Many men and women throughout history who have been considered geniuses have been studied to determine their basic thinking processes, actions, and behaviors. Many of these people were found to have only average or slightly above average intelligence. They were not “geniuses” in the Einstein-like way.
However, they all seem to have three behaviors in common. Fortunately, these behaviors can be developed. As you practice these behaviors, you too can become more and more “intelligent.” Master these three genius behaviors, and you’ll become a genius at creative thinking and problem solving.
First, geniuses have developed the ability to concentrate single-mindedly, 100 percent, on one thing, to the exclusion of all distractions. This is sometimes called concentrated mind power (CMP), and it seems to accompany all great creative breakthroughs and accomplishments. Single-minded concentration, also called “single-handling,” is essential to the achievement of important goals, the management of time, the completion of tasks, and all creative work.
Unfortunately, today most people are overwhelmed by an endless river of distractions, primarily technical. E-mail is constantly pinging with new messages, the smartphone is going off continually, the other phone is ringing, and messages are coming in nonstop. In addition, people in the workplace are continually interrupting and distracting each other. That’s why people say, “You can’t get any work done at work.”
For you to learn to concentrate single-mindedly, you must create chunks of time, unbroken periods, where you can work without interruption or distraction.
Perhaps the most important time management principle, essential for creativity and concentration, is for you to “leave things off.” Create zones of silence around you by disconnecting from all technology for specific periods of time each day. You require blocks of time (thirty, sixty, or ninety minutes) for your mind to settle down, like silt in a bucket of water. Only then can you get to the point where you can think with clarity and effectiveness.
The second quality of genius is the ability to see causal relationships, the big picture. Geniuses remain open-minded, flexible, and almost childlike in examining every possible way of approaching a problem.
Try looking at your work, yourself, and your business as part of an organic system. This means considering how every detail touches and influences everything around you. Instead of looking upon an event as a discrete and separate occasion, look at all the things that might have led up to the event, and all the things that may come after the event. Think of your situation as part of a bigger picture and consider all the different interrelationships.
Avoid attachment, or falling in love with a particular explanation or solution to a problem. One of the factors that puts the brakes on creative thinking is becoming attached or married to an idea that we’ve come up with. We then invest our ego in selling the idea to someone else. We consider ourselves successful if we can persuade someone else to come around to our point of view, even if there is a great possibility that our point of view is incorrect.
Like a Buddhist, try to stay detached from your idea and consider as many other ideas as possible with an open mind. Remain flexible, even with an idea that you think is incredible. Avoid the tendency to embrace the idea until you’ve looked at all the possibilities.
Treat your own idea as if it were suggested by someone else. Be skeptical. Ask questions. Begin with the assumption that the idea could be completely wrong.
Third, geniuses use a systematic, ordered approach to solving each problem. They first define the problem clearly, in writing. Then they ask questions such as, How did this problem occur? Is this really a problem at all, or could it be an opportunity? Is this the real problem, or could it be indicative of an even bigger or different problem that needs to be solved?
In school, they teach you to think mathematically. Even though you never use algebra or geometry again after you leave school unless you enter a specialized field, the purpose of learning these subjects is to teach you to work systematically from the beginning to the end of a problem to find the solution. You learn a logical and systematic way to approach each problem, a skill that you can then apply in other areas of your life. All geniuses approach problems systematically, working their way through the problem step-by-step.
Remember, action is everything. You are what you do. When you practice the behaviors of geniuses, you very soon begin to perform at genius levels.
ACTION EXERCISES
1. Take a big problem that you are dealing with today and write down every detail about the problem on a sheet of paper. Sometimes, the answer will emerge as you write out the details.
2. Stand back from a problem you are wrestling with and observe the causal relationships between the problem and other parts of your work. Take a sheet of paper, put a circle in the middle of the page with a definition of your problem, and draw branches, like spider legs, to circles on the periphery of the page with the names of different people and factors that are involved in this problem.