Three steps to genius

Posted: January 7, 2014 | Categories: Self-Improvement, Time management

When I think of the word “genius”, I think of brilliant people like Einstein and Mozart.  Even though none of us were born a “Mozart” or an “Einstein”, we are all gifted with unique talents and potential that is waiting to be cultivated.  And here is the good news:  All geniuses possess three important abilities that we all can build in ourselves.  Here they are:

The ability to see the end picture and all the details.  Life is full of opportunities to solve problems and innovate.  Geniuses see the big picture clearly.  They know exactly what they want.  In addition, they have the ability to break the big picture down into pieces that represent action steps.  Just like putting together a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle, they start with the picture on the box.

They dive in to the challenge with “childlike” enthusiasm.  Back to the jigsaw puzzle analogy, imagine if someone took a jigsaw puzzle and dumped all the pieces out in front of us, and said, “Put it together!”.  What would your enthusiasm be?  What would mine be?  Well, I would probably look border pieces, and after about a half hour, I might have 3-4 pieces put together.  I would probably be ready to go on to another activity.  The genius mindset does just the opposite:  They are excited about getting to the picture on the box, and their passion and enthusiasm is unshakable.

They have the ability to focus and concentrate for long periods of time.  Do we have this ability?  I think most of us struggle with it.  Ken Blanchard made the point that there is more information coming to us in 30 days than our grandparents had in their lifetime.  Every day we see people playing games on cell phones, texting, and allowing countless interruptions.  Every time we allow an interruption, we break our concentration, and we have to re-start.  We seldom have time to go “narrow and deep” in a way that taps heartily into our talents.

Michael Jordan once said, “Everyone has talent, but ability takes hard work”.  Michael Jordan did work hard and he was paid a fortune for his abilities.  He was also famous for being the first to the practice and the last to leave.  If we want to cultivate our talents and get a maximum return on our time, let’s remember to keep strengthening these three genius qualities:

1.  Look for challenge and opportunities that play to our strengths and create vision.

2.  Break it down into pieces, put them in order, and tie in to it.

3.  Discipline ourselves to spend large blocks of uninterrupted time working on each step.

Are you ready…genius?

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