Genius Thinking

This one's like hanging a curveball to Barry Bonds...

Thinking like a Genius. Capital "G", emphasis added, let's move on.

The post is from The Occupational Adventure, a blog you should be reading if the cubicle you live in now has all the charm of a coffin or if your worklife in general leaves you wanting more. Here, in simple terms, is what Genius does that separates it from, the mundane. Call it "moving up three notches from J to G":


Thinking like a genius

So much of creating the life you want is about moving beyond the tired assumptions and breaking out of the rut. This article, Thinking Like a Genius, offers some ideas for doing just that.

In a nutshell, the ideas are:

1. Look at problems in many different ways, and find new perspectives that no one else has taken (or no one else has publicized!)

2. Visualize!

3. Produce! A distinguishing characteristic of genius is productivity.

4. Make novel combinations. Combine, and recombine, ideas, images, and thoughts into different combinations no matter how incongruent or unusual.

5. Form relationships; make connections between dissimilar subjects.

6. Think in opposites.

7. Think metaphorically.

8. Prepare yourself for chance.


If there's an underlying thread here it is that Genius ignores the common in favor of the uncommon. To a Genius, nothing is set in stone: everything is fluid, in fact, everything has to be fluid, for what's static is dead.

"Make novel combinations...no matter how incongruent or unusual. Think in opposites. Think metaphorically." In other words: dare to think. Don't restrict your thoughts--the only true freedom you will ever have--to what "they" think or believe. "They" are what keeps "Us" back. Children are deemed very creative because they don't know what they are supposed to think; the moment We "teach" them "what to think," We end up with drones, too focused on "fitting in" to have an original thought. Creativity is the key to breakthroughs. Albert Einstein once said: "Problems cannot be solved at the level of thought that created them." You cannot hope to rise above your current level of Life by thinking the same thoughts (or by not thinking).

But above all, point #8 is vital in understanding Genius: Prepare yourself for chance. The best definition of luck is "Preparation meets opportunity." Geniuses make dozens of efforts compared to "normal" people. Geniuses keep learning, probing, trying, discovering, failing, stretching, creating--thinking--long after others have quit. Genius, as Thomas Edison stated, is "...one percent inspiration and 99% perspiration."

Can anyone be a Genius? The Jenius thinks so. But first you have to want to think, observe, imagine, learn and create. You have to be willing to use the mental "muscles" others have had excised by "them" or have allowed to atrophy because "thinking is hard work." Thinking IS hard work. It's why so few people actually do it. And those that do it consistently We call...Geniuses.

The Jenius Has Spoken.