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Think Like a Genius

• Geniuses come in all shapes and sizes, from all walks of life and all historical periods, but they can all be seen to possess certain predictable characteristics and mindsets.

• If we can model our own lives on the traits we find in great and successful thinkers, we too can learn to fulfill more of our intellectual and creative potential.


• The first trait is a lust for learning and an insatiable curiosity about how the world works, and why. This is knowledge and understanding pursued for its own sake, and not because it indirectly leads to another goal like fame or money. Such inspiration and passion gives incredible stamina to any effort.


• Another trait is diligence, patience, dedication and self-discipline, i.e. everything associated with consistent hard work. Without detail-oriented and practical action taken daily, and a willingness to delay gratification, success will never materialize.


#Copernicus #Darwin #Descartes #Experiment #Genius #Geniuses #WhatMakesAGenius? #RussellNewton #NewtonMG #TheScienceofSelf #PeterHollins


Transcript

What is a genius? Perhaps the first answer that pops into your mind is the popular depiction of geniuses in TV shows. You know the kind: smart-talking, slightly arrogant black sheep who seem to solve the crime or win the chess tournament without breaking a sweat. People have always been fascinated with genius, and with the ability to wield superior intellectual mastery. Whether we admire geniuses in the arts, science, or business, there’s something so irresistible about the idea of a human being operating at their fullest potential.

If you’ve picked up this book, it’s likely you too are interested in what exactly sets geniuses apart. Are they just born that way, and us mere mortals can do nothing but look on in admiration? Or perhaps there is no such thing as genius at all, only years of punishing, diligent hard work that pays off eventually?

In this book, we’re going to take the perspective so often adopted by geniuses themselves: we’re going to approach the idea of intellectual mastery and success as our topic, and study it as Einstein studied physics. In other words, we’ll become students of human success, and look closely not into any one subject, but into the way we think about those subjects, and how we can optimize our learning and abilities. We’ll observe, take notes, and see what we can learn from the great thinkers of our time—and there’s a lot to learn, for those who are willing to pay attention.

What genius can you think of, off the top of your head? In this book, we’ll look at the lives and works of people like Socrates, Einstein, Descartes, Darwin and Copernicus, among others. Despite living in different cultural and historical periods, and despite having different interests and ideas, these men in fact share a surprisingly predictable set of personal characteristics. So, what are these traits? Before you carry on reading, close this book and see if you can zoom in on just one or two qualities or attributes that you think make the essence of a genius.

Intellectual curiosity

Chances are, you thought of something along the lines of “a genius is intellectually hungry and curious about everything.” No matter the chosen outlet, intelligent and highly conscious people tend to want to know why. It’s this active, deliberate perspective that sets them apart from others who are happy to take things as they are, without ever looking more deeply into them.

When we are children, we are perhaps more like natural geniuses than at any other time in our lives. We are the proverbial learning sponges, soaking everything up, asking a million questions a day, wanting to know how things work just for the joy of having that knowledge. When we grow up, adults around us indoctrinate us into certain educational conventions and institutions that dull this natural curiosity. We learn the rules, the right answers, and which authority to defer to. In other words, we stop relying on our own innate fascination with the universe around us.

For a genius, curiosity never seems to subside. No matter how old they are, they seem to have a knack for looking at the world with the wonder of a little child seeing it all for the first time. They are enraptured by things that other people think are commonplace. They want to understand how it all works, what it means, how it fits together, and they don’t stop investigating until they find out!

Granted, many people in the world are dogged in their pursuit of knowledge. Picture a journalist relentlessly pursuing the “truth” or the next scoop, or an academic going over their field with a fine-tooth comb as they compile a PhD thesis. The difference here, though, is that such people may be pursuing knowledge and intellectual mastery for some secondary gain. For example, they choose to learn and develop skills so they can make money, or win the esteem of their peers, or satisfy the expectations of others. The genius, on the other hand, doesn’t care about these things, or at the very least, these benefits are a distant second to the main reason for learning: “just because.”

A genius pursues knowledge and understanding for its own sake. The thrill of learning, of peering into the mysteries of life, of gaining a grasp of what was once unintelligible—these things are seen as rewards in themselves, and they are their own good worth chasing. You can see this in the fact that many geniuses will pursue knowledge and understanding despite the fact that it actually compromises things like money, security, and social approval. As we’ll soon see, many of the most celebrated geniuses throughout history were actually reviled by their peers at the time, or sacrificed relationships and financial security in order to pursue the object of their intellectual fascination.

Geniuses are never lukewarm about the unknown, and they certainly don’t fear it. Instead, they are enchanted with it, and seek to satisfy their curiosity. Their attitude is one of the natural scientist—they want to engage with the deeper functioning of the universal machine, rather than simply accept the surface manifestations.

Is this a trait that you can actually develop in yourself, though? Absolutely. Remember, we are all born with an innate curiosity—we wouldn’t know what we know now or indeed have survived to adulthood unless we were 100 percent fine-tuned natural learning machines! It’s a question of reconnecting with that inborn curiosity and yearning to understand.

This attitude is one and the same with being “open-minded.” Just for today, go out into the world and literally imagine that you are a child again and everything is new to you (or maybe imagine that you are an alien who is seeing Earth for the first time and trying to make sense of it). Spend a day asking questions of the things that happen around you. Notice where your own curiosity is piqued. Where do you feel that rush of excitement and energy, that feeling that is as exhilarating as discovering a chocolate bunny on an Easter egg hunt?

When you notice yourself feeling this curiosity, pay attention. Go more deeply into the questions you have. Think creatively about what you see, and ask yourself, “In what ways could this be different?” Many geniuses are able to make enormous breakthroughs in their field precisely because they were able to see the profoundly obvious facts of existence that everyone else has dutifully trained themselves out of noticing. Look for problems, and daydream about novel solutions to them.

We tend to think of geniuses as serious, joyless people, but nothing could be further from the truth. The start of every marvelous idea or innovation is essentially play. To access this state of mind, ironically, asks us to drop our ideas of being smart, of being right or admired by others. It asks us to forget about the goals we might attach to being intellectually superior. Many of the world’s greatest discoveries were made by accident, when people relaxed their minds and simply looked at the same old things in a slightly different way.

We’ll explore the fundamental value of curiosity, open-mindedness and a perspective of goalless play in subsequent chapters, but for now, imagine that a genius is nothing more than a child who sees the entire world as a vast and wonderful playground. With this mindset, you are halfway to being a genius yourself.

Willpower and discipline

Of course, it’s not all just fun and games. Though many Eureka moments have happened in the ways described above, this is only the start of the journey. A person who is blessed with loads of natural curiosity will find plenty of interesting avenues of enquiry, but may never actually muster the energy and discipline to go all the way in any single one of them. This is because another quality is essential for reaching that level we associate with genius: hard work.

If creativity, inspiration and curiosity are the spark that get the fire started, then at some point you need a constant source of fuel to keep those flames burning for the long term. When we look at geniuses or ultra-successful people, we only see their success. We see them at the end of their journey, once the grand theory has been pieced together, the invention finally works, or the magnum opus is completed.

But this is just the surface gloss, just a fraction of a percent of the total work that such a person has actually undertaken over years, often decades. This is like watching a person step over the finish line in a marathon—the final step is just one of hundreds of thousands of other steps that have brought them to that point, none of them quite as exciting as that last one!

Geniuses do the work that other people are not willing to do. These are the people who are prepared to stay up late into the night. In fact, it’s insatiable curiosity together with relentless hard work that produces most of the genius’s success. Without passion, they cannot push through challenge and adversity. Without the hard work, the passion is never attained and made real. People can become fatigued with their life course because although they have the fuel (i.e. the willingness to work hard), they lack the sincere love for the topic that helps “ignite” them. They give up long before the person who is willing to work hard, but also genuinely passionate about their path of action.

Patience, dedication and self-discipline are what’s needed to shape and direct our natural and spontaneous intellectual curiosity. Like scientists, we need to organize and structure our inquiry into the world around us. Experiments of any kind are useless if they’re not properly planned, logically laid out and diligently executed, often many, many times over. For this, we need to apply consistent effort and focus.

When you are driven by the “big picture” and are enjoying the process of learning for its own sake, you can defer the enjoyment that comes with success. You are able to wait for the payoff, sometimes for years, because you understand the process you’re in. Patience and delayed gratification come easier when you are on a path you genuinely care about. If only money or praise drive you, you will drop out of the race when it looks like the adversity is more trouble than it’s worth. Or else, you may be tempted to settle for a smaller goal in the interim and forego the bigger prize because you want the satisfaction of achievement now rather than later.

So, a genius is a rare creature because they contain within them a powerful blend of two quite opposing forces: on the one hand, they are open-minded, passionate, independent thinkers who pursue learning for the love of learning. On the other hand, they are supremely disciplined, focused and detail oriented, and can sit for a long time on work that may seem tedious and pointless to others, who cannot see the vision the genius is diligently working toward.

How can you cultivate this diligence in yourself? This is the realm of self-discipline. The genius is their own teacher, and they don’t wait for external incentives to work hard. They just do it, and they keep doing it until they satisfy their own high standards. Then they up the standards! One way to bring some of this focus into your own life is to cut down on “noise” so you can better focus on the one (or maybe two) areas of life that are most important.

You might decide that each day, you only focus on one main task. Really get sucked into it, and tune out all distractions. Go deep into the work, beyond the superficial. If you’re not challenged enough, push yourself more. If the work seems too hard, break it down and tick off smaller tasks until you gather momentum again. Whatever you do, don’t accept anything other than movement on your task. You can move slowly some days and more quickly on others, but never allow a day to go by where you don’t do something toward your chosen goal.

This attitude that sees work as non-negotiable will make it easier to get into good habits. We’ll explore these techniques in greater detail later in the book, but a few fundamental principles underlie the most effective approaches. For example, set your grand goal…and then forget about it. Instead, turn your focus onto manageable, daily habits. Make work on your path seem as automatic as brushing your teeth every day. The big goals are achieved step by step—and the genius knows how to focus on those small, incremental steps. At the end of every day, they have moved forward, even if it’s only a tiny amount.

About the Podcast

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The Science of Self
Improve your life from the inside out.

About your host

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Russell Newton