people are cynical about, and one can often discover what they lack.

So what I am always looking for is, I'm always looking for something that that person has told me that nobody else has told me. It is normally not an opinion, and it is normally not a philosophy. It's almost always a story. Because we all share similar philosophies, we all share similar opinions on a lot of different issues, but all of our stories are our own.

Step 1: Wonder at something. Step 2: Invite others to wonder with you. You should wonder at the things nobody else is wondering about.