We lionize geniuses in our culture. We revere the notion of a lone individual toiling deep into the night, determined to prove a chorus of critics and naysayers wrong. This image can be a useful wellspring of inspiration for those seeking to achieve big things. But it can also needlessly mythologize the very ordinary people who we want to emulate. The truth is that even high achievers are mortal – and they all have tricks and routines that we can draw upon to achieve big things ourselves.
A common linkage among geniuses in wildly disparate fields is that they can draw connections and see synergies that others miss. If creativity can be defined as the new fusion of two existing ideas, geniuses are those who are adept at combining what other people have already done. A prominent example is Steve Jobs, who famously combined his passion for technology with a love of design and ultimately designed a new kind of consumer product that worked intuitively – and was beautiful to look at. This insight that consumers want products that they enjoy using and looking at is what distinguished Jobs from the legion of other tech entrepreneurs out there. It is unlikely he would have been able to draw this critical connection if it were not for the wide-ranging breadth of his interests, which extended far beyond the technology world.
The key lesson here is to roam widely beyond your comfort zone and area of expertise. Even though a recreation or interest may seem a bit like a distraction from what you really intend to be working on, you may find that the practice of unplugging and learning about something new may well give you some very valuable insights into your primary area of interest.
You must also be prepared to be bold and think outside of the box, even if it means straying into some areas of thought that scare you a little bit or can ruffle feathers. We remember geniuses precisely because they were iconoclasts and ran against the grain of what was considered to be the bounds of acceptable discourse in others’ eyes. This can be a lonely place to find yourself in if you are met with a chorus of criticism for pushing an innovative, new way of looking at a situation. So be prepared – it simply comes with the territory if you are serious about thinking differently. Remember that very few are thought of as geniuses in their own time while they are carrying out their work. They are far more likely to be regarded as fools or cranks.
You will need to find in yourself an inner reservoir of strength and confidence if you want to sustain your work without someone else having your back. After all, who do we think of throughout history when we think of the word genius? We very likely will come back to a pool of individuals who are universally regarded as having expanded the boundaries of human possibility. These names would include Einstein, Socrates, Copernicus, and many others who were regarded as heretics in their own time. Many such figures were persecuted or even condemned to death or exile because of the dangerous power of their ideas and their threat to the status quo. Keep this in mind – for an idea to be truly great, it very likely has to have permanently altered the contours of the status quo.
Many are just fine with the status quo and will do everything they can to resist the introduction of a new idea. In many workplaces, the easiest way to attain promotions and recognition is to continue along the same conventional path as everyone else. You must be prepared to stand up for your ideas and remove yourself emotionally from the inevitable conflict that will arise from presenting new and exciting ways of doing things in your workplace or community. Group think and decision making by committee may feel safer and more inclusive, but it could not be further removed from the deep introspection and self-sufficiency that must be part of generating truly genius ideas.
So what do you need to be doing to be operating on a genius level? To begin with, you must be willing to step back and take a longer view than many of your colleagues likely do. You will need to relish the prospect of investing some considerable time in mulling over ideas and problems from an expansive perspective. You must be vigilant against accepting ideas that are prepackaged or sanctioned by the media or widespread thought as being self-evidently sound. Many of us accept the cues and stories that society tells us – about life, death, country, love, wealth – without stopping to consider the agendas behind them. Become accustomed to examining each angle of an idea the way that you would examine a new car. It’s not enough to kick the tires or rely on the salesman’s word – you need to go out and test drive for yourself.
You must be brave enough to articulate opinions that aren’t popular or part of the mainstream. Generating these ideas will mean paying very special attention to your media consumption and intake of information and ideas. It has become increasingly common for us to put a lot of time and care into our diets, as we scour grocery aisles for organic materials and resist anything that smacks of processed chemicals. We should be practicing the same vigilance when it comes to what knowledge and ideas we put into our brains. It’s no surprise that a steady habit or even addiction to television or mindless social media has a way of damaging the quality of your thoughts. Stereotypes and clichés that seep into your thinking are more often than not a byproduct of over-consumption of stale media and art. You should seek out quality journalism and art for your precious down time – but also resist the temptation to always be cramming content into your brain. You need down time and quiet to think, reflect, and arrive at your own conclusions on what you think about the world.
Don’t worry too much about being “out of the loop” or not knowing information if you don’t follow the news with as much zeal as others. You may even find that you actually benefit from not knowing some things. It takes a level of ignorance and curiosity to generate new ways of looking at things – this is a supreme advantage that the amateur beginner has over the expert. The novice has not yet become entrenched in a fatalistic mode of thinking that dismisses new attempts as foolhardy or implausible. Think of all the innovations that have been borne from amateurs and rookies seeking new ideas – the Wright brothers seeking a way to fly, for example. It is not a coincidence that such breakthroughs often come from figures with less experience and less to lose.
These may sound like lofty ambitions to aspire to, but we can all surely follow some of these same practices to introduce new ideas into our business ventures. Even if they don’t quite shift the course of history in the same way as some of these figures, we can all stand to benefit from questioning the established way of doing things and forever striving to better our organizations and ourselves with new thinking.
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