Intellectual Honesty

Let’s consider some other key traits. Imagine the genius at work, day after day. They try Plan A, and it doesn’t quite work. They tweak it and attempt another version, Plan B. This is better but still not quite right. They admit that some assumptions are not exactly founded. Plan C doesn’t work at all, so they go back to the drawing board and begin afresh, this time with a completely new approach. And so on.

This kind of gruelling step-by-step process requires patience and hard work, but it also needs something very important: humility. A person who is never willing to admit they’re wrong stops at the very first hurdle. If you are stubborn, have a big ego and hate making mistakes, you will stay precisely where you are, knowledge-wise. Those who close their eyes to evidence staring them right in the face are the opposite of scientists (and, in fact, they are the opposite of geniuses, you can pick your favorite description…)

As an extension of being playful, open-minded and curious, one who pursues genius must be willing to let the process of learning lead them. Sometimes, this means that the process tells you, in no uncertain terms, “That’s wrong! Try again.” A genius takes this “negative” feedback for what it is, thinks, “Hmm, that’s interesting,” changes their approach and simply tries again. A less-than-genius person looks at this feedback from the universe and is mortified. Because they have their ego wrapped up in the learning process, they see being wrong as a personal failure, and a reflection on who they are as people.

So, when they get things wrong, they feel that they are wrong, and understandably, this feels like a pretty serious threat. The response is to deny that they are wrong, ignore the evidence, or sit tight and never grow because it’s too embarrassing to feel like a beginner. This is essentially the difference between a fixed mindset (i.e. “I am the way I am and I can’t change”) vs. a growth mindset (“It’s always possible for me to learn”).

We can call this trait intellectual honesty. It’s the ability to be flexible, to be honest with yourself and to self-correct without too much bias or stubbornness. The degree of your willingness to be wrong is directly proportional to your capacity to learn. After all, those who already know everything have no need to ask questions, to be better, or learn from others. So, they don’t.

This is a trait that is very easy to develop in yourself, thankfully. How? It’s simple: be embarrassed occasionally. One thing that is incredibly freeing for the soul and the intellect is to quickly say, “I don’t know” when you really don’t know. If you’re in a discussion with someone who has just proven you incorrect, don’t dig yourself further into a hole by doubling down on your position or trying to make out that you were really right all along. Instead, say freely and quickly, “Yes, I think you’re right!” and simply let go of the idea or belief you held before.

Easier said than done. But if you can consistently practice this trait, you will soon develop intellectual honesty and ironically, people will view you and your opinions more favorably. You demonstrate not only intellectual maturity but wisdom and level-headedness when you can honestly admit gaps in your understanding. Remind yourself that being wrong or making mistakes is not the end of the world. In fact, if you’re not regularly encountering your own ignorance and lack of skill, you aren’t challenging yourself enough!

See mistakes and being wrong as the entry fee for playing the learning game. Remember that even brilliantly accomplished geniuses throughout history have been wrong—in fact, they’ve probably been wrong more times than you! The successful entrepreneur, it’s said, has failed more times than the average person has even tried. The genius, then, is not someone who finds everything easy and gets it right first time; rather, they are the people who have a higher than normal threshold for tolerating uncertainty, “failure” or confusion.

They are the ones willing to be embarrassing novices for years before they get to show off their skill. They are the ones who won’t mind when people laugh at their crazy idea. While everyone else might feel sorry for a person who lost tons of money on a venture that didn’t pan out, that person may themselves be thinking, “Excellent! Now I know exactly what not to do next time. This is great…”

Other than regularly saying “I don’t know” or “I was wrong” (and meaning it), the genius mindset is characterized by a sincere lack of bias and prejudice. Keep in mind your natural curiosity—it’s not something that thrives in the presence of dogged beliefs and ideas that never budge. Take a look at your own self talk and see if you can identify any times where you use words like “always” and “never.” These could give you a clue to your own stubborn biases or assumptions that may need updating.

A dash of polymathy

Let’s move on to another fundamental trait, one which we can only call “jack-of-all-tradesness.” Genius thinking is more lateral than vertical. In other words, it’s broad. Though geniuses like to look into things in depth, they are never specialists. This is because their natural curiosity carries them into all fields and topics. If you ask “why?” often enough, you will soon find yourself studying everything in life—and why not? Why restrict yourself?

As you’ll soon see, the intellectual heavyweights of history all had this in common: they read widely, and had an enormous range of interests. If they were scientists, they dabbled in all kinds of science, and also enjoyed poetry, hunting, and economic theory (for example). If they were involved in politics they also had a religious interest and painted, or if they were philosophers, they also had a keen interest in anthropology and music. You get the idea. They didn’t box themselves in. It’s only the human mind that divides the world into little categories—geniuses see that everything is actually connected, and don’t put limits on their inquiries.

A genius is well-read and up to date. They want to understand what is happening around them. So, when they talk to anyone, chances are they have something to contribute to the conversation, and if they are completely oblivious, they go into investigation mode and learn as much as they can when they encounter someone who knows something they don’t. If they are familiar with mathematics and programming, and they chat to an expert in literature, they can’t help but draw connections and relationships, seeking to understand the new knowledge in terms of what they already know. They might become curious about symbolic representation in literature, or wonder how an AI would codify and represent different writing styles, or how certain languages might be considered more “mathematical” than others.

In fact, it’s this willingness to cross-pollinate different areas of knowledge that allows geniuses to come up with so many novel approaches and theories. Genius thinkers are at home with using analogies of all kinds. Their minds are constantly looking for the biggest possible picture. They want to know how everything fits together, so when they meet a new piece of knowledge, the first thing they do is examine it and see how it relates to the pieces they already possess. This is perhaps why so many truly great scientists are also deeply creative and artistic people—they know how to work with metaphor and analogy, and can rearrange concepts, switch perspectives, and “translate” ideas from one field to another.

The way to foster this trait in yourself is to deliberately seek out connections and interrelations in everything you do. Don’t think in neat little boxes, but blend it all together. As a fun practice, look around in your life right now and identify one area in which you are an expert (or aspiring to be!). Now think of an area that you are quite ignorant of. Next, see if you can draw connections between them. Can you see how economies are a little like ecosystems? Or can you understand how composing a complex orchestral piece is a bit like putting together a recipe? Maybe you can hear some music and imagine that it has its own vocabulary and language—or indeed that it can be understood as a kind of animal.

The point of making connections and relationships this way is not to discover any real or true links, but rather to open up your own horizons and start to see the world more broadly (i.e. as it really is!). Sadly, people are taught that “left brain and right brain” are different, and that people who are good at “hard” sciences will naturally be deficient in art and languages, while those who are more creative and socially minded will flounder when it comes to things like business or engineering. A genius doesn’t follow these rules in the least—remember, they see the world as a playground, and not as a house with rooms they’re not allowed to go into.

In your own life, you can make a point of getting into the habit of never assuming something is outside your scope. Even if you think a certain topic or idea is too difficult or irrelevant, take a closer look anyway and see what you can learn. Another good practice is to routinely court information from all parts of the spectrum, i.e. don’t always go looking for material that only confirms the beliefs you already have. Don’t assume you know what “the other side” thinks and believes—go and check it out yourself!

Get into real, good-faith arguments with people you disagree with and genuinely put yourself in their shoes. Deliberately seek out information online that contradicts your perspective, and see what happens. Besides saying “I don’t know” more regularly than others, geniuses also say something else: “This is my opinion… for now. But it’s only provisional. I’m willing to change it when I’m faced with evidence to the contrary.”

Finally, in mentioning how geniuses are comfortable with holding provisional opinions and changing their minds when necessary, we can’t help but consider something else about them, namely that they are seldom conventional people. Geniuses are constantly thinking outside of the box, or looking closely at the box itself to see what it’s made of, and how it functions, and why. Such people are not rebels exactly, rather they follow their own principles, and seldom have blind respect for arbitrary rules they see no sense behind.

This is because they look more deeply into matters than is common; the world seems far more malleable and up for debate to them than it might seem to others—rules, in this case, can look like pointless limits and interference. We’ve already seen that the genius perspective is one that draws creative connections, sees hidden relationships, and investigates deeply into the real causes of phenomena. Things like baseless public opinion, random rules for the sake of rules, and fearfully towing the line are likely to be far from a genius’s mind. But again, it’s not as though the people we call geniuses get a thrill from rule breaking; it’s more that they recognize a higher authority, and if they do end up obeying and following orders, it will be because they accept the validity of another deep thinker’s perspective.

Genius thinking is more characterized by non-hierarchical social structures, non-linear thinking and a tendency to go against the grain—if the grain is something that is merely part of tradition and convention, rather than genuinely the best way to do things. This is why geniuses are so often associated with science and innovation—these are the people who pull humanity forward with their insistence that there has to be more to life, even if people are afraid of trying something new.

Genius thinking is dynamic and adaptable. It’s not afraid to adjust itself, or to change as needed. Thus, a genius thinker will have no qualms about completely dropping an old way of life to pursue an entirely new way of being. They are happy to dream up novel solutions, creative new possibilities, or even fantastical and outlandish dreams for the future. They don’t tend to take these thoughts and measure them against the accepted standards of the day. In other words, they don’t care about being popular or fashionable or even liked by others. And this is what allows them to be true explorers of the unknown.

This can be a difficult perspective shift to bring into your own life, because every one of us, whether we admit it or not, is deeply embedded in the values and rules of our culture and historical period. We all have our assumptions and biases, and our beliefs about what is and isn’t possible, what’s right and what’s wrong.

One of the genius’s best tools is the mindset that comes with asking, “What if?” and being genuinely open to whatever answers stem from that. Question your own “rules” that you make for yourself and you’ll become better at recognizing the unnecessary limits placed on you by others. You could practice this mindset switching for yourself, right now. Get out a piece of paper and, very quickly and without too much thought, write down five things that you absolutely know to be true about yourself or the world. Write down your core beliefs or assumptions, big or small.

Let’s say you wrote down, “I value education and learning so I’m going to try to get into university.” Now, look at this as neutrally as you possibly can. Look at the unspoken conditional nature of the sentence, i.e. the assumption that going to university is the best (or only?) way to get an education. Consider the hidden biases and expectations behind this—that teaching and learning come from recognized institutions, i.e. externally, and if you value education and learning you need to appeal to these institutions to let them allow you to learn. It’s just a simple sentence that you may never look more deeply into, but on closer examination, can you see how many rules are implied in it?

Maybe it’s not true that university = education. A genius doesn’t take anything for granted…they don’t even take their own word for it. They ask, “What if…?” What if it were possible to learn more outside of university? What if the thing that you most wanted was actually not to follow the path that others in your peer group pursue?

The answers are irrelevant—it’s the fact of asking the question that is important.

In the chapters that follow, we’ll be looking more closely at specific examples of people who many have called geniuses. We’ll see not only that each of these people has perfectly demonstrated the traits we’ve discussed here, but exactly how they managed to express these tendencies and traits in their work, and indeed how these characteristics were actually the key to their success.

Takeaways

• Intellectual honesty is also important, and this includes humility and the ability to admit that you don’t know something, or that you have made a mistake. Geniuses know that stubbornness, bias, expectation and ego can undermine genuine learning.

• Most genius types are usually polymaths (skilled in many areas) and have broad rather than narrow interests. They are well-read and make connections between all disciplines, see relationships and analogies, and find inspiration in all fields, never limiting themselves to one area.

• Finally, geniuses are usually assumed to be novel, out-of-the-box thinkers. Such people are non-conventional and tend to disregard arbitrary rules, fashions or unquestioned assumptions and habits. They are comfortable pushing outside of the norms and exploring new territory—and this makes them natural innovators and trendsetters (as well as problem solvers!).

• We can always be aware of these mindsets particular to geniuses and deliberately work to cultivate them in ourselves, in a variety of ways.