Geniuses force relationships. If one particular style of thought stands out about creative genius, it is the ability to make juxtapositions between different subjects. Da Vinci forced a relationship between the sound of a bell and a stone hitting water. This enabled him to make the connection that sound travels in waves.

Geniuses think in opposites. Physicist Niels Bohr believed that if you held opposites together, then you suspend your thought and your mind moves to a new level. The suspension of thought allows an intelligence beyond thought to act and create a new form. The swirling of opposites creates the conditions for a new point of view to bubble freely from your mind. Bohr's ability to imagine light as both a particle and a wave led to his conception of the principle of complementarity. Thomas Edison's invention of a practical system of lighting involved combining wiring in parallel circuits with high-resistance filaments in his bulbs—two things that were not considered possible by conventional thinkers. Because Edison could tolerate the ambivalence between two incompatible things, he could see the relationship that led to his breakthrough.

Geniuses think metaphorically. Aristotle considered metaphor a sign of genius, believing that the individual who had the capacity to perceive resemblances between two separate areas of existence and link them together was a person of special gifts. Alexander Graham Bell compared the inner workings of the ear to a stout piece of membrane moving steel and conceived the telephone. Einstein derived and explained many of his abstract principles by drawing analogies with everyday occurrences such as rowing a boat or standing on a platform while a train passed by.

Geniuses prepare themselves for chance. Whenever we attempt to do something and fail, we end up doing something else. That is the first principle of creative accident. Alexander Fleming was not the first physician studying deadly bacteria to notice that mold formed on an exposed culture. A less gifted physician would have trashed this seemingly unrelated event, but Fleming noted it as "interesting" and wondered if it had potential. This "interesting" observation led to penicillin.