Jordan Peterson of the University of Toronto and colleagues at Harvard University in 2003 published the result of an extensive research project on Latent Inhibition. Their pressrelease was titled: “Biological Basis For Creativity Linked To Mental Illness”.

I feel much better now!

I won’t try to explain the whole project here but what I found interesting about it is that it all sounds so familiar to the entrepreneur in me. Low Latent Inhibition is a defect (or talent) that makes it hard for people (and animals) to ignore details or information that isn’t important to their cause. In other words: “to ignore stimuli that experience has shown are irrelevant to its needs”.

I’m sure everybody recognises this. You remember your first telephone number but not where you left your keys.

The authors hypothesize that latent inhibition may be positive when combined with high intelligence and good working memory - the capacity to think about many things at once - but negative otherwise.

Peterson states: “If you are open to new information, new ideas, you better be able to intelligently and carefully edit and choose. If you have 50 ideas, only two or three are likely to be good. You have to be able to discriminate or you’ll get swamped.”

Sounds like what entrepreneurs, innovators and creative people often talk about.

I often notice that I tend to look ‘different’ at things. I used to think that it was my art academy background that caused this but I’m now thinking that it might not be an acquired talent but a simple case of Low Latent Inhibition.
More information:

Biological Basis For Creativity Linked To Mental Illness
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/10/031001061055.htm

low latent inhibition: one of the biological bases of creativity
http://www.straddle3.net/context/03/en/2003_10_13.html

Low Latent Inhibition Plus High Intelligence Leads To High Creativity?
http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/001684.html

All the domains + Businessplans sold just a few minutes ago for a total of $487.00. Here is the final score:

Betafy.com: $233.50
Headr.com: $202.50
Drugle.com: $26.00
Clicksy.com: $51.00

Not bad!

There is only one hour left to the end of the domain & businessplan auction we started at eBay. These are the prices right now. We received 44 bids in total so far.

Several people told me that the last hour of the auction if always the busiest. I’ll let you know in about an hour if that is true…

Betafy.com
$173.50
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=9722883193

Headr.com
$152.50
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=9722882274

Drugle.com
$11.50
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=9722883581

Clicksy.com
$26.00
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=9722883890

Admitting that you have a problem is the first step towards a solution. So last week, I looked in the mirror and admitted to myself that I had to do something. I had a problem. I couldn’t deny it any longer and I decided to take action. I walked to the store, found what I needed and went to the cash register. The girl behind the counter looked at what I gave her, then gave me a good look and, a little too loud for my taste, asked me ‘For you, or a gift?’. At which point I blushed and answered ‘No, it’s for a friend’. She nodded, smiled, and clearly didn’t believe me.

Yeah, it felt like buying Viagra, or condoms. But I wasn’t buying anything like that. I was buying a book: Getting Things Done by David Allen.

Buying a book like that says something about a person. I don’t like self-help books and used to think that they are silly and useless. And I didn’t understand or respect the people who read all those ‘Improve yourself in 6 days’ or ‘How to feel better about yourself’ books. But here I am, with a self-help book that promises to help me get things done.

And boy am I impressed! I need more of these books and I’m not joking! Consider this: until last week I had an average of 200 unread messages in my Inbox and another 500 in a directory titled “Mail I still have to read”. I also had too many things to do and too many things to worry about and no time to fix them.

I explained just yesterday that I always made to-do lists and never looked at them again. Why? ‘because they contained all kinds of stuff I HAD too DO and I was always to busy with other things’.

Then a little more than a week ago I read the first 25 pages of this book. Something exploded in my head, everything made sense and I changed just a few things in my work methods. And since that day my inbox is clean. No mail at all.

I keep a few lists with things I plan to do today, this week or some day and my head is clear. I suddenly have time to do stuff in between and react to sudden questions or issues without feeling like I’m losing control.

So, while at first I felt embarrassed and ashamed to need such a thing as a self-help book I am now proud, thankful and happy. I’m converted and liberated and ready for everything!

Maybe I’ll try some Viagra next!

We try to learn as much as we can and gain insight into as many things as are important for our business. At the office we all love books and share them and exchange tips or highlight pasages.

I decided to start a list of essential books every entrepreneur should read. I’m hoping that other people will add their books to the list and I’ll discover a few books I didn’t know yet. Here is the list:

http://www.listible.com/list/thC3A9-essential-
reading-list-for-entrepreneurs-and-start-ups

When you add a book it would be nice to point it to the right Amazon page.

A quick update on the Web2.0 company Auction which I posted on a few days ago. Betafy is doing quite well. And we were mentioned on ValleyWag, which is cool too. I think traffic to the sites (including Fleck and Fleck Blog) has easily tripled in 2 days.

Betafy.com
$102.00
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=9722883193

Headr.com
$10.00
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=9722882274

Drugle.com
$1.00
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=9722883581

Clicksy.com
$26.00
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=9722883890

Isn’t that incredible? Nobody is bidding on Drugle???

I think I received over a hundred email accounts via the form on Betafy.com by the way so that domain is increasing in value every minute!