Richard Feynman was fond of giving the following advice on how to be a
genius. You have to keep a dozen of your favorite problems constantly present
in your mind, although by and large they will lay in a dormant state. Every
time you hear or read a new trick or a new result, test it against each
of your twelve problems to see whether it helps. Every once in a while
there will be a hit, and people will say:
"How did he do it? He must
be a genius!"