Here's an inspiring quote from one of my role models in life, Albert Einstein:

"I have no special talent, I am only passionately curious."

During my heydays of strategy consulting and training development in Singapore, I often run "idea-mapping" and "visual thinking" workshops for kids and teens, as well as for professional adults.

With the aid of comics and the story-boarding technique from the movie world, I often used Einstein's life-story to share with them, especially the kids and teens, as to why curiosity and imagination are critical requisite skills for them to have if they would want to have a great future in the 21st century.

When Einstein was a small boy, his father gave him a magnetic compass which sparked his curiosity and imagination as to why the needle would always point north.

That was the humble beginning of his lifelong fascination with learning about the mysteries of the Universe.

More importantly, as a young boy, he had early influences from his uncle, Jacob, an electrical engineer, who taught him algebra and geometry.

Fascinatingly, it was his mother, a pianist, who had influenced him on his interest in music. She taught Einstein how to play the violin.

I have learned that throughout his early years of growing pains, Einstein had enjoyed visiting art galleries and museums, love sailing, and often went mountain climbing.

There were a handful of good and powerful habits which I had deliberately singled out for kids and teens to emulate:

- he was always curious, starting with the magnetic compass since childhood;

- he always had a book with him, and so, he loved reading;

- he always carried a note-book with him, to jot down his ideas and thoughts;

- he made a lot of good friends, and enjoyed many stimulating conversations with them;

- he always asked questions, and exhorted that one should always keep asking questions;

- he excelled in Math and Science at a very young age;

- he often borrowed notes from his class buddies to expedite his own learning; that's to say, he understood leverage;

- he loved to write scientific articles for magazines; in fact, one of the four critical papers he wrote was the precursor to winning the coveted Nobel Prize;

- he valued peace, even though his ideas let to the invention of the atomic bomb;

- he was always humble, and even bothered to respond to letters from kids who wrote to him from all over the world;

- he was never afraid of making mistakes;

- he had a good sense of humour;

- he loved to daydream, but had used it constructively to carry his so-called "thought experiments";

- he had very strong visuo-spatial skills, which allowed him to stretch his imagination; that's to say, he often could play scenarios in his head to test out his pet theories;

- he adored simplicity;