00:00:28 Hello listeners

00:01:03 “Give me a place to stand and a lever long enough, and I will move the world."

00:13:40 • Use breaks and rest strategically.

00:14:31 • Cut down on noise and distraction.

00:15:17 • Honor your random insights and epiphanies by writing them down when they happen.

00:18:00 • Find a task so engrossing that it makes the rest of the world disappear.

00:18:29 • It may sound obvious, but if you’re “on a roll,” don’t forcefully stop yourself.

00:18:46 • Even our passions can be a drag sometimes, but it’s often just a question of getting started and staying with a task long enough for our own natural momentum to kick in.

00:20:00 • Whatever you’re trying to learn, find ways to anchor it in your everyday life.

00:28:31 Questions for reflection

00:00:28 Hello listeners

00:01:03 “Give me a place to stand and a lever long enough, and I will move the world."

00:13:40 • Use breaks and rest strategically.

00:14:31 • Cut down on noise and distraction.

00:15:17 • Honor your random insights and epiphanies by writing them down when they happen.

00:18:00 • Find a task so engrossing that it makes the rest of the world disappear.

00:18:29 • It may sound obvious, but if you’re “on a roll,” don’t forcefully stop yourself.

00:18:46 • Even our passions can be a drag sometimes, but it’s often just a question of getting started and staying with a task long enough for our own natural momentum to kick in.

00:20:00 • Whatever you’re trying to learn, find ways to anchor it in your everyday life.

00:28:31 Questions for reflection

Think Like the Greats: Lessons from History’s Top Performers, Champions, and Masters (Mental Models for Better Living Book 9)

By Peter Hollins

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FD8QJZCV

What if the secret to greatness isn’t talent, but how you think?

Imagine channeling the calm discipline of Marcus Aurelius in chaos, the precision of Marie Curie in pursuit of truth, the inventive fire of Archimedes under pressure, the emotional genius of Shakespeare on the page, and the relentless artistry of Mozart in the face of rejection.

THINK LIKE THE GREATS is not a biography compilation — it’s your mental upgrade, built on the tested thinking patterns of the world’s most iconic performers, inventors, creators, and philosophers. These were not just individuals of talent, but of uncommon perspective — and this book decodes their mental frameworks for modern use.

Inside, you’ll uncover how to:

Strengthen Mental Clarity and Control: Apply Stoic reasoning from Marcus Aurelius to stay steady in a turbulent world.

Fuel Lifelong Curiosity and Grit: Embrace the scientific persistence and intellectual courage of Marie Curie to solve hard problems.

Think in First Principles: Adopt Archimedes’ radical approach to innovation and insight — not just solving problems, but reframing them.

Master Emotional Intelligence Through Story: Learn how Shakespeare used narrative to expose human truth and influence minds across centuries.

Produce at a High Level with Consistency: Unpack the rituals and resilience behind Mozart’s relentless creativity and output.

Whether you’re building a company, crafting your legacy, or just hungry to be better — the masters of history have already left the blueprint. This book hands it to you.

Stop following the average path. Start thinking like the greats — and create your own enduring masterpiece.

Have you ever had one of those aha moments where suddenly everything clicked into place?

Today we're looking at the story of Archimedes and his legendary Eureka moment, a tale that teaches us about the power of insight and how to cultivate our own breakthroughs.

Hello listeners, welcome back to The Science of Self, where you improve your life from the inside out.

Today is March 19th, 2026, and today from the book, Think Like the Greats by Peter Hollins, we're taking a look at Archimedes.

By studying this man and his techniques, we will unlock your creative potential and help you achieve your own breakthrough moments.

We'll look at how cultivating a passive restful mind can actually be a powerful tool for generating innovative ideas and problem-solving, leading to those aha moments we all crave.

Get ready to ignite your creative spark.

“Give me a place to stand and a lever long enough, and I will move the world.”

• Archimedes

Few of us know about Archimedes of Syracuse and the details of his life, but almost all of us know precisely what is meant by the expression “Eureka!"

It is fitting that we now turn our attention to the life and mind that gave rise to the world’s first “eureka moment”, as it were.

A eureka moment is a flash of insight, a sudden moment of understanding, or the sensation of being struck all at once with the solution to a long-standing problem.

The “aha!” moment is a flash of genius, where comprehension instantly clicks into place, and it’s as though we are touched by the muses, or struck by a lightning bolt from the gods themselves.

In our epiphany, we suddenly see things so clearly we wonder why we never saw them before.

The resulting joy and satisfaction can literally make us exclaim out loud.

“Aha!

I’ve got it!”

So, who is the man behind this everyday phrase, and what can his story teach us about our own achievements?

Archimedes of Syracuse (c. 287 BC–212 BC) was an ancient Greek mathematician, inventor, and physicist whose genius laid the groundwork for modern engineering and science.

Celebrated for his contributions to geometry, mechanics, and hydrostatics, Archimedes also developed war machines that defended Syracuse from Roman invaders for years.

His famous principle of buoyancy and methods for approximating pi exemplify his ability to blend theory with practical application.

Even in his final moments, Archimedes' unwavering focus on his work symbolized his lifelong dedication to knowledge and discovery.

Archimedes was certainly a high achiever, but we have understand how he scaled those intellectual heights.

To understand the story behind Archimedes’ special flash of insight is to understand much of what characterized his life.

The story starts in Syracuse, an ancient Greek city which once appointed Hiero as a young general to command them during a war with Carthage.

In a great battle in 265 BC, Hiero led Syracuse to victory, so they elected him King.

To thank the gods for his fortune and commemorate their triumph, Hiero commissioned a golden crown to be placed in the temple.

He weighed out an amount of gold and hired a goldsmith to fashion the crown in the shape of laurel wreath–a symbol for victory.

The goldsmith went away and returned with a crown he presented to the king.

It fit the specifications and weighed the same as the gold originally given.

Pleased, Hiero paid the goldsmith, who went away.

However, rumors began to circulate that the crown, though it weighed the same, was not in fact pure gold.

It was suspected that the goldsmith had cheated the king by replacing some of the gold with cheaper silver, and pocketing the difference.

Hiero could not give an impure offering to the gods, and so had to find out the truth quickly.

He summoned his own cousin, a young man of just 22 years old.

This was Archimedes, who already had a substantial reputation for genius in mathematics and natural sciences.

The king instructed him to determine if any deception had occurred, i.e., determine the composition of the crown–and do it fast.

Archimedes stewed and pondered for a long while.

In those days, science was still at its rudimentary basics, and there really would have been no method to quickly determine the exact composition of any metal alloy.

But what Archimedes did possess, however, was his brain.

Taking a quick break from the riddle, he walked to the public baths one day, still turning the problem over in his mind again and again.

He stepped into a full tub of water and noticed that as he did so, an amount of water splashed over the rim.

When he lowered more of his body into the water, still more was displaced.

In that very moment, the answer to the problem of the golden crown struck him, and he leapt out of the bath again, purportedly running out into the streets naked yelling “Eureka!” (which means, “I have found it!” in Greek).

What had he found, exactly?

Well, all at once Archimedes had discovered a method for measuring the volume of irregularly shaped objects.

If you immerse an object in water, the water displaced will match the volume of that body–just like he did in the bathtub.

The volume of the water displaced would exactly match the volume of the immersed object, no matter its shape.

However, Archimedes also realized another key piece of the puzzle: Volume is not the same as density.

So, a pebble has greater density than a cork even though they both may have the same size.

Archimedes already understood that gold was denser than silver.

This means that if you have a lump of gold of a certain weight, and a lump of silver of the same weight, then the gold will be smaller in volume than the silver.

If the goldsmith hired by the king had indeed been deceptive and stolen some of the gold he was given and replaced it with cheaper silver, then the combined volume of gold and silver in the crown would turn out to be greater than the volume of the original amount of gold (because the silver would necessarily have a greater volume).

But although Archimedes knew the volume of gold the goldsmith had originally been given, how was he going to measure the volume of the crown?

While it could be melted down, the king forbid any harm come to it.

Thus, Archimedes needed a way to measure the volume of the crown, a highly irregular shape… Eureka!

It’s at this point in the story that we can assume Archimedes put some clothes on and sat down to work to confirm his hypothesis: He confirmed the weight of gold that had been given to the goldsmith.

Then he took a lump of both gold and silver of the same weight each, and placed them in a container of water, so he could precisely measure how much water was displaced by each.

Were the amounts different?

They were.

The gold displaced less water, meaning it had a smaller volume.

It was time to try the experiment with the crown.

Remember, the crown weighed the same amount as the weight of the original gold.

He lowered the crown into the container of water and measured the amount of water displaced.

If the crown was indeed pure gold, like the lump of pure gold, then it should be the same volume and displace the exact same amount of water.

However, when he measured the water, he discovered that the crown displaced more water.

The experiment was conclusive: This crown, because it had a volume greater than pure gold of the same weight, was likely mixed with a less dense metal, i.e., silver.

The king had been cheated by the goldsmith, who was then immediately put to death.

The end.

Now, this story was never actually found in Archimedes’ book, On Floating Bodies, but was recounted in various forms in other texts written in the first century BC.

In truth, the story is quite likely apocryphal and never happened, but there is some truth nevertheless in its essence.

Very little is known about Archimedes the man, but what survives of his legacy are his works and inventions, which are substantial: mechanical designs for claws, screws, levers, and pulleys, not to mention mathematical proofs and theories still relevant today.

It’s the Eureka story, however, that captures something very special about the problem-solving process.

Archimedes' innovative problem-solving redefined practical applications of science

Known for translating mathematical principles into practical solutions, Archimedes transformed abstract concepts into working solutions.

His inventions ranged from the Archimedes Screw for lifting water to devastating war engines that kept Rome's armies at bay.

Archimedes’ genius lay in his ability to practically apply all that he learned and discovered.

There is an elegance, for example, in the story of the golden crown; Without using complicated instruments or tools, Archimedes solved the riddle using only logic, observation, and a rudimentary experiment.

It’s no wonder that this story captures people’s imaginations to this day–it is a model for truly intelligent problem-solving, and shows us the raw power of thinking clearly and rationally about the puzzles we encounter in life.

Mathematics, engineering, and common-sense problem solving in the real world all come together to form an approach that is almost beautiful in its simplicity.

Archimedes combined open-ended curiosity with obsessive hard work and focus

Archimedes was known for becoming so engrossed in his mathematical problems that he would forget to eat.

This intense focus was what led to his groundbreaking discoveries in geometry, physics, and engineering.

Even at the moment of his death, he was so absorbed in solving a mathematical problem that he reportedly told the Roman soldier who killed him, "Do not disturb my circles!"

Archimedes was not a free-floating daydreamer, nor was he a joyless workaholic.

Rather, he possessed that unique quality that has seemingly belonged to all high achievers, geniuses, and “nutty professor” types all throughout history: the ability to become so fully absorbed with your work that you scarcely remember that other things exist, let alone get distracted by them!

Cultivate your own "eureka" moment

Today, we speak about eureka moments as though they were purely passive experiences of illumination, completely outside of our conscious control.

Archimedes discovered the solution to his problem, we are told, when he was on a break and not trying to solve the problem, right?

While this is true in a sense, Archimedes then took that singular flash of insight and ran with it, immediately following it up with active, conscious, and deliberate efforts to expand on that understanding.

What’s more, he laid the groundwork for that flash of insight by stewing over the problem for days.

While it is true that insight can find us in the most unexpected places, it almost always tends to alight on those minds that have already been primed with plenty of pre-thought and contemplation.

To take inspiration from Archimedes, we need to understand the vital interplay between two forces: the active, conscious effort of hard work, and the passive, unconscious processes that occur outside of our control.

By alternating hard work with rest, focus with open-ended thinking, and effort with release, we can increase the chances that we stumble upon a eureka moment of our own.

• Use breaks and rest strategically.

A break is not just “nothing,” it is a chance for your mental and physical resources to replenish, and for your mind to digest and process everything it has taken in.

It is often during these restful moments where your brain suddenly puts things together, spots the solution, or cracks the code.

If you’re struggling with a problem, literally imagine just handing it over to your unconscious mind and take a break.

Go for a walk, do something else, or even take a nap.

Come back with fresh eyes.

One great tip is to review a challenging question before bed, then “sleep on it.” You’ll be surprised by how often you wake up with a totally new perspective on things!

• Cut down on noise and distraction.

Modern man’s eureka moment is the “shower thought” because the shower is one of the few places where his attention is not captured by screens and devices.

Give your brain a chance for productive rest.

Give it an opportunity to generate its own ideas, rather than constantly bombarding it with external stimuli to process.

Do “nothing” sometimes.

Showers and long baths are good, but you can also just sit outside and watch the trees, or doodle.

Don’t always be rushing to the next task, and try not to automatically fill “empty” time with a distraction.

Eureka moments need quiet.

• Honor your random insights and epiphanies by writing them down when they happen.

Keep a small notebook at hand for quickly jotting down ideas as they occur to you, and take your random questions and wonderings seriously.

You can set up a back-and-forth dialogue between your conscious and unconscious mind: take note of what your relaxed, unfocused mind comes up with, and then work on those things deliberately and consciously.

Then, hand everything back to the unconscious again.

Let those updated ideas rest and consolidate once more, before repeating the cycle.

Get lost in what you love

Archimedes was so absorbed in his work that he’d often lose track of time entirely.

While he had gone to the public baths for a break on that fateful day, he had done so with a head full of ponderings and questions.

However, Archimedes was not someone who forced himself to do a bare minimum of work hours, or tried desperately to convince himself to be more disciplined and productive.

In fact, it would have been harder for him to stop working on a problem once he had sunk his teeth into it.

Many of us have problems with procrastination.

We struggle to maintain consistent motivation or struggle with a lack of inspiration.

We avoid starting our work, and when we finally do get started, we are instantly distracted, watching the clock, looking forward to when we can stop again.

The hard truth is that nobody can achieve much in this life if they have a reluctant or even resentful attitude to the goal they’re attempting to achieve.

The things we are consistently drawn to with passion and focus are the things we end up amplifying and developing over time–this is bad news for those of us who consistently allow our attention and focus to be hijacked by worthless endeavors.

Most things worth doing are difficult, and take effort and discipline.

It is essential to be honest with yourself if your chosen goals inspire absolutely no energy or passion at all.

While extreme and obsessive dedication to a task is probably not necessary, it’s worth identifying those activities in which you truly can get lost for hours, and yet scarcely feel that a minute has passed.

These activities are most likely those closest aligned to your truer purpose and talents–not to mention they’re the things that you’re most likely to get done!

• Find a task so engrossing that it makes the rest of the world disappear.

Think back to the last activity you did without being asked or paid, and where you barely felt the hours whizzing by.

What were you doing?

How were you doing it?

If you figure out exactly what it was that caught your attention, you can figure out ways to replicate that dynamic.

• It may sound obvious, but if you’re “on a roll,” don’t forcefully stop yourself.

You may have scheduled an hour guitar practice, for example, but find that you are enjoying yourself so much at the one-hour mark that you don’t want to stop–so don’t!

• Even our passions can be a drag sometimes, but it’s often just a question of getting started and staying with a task long enough for our own natural momentum to kick in.

If you’re wrestling with procrastination, promise yourself to do just one minute.

Inevitably, you’ll find that that minute goes by really fast, and once you’ve begun, it’s pretty easy to keep going.

Turn theory into action

Archimedes didn't just think about water displacement for fun, he used it to solve the king's crown mystery.

Apply your knowledge to real problems.

Just as there is a distinction between theoretical mathematics and real-world applied mathematics, there will be a distinction in your chosen field of study.

Solutions and theories that are meaningfully connected to real-world problems will always be more robust.

Challenge yourself to stick to time limits and other constraints, and even if you have to impose artificial limits on yourself, keep asking how your work fits into the world, and its practical application.

• Whatever you’re trying to learn, find ways to anchor it in your everyday life.

If you’re trying to learn more about social media algorithms, actively find ways to help your friend's small business grow, for example.

If you're figuring out more about organization, don’t be purely theoretical, but get your hands dirty and transform your roommates' chaotic kitchen or office into an efficient space.

Like Archimedes, make your ideas physically real.

You’ll learn more and you’ll learn more quickly.

• As soon as you possibly can, test out your theories.

Don’t stay too long in hypotheticals or guesswork, but do experiments and appraise things for yourself.

If you’re considering launching a new business, for example, don’t spend months planning and daydreaming–get out there and immediately start chatting with people, offering a lean/minimal version of your product or service, and gathering usable feedback.

• Change statements into questions.

For example, instead of saying, “There’s no way to measure the volume of an irregular shaped object,” say “Is there a way?

Why isn’t there a way yet?

If there was a way, what would it look like?” Questions like this are useful because they prompt action.

You could idly wonder about something for years, but you’ll only make real progress when you ask an outright question and take action to answer that question for yourself.

Michelle’s story

Michelle was quitting her job in six months.

She had known for the longest time that she wanted to set up her own business, work for herself, and earn her own income on her own terms.

She had already acquired all the relevant new qualifications and training, she had brushed up on her basic business literacy, created a rock-solid business plan, and secured ample startup costs.

But there was one thing that still terrified her: marketing.

Michelle was smart and hardworking, but she hated self-promotion, and she was unfamiliar with and uncomfortable using social media.

Though she had great faith in her business idea, she was dreading “putting herself out there” and finding clever ways to win customers and clients.

She signed up for a much-recommended marketing course and paid all the right professionals to teach her how to reach her target market and start making sales.

She learned more than she cared to about email marketing, SEO, building a website, creating content, cultivating a brand image, figuring out pricing, building an online presence…

The trouble was, whenever Michelle sat down to try and make sense of all this, it was like pulling teeth.

She’d focus for a few moments but then get distracted by a phone notification or a friend dropping by.

Being in her 50s, Michelle was feeling increasingly daunted and overwhelmed at the technological challenges she faced.

Her social media accounts stalled and stagnated, and her marketing campaigns went nowhere.

Bombarded with younger, more tech-savvy competitors crowding out the social media space, she became increasingly aware of her digital disadvantage, and grew discouraged.

How was she ever going to find customers?

Would she have to pay thousands to a marketing firm?

Her friends and family gave her plenty of advice and support–after all, they’d championed her business idea from the very beginning and believed in her, fervently–but as her last day of work loomed closer, her anxiety grew.

She found herself increasingly unable to even go online, and just thinking about marketing filled her with dread.

She began to procrastinate; she’d guiltily shirk all the boring social media stuff and go out in the evenings instead–book club, bridge, the movies, coffee with friends–it didn’t matter, as long as she could avoid the marketing!

But then came her eureka moment.

Michelle was at a church function one evening with two dozen other women from the community.

Michelle was an active and engaged friend; she volunteered, hosted events and fundraisers, and spent almost every day doing something, whether that was a bake sale for the school, a casual get-together, or a group hike.

There she was in a crowd of women, explaining at length how she was having difficulty attracting clients.

“How am I going to let people know about my business?” she was saying.

“I hate social media and I’m so bad at it.

I have no online presence at all, and no social network…”

And then it hit her.

She was literally telling all this… to her extensive social network!

While she had wasted time and effort trying to learn how to market her business online, she had completely missed the fact that she had a sizeable social network right under her nose.

She was already good at marketing.

For decades.

Michelle has been a skillful communicator, and was a master at making real-world connections in her neighborhood.

She’d often lose herself in the buzz of a busy event, chatting to people, making introductions, negotiating, planning, doing committee work… Michelle knew positively hundreds of people.

Not only had she been “marketing” to them non-stop for months, but it had worked; several people were already interested in her service and were eager to refer people they knew to Michelle.

Thousands of years ago, Archimedes invented the principle of the lever.

A lever is any bar that rests on a pivot or fulcrum that multiplies force applied on one end to the other end.

With a lever, a man can shift a boulder many times heavier than his unlevered effort could manage.

In other words, a lever is a simple machine and a “mechanical advantage device” that allows you to produce more force than you put in.

Michelle’s eureka moment allowed her to identify the crucial levers in her own life, i.e.

those places where a little effort would shift a big load.

She multiplied force when she learned how to “leverage” her own pre-existing social network.

Many problems in life are not solved by simply increasing force and effort, but rather by identifying crucial pivots and levers, and applying yourself in the world in direct, practical ways.

Michelle did not need to run naked through the streets to have her epiphany, but it was no less profound than the proverbial Archimedes.

For Michelle, a single realization had changed her entire approach, and that realization came from a completely unexpected place!

Archimedes’ high achiever mindset: "Stillness is the foundation of insight.

At rest, I do my greatest work.”

High achiever traits: Creative and productive rest, total absorption in work, applied insight, theory married to action.

◦ The passive, unconscious, and restful mind is a source of creativity and problem solving; cultivate eureka moments by making room for it to generate sudden insights.

◦ Fully immerse yourself (pun intended) in your challenges and projects.

Pour energy into those things that make you lose track of time.

◦ Never be purely theoretical; genius happens when theory is applied, solutions are implemented, and insight inspires action.

Questions for reflection:

Am I leaving enough space (mental, emotional, physical) for a spontaneous eureka moment to find me?

Is there an insight I have already received, but have failed to take inspired action on?

Stop and think for a moment.

To solve a problem I am currently grappling with, how can I leverage what I already have?

And that's the end of today's excerpt.

We appreciate you being with us today.

Remember, the mind at rest can be a powerful tool.

So cultivate that space for inspiration to flow.

dive head first into your passions, lose yourself in the process, and let theory turn into action.

Don't just think it, do it.

As Albert Einstein once said, imagination is more important than knowledge, for knowledge is limited to all we know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world and all there is to know.

Go out there and imagine big.