How To Be A Genius: 5 Secrets From Experts

how-to-be-a-genius

Want to know how to be a genius? There are five things you can learn from looking
at those who are the very best.

1) Be Curious And Driven

For his book Creativity, noted professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi did interviews
with 91 groundbreaking individuals across a number of disciplines, including 14
Nobel Prize winners. In 50 Psychology Classics Tom Butler-Bowdon summed up many of
Csikszentmihalyis findings including this one:
Successful creative people tend to have two things in abundance, curiosity and
drive. They are absolutely fascinated by their subject, and while others may be
more brilliant, their sheer desire for accomplishment is the decisive factor.

2) Its Not About Formal Education. Its Hours At Your Craft.

Do you need a sky-high IQ? Do great geniuses all have PhDs? Nope. Most had about a
college-dropout level of education.
Via Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from
Everybody Else:
Dean Keith Simonton, a professor at the University of California at Davis,
conducted a large-scale study of more than three hundred creative high achievers
born between 1450 and 1850Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Beethoven, Rembrandt, for
example. He determined the amount of formal education each had received and
measured each ones level of eminence by the spaces devoted to them in an array of
reference works. He found that the relation between education and eminence, when
plotted on a graph, looked like an inverted U: The most eminent creators were those
who had received a moderate amount of education, equal to about the middle of
college. Less education than thator morecorresponded to reduced eminence for
creativity.
But they all work their asses off in their field of expertise. Thats how to be a
genius.
Those interested in the 10,000-hour theory of deliberate practice wont be
surprised. As detailed in Daily Rituals: How Artists Work, the vast majority of
them are workaholics.
Via Daily Rituals: How Artists Work
Sooner or later, Pritchett writes, the great men turn out to be all alike. They
never stop working. They never lose a minute. It is very depressing.
In fact, you really cant work too much.
Via Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from
Everybody Else:
If were looking for evidence that too much knowledge of the domain or familiarity
with its problems might be a hindrance in creative achievement, we have not found
it in the research.
Instead, all evidence seems to point in the opposite direction. The most eminent
creators are consistently those who have immersed themselves utterly in their
chosen field, have devoted their lives to it, amassed tremendous knowledge of it,
and continually pushed themselves to the front of it.

3) Test Your Ideas

Howard Gardner studied geniuses like Picasso, Freud and Stravinsky and found a
similar pattern of analyzing, testing and feedback used by all of them:
Via Creating Minds: An Anatomy of Creativity Seen Through the Lives of Freud,
Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Graham, and Ghandi:
Creative individuals spend a considerable amount of time reflecting on what they
are trying to accomplish, whether or not they are achieving success (and, if not,
what they might do differently).
Does testing sound like something scientific and uncreative? Wrong. The more
creative an artist is the more likely they are to use this method:
Via Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries
In a study of thirty-five artists, Getzels and Csikszentmihalyi found that the most
creative in their sample were more open to experimentation and to reformulating
their ideas for projects than their less creative counterparts.

4) You Must Sacrifice

10,000 hours is a hell of a lot of hours. It means many other things (some
important) will need to be ignored.
In fact, geniuses are notably less likely to be popular in high school. Why?
The deliberate practice that will one day make them famous alienates them from
their peers in adolesence.
Via Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Cant Stop Talking:
the single-minded focus on what would turn out to be a lifelong passion, is
typical for highly creative people. According to the psychologist Mihaly
Csikszentmihalyi, who between 1990 and 1995 studied the lives of ninety-one
exceptionally creative people in the arts, sciences, business, and government, many
of his subjects were on the social margins during adolescence, partly because
intense curiosity or focused interest seems odd to their peers. Teens who are too
gregarious to spend time alone often fail to cultivate their talents because
practicing music or studying math requires a solitude they dread.
At the extremes, the amount of practice and devotion required can pass into the
realm of the pathological. If hours alone determine genius then it is inevitable
that reaching the greatest heights will require, quite literally, obsession.
Via Creating Minds: An Anatomy of Creativity Seen Through the Lives of Freud,
Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Graham, and Ghandi:
My study reveals that, in one way or another, each of the creators became embedded
in some kind of a bargain, deal, or Faustian arrangement, executed as a means of
ensuring the preservation of his or her unusual gifts. In general, the creators
were so caught up in the pursuit of their work mission that they sacrificed all,
especially the possibility of a rounded personal existence. The nature of this
arrangement differs: In some cases (Freud, Eliot, Gandhi), it involves the decision
to undertake an ascetic existence; in some cases, it involves a self-imposed
isolation from other individuals (Einstein, Graham); in Picassos case, as a
consequence of a bargain that was rejected, it involves an outrageous exploitation
of other individuals; and in the case of Stravinsky, it involves a constant
combative relationship with others, even at the cost of fairness. What pervades
these unusual arrangements is the conviction that unless this bargain has been
compulsively adhered to, the talent may be compromised or even irretrievably lost.
And, indeed, at times when the bargain is relaxed, there may well be negative
consequences for the individuals creative output.

5) Work because of passion, not money

Passion produces better art than desire for financial gain and that leads to more
success in the long run.
Via Dan Pinks Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us:
Those artists who pursued their painting and sculpture more for the pleasure of
the activity itself than for extrinsic rewards have produced art that has been
socially recognized as superior, the study said. It is those who are least
motivated to pursue extrinsic rewards who eventually receive them.
Join over 190,000 readers. Get a free weekly update via email here.
Related posts:
How To Stop Being Lazy And Get More Done 5 Expert Tips
How To Get People To Like You: 7 Ways From An FBI Behavior Expert
New Harvard Research Reveals A Fun Way To Be More Successful