The Secret Principles of Genius

by I C Robledo

  Going to work isn’t something only associated with geniuses. Obviously, most people need to work to earn a living. But if you study the most brilliant minds, you will find that they are often the most eager to work and to make progress in their field. They do not shy away from doing hard work at all. Often, they are willing to go above and beyond what most people would consider doing. Whereas many of us show up to work, and go through the motions that are requested of us, the genius truly puts in the work. They invest great amounts of time in their understanding of the field. They do not expect others to show them how to do everything. They don’t just show up to work. They break new ground and make new discoveries, which requires a much more advanced level of work than most people are willing to commit to.

  Nikola Tesla reported in his biography, My Inventions, that he worked every day from 10:30 a.m. to 5:00 a.m. He was clearly willing to put in the work, as this is eighteen and a half hours per day. He also worked so hard that when he was at university, the professors wrote letters to his father that Tesla was working so much that they were worried he could die from it. Of course, Tesla pushed the limits, and it isn’t advised to work so hard that we harm our health. But if you look into the lives of many prominent people, geniuses, leaders, and other successful people, you will find that they are typically closer in work schedule to Tesla than they are to someone who works the bare minimum, concerned more with their next break period than they are with doing good work. To make great progress at anything will require putting in the work. It isn’t sufficient just to have the genius mindset alone.

  Benefits of the Principle

  The benefits of this principle should be clear. The work is where things actually get done. Without work, none of the creations we admire would exist. Michelangelo was an artistic genius before he painted the Sistine Chapel. Nonetheless, what makes Michelangelo who he is, and other geniuses who they are, is that they weren’t content just to have the brilliant mind. They got to their mythical status not just through ingenious thoughts, but through putting in the work, time and again. By the time they were true masters of the craft, the work they put out was extraordinary, and to us may seem impossible, as if no mortal human could have created such masterpieces. But the truth is that continuously putting in the work required, and learning from it, will take you a long way.

  Get used to working the earliest in your life that you can. It is a frequent mistake to think that you will do the work later. Those who make real progress commit to doing it now. This habit is an important one, perhaps the most important one of all. As a warning on neglecting putting in the work, you should know that there are plenty of bright young minds, who learn new things easily, without even trying. It is effortless, and requires no work. Later on, as these children advance into more challenging subjects, it comes as a surprise that they may have to work to understand something. By that point, some of these children are set up for failure because they don’t even understand the concept of work. It doesn’t feel right to them, because they have gotten so used to having it easy. One of the most destructive beliefs to genius is that you can make a big breakthrough without putting in the work. Be sure to ban such thoughts from your mind.

  A final benefit of this principle is that since many people are reluctant to do truly hard work, this is a way that you can stand out from others. The amount of time you work, how focused you are, and how much you value the work, are all things you can choose to make progress on. If you place more priority on your work, you will find yourself gradually moving up the ranks, gaining recognition and reputation as someone who does a great job. Eventually, this may evolve into brilliant or genius level creations.

  How to Apply the Principle

  Commit to the work

  The simplest change to make is to commit to working more. By spending more time at your work, you can improve your skills, and make more progress in your goals. You don’t necessarily need to work like Tesla, or work 80 hours per week, but it is important to realize that to make great progress will require true commitment. If you dedicate yourself to a project only when you have ‘extra free time’, it is unlikely to ever get done. Set a schedule, make goals, and stick to it.

  Another thing you can do is to actually think through your work patterns. Aim not just to work more, but to accomplish more for the time you put in. Identify the most critical parts of your job, and be sure to always keep those in mind. Consider asking your boss to clarify what they value the most. As an example, if you work with a variety of clients, the boss might want you to pay special attention to long-time customers. Perhaps those return customers are responsible for most of the purchases in your business. It is important to keep your eyes open and make sure you have the biggest effect that you can in your work. Do not allow yourself to become distracted. For instance, avoid working on so many projects at once that you are unable to do the best job at any of them.

  Know your motivations

  Another important consideration is your motivation. Those geniuses who have worked the hardest have often been the most motivated. It can be a good idea to ask yourself what your motivations are. Are they in the right place, or do you work simply as a job, to earn income? For the most brilliant geniuses, their work is more than just a job. It rises to a level of being a part of who they are personally. You can fight against motivation, but true genius creations can require decades of persistence. Without motivation, it is very difficult to create the best work. To truly meet your genius potential will require a deep motivation, and a willingness to put in the work. This combination is not easy to find, but it can truly open up the path to genius for you.

  Remove obstacles that prevent your best performance

  Focus on anything you can do to make improvements and increase your work output. Sometimes we need assistance. Are you trying to work on too many things at once? Perhaps it is time to find a helper to move things along more smoothly. Ask where your abilities would make the most impact. If you are wasting time on tasks anyone could do, delegate those tasks to a subordinate, so you can focus on the more challenging problems you need to work on. The key is, whatever the greatest obstacle is to your advancement at work, focus on overcoming it. It may be that you need more funding, more resources, assistance, or something else. Identify what is holding you back from doing your best work, and tackle this first so you can make a breakthrough in your progress.

  Learning

  “I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn’t learn something from him.”

  – Galileo Galilei, Italian astronomer, physicist, engineer, philosopher, and mathematician who played a major role in the scientific revolution during the Renaissance.

  There is no debate that having the will and desire to learn is one of the most important aspects of genius. In order to improve your mind, think more like a genius, and act more like one, you must commit to learning and growing intellectually. Without this desire and commitment, the path to genius will be sealed off.

  Brilliant minds not only make a habit of learning, but learning is a joyful thing to look forward to, and a way of life. Many of them don’t even consciously think about what they are going to learn on any given day. Instead, their curiosity feeds into their desire to learn. They surround themselves with tools and resources for constant learning, such as great books. They have friends and colleagues who have made learning into a way of life, and so it only seems completely natural to always be learning.

  This section is about how geniuses pursue learning. We are probably all aware that learning is important for bright minds. Knowledge doesn’t come out of thin air, it must be acquired somehow. We will explore the secret principles geniuses have used throughout history to excel at learning. You will then be able to apply them for yourself, and pursue your path to genius.

  Secret Principle #10 : Take Initiative in Learning New Things

  “Children are sitting there and they are taught and told what to believe. They are passive from the very beginning, and one
must be very aggressive intellectually to have a high IQ.”

  – Marilyn vos Savant, Magazine columnist, author, lecturer, and playwright, known for having the highest recorded IQ according to the Guinness Book of Records, a category the publication has since retired.

  Geniuses Who Applied the Principle

  Thomas Edison, Michael Faraday, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Marilyn vos Savant, Henry David Thoreau

  Description of the Principle

  Most of us realize learning is important. We go to school, and we have teachers that can help us with this. However, we often get too used to being instructed on what we need to do, and how we need to do it. This is the way many of us learn, but eventually everyone reaches a point where they need to learn for themselves. Perhaps your teacher is busy, or wasn’t able to explain a concept well enough, or you have advanced enough that you no longer have a formal teacher or instructor. Perhaps you are the instructor now. But in many fields, continuous learning is important to making real progress. There is a constant stream of new and changing information to make sense of. For example, the internet has so much new information every day that it would be impossible to keep up with all of it. In any case, we need to know how to learn regularly, with or without the aid of others, to stay up to date on the latest information.

  Realize that not all brilliant minds were blessed with wonderful teachers from a young age. Michael Faraday (a scientist known for his work in electromagnetism), for example, was not born into a family with the best connections to help him become a great scientist. He took the initiative, in reading scientific books, taking detailed notes of professor’s lectures, and being persistent in trying to work with a major chemist of the time, Humphry Davy. Isaac Newton was not born into a family of scientists or teachers either. Newton was the son of a farmer, and his parents could offer him no assistance in the world of science. But he learned and excelled at it, despite his upbringing. He didn’t make an excuse that there was no one to instruct him. In fact, both of these scientists took the initiative.

  This principle is meant to serve as a key reminder that it is not others who control our fate. In fact, we hold more cards than we think we do, in the direction our lives will take. The power of knowledge and learning is so great that it can change our lives and open new doors. Just think, if brilliant minds in more difficult times were able to find a way to learn, then surely we can too. We live in the Information Age, where the internet provides us access to virtually limitless information. There is no excuse whatsoever to be ignorant in the topics we would like to master. If anything, the problem of today’s learners is the opposite of the problem centuries ago. We may suffer from too much information, which can become paralyzing. The key is to prioritize, and to focus on small steps, and not try to learn everything all at once.

  Benefits of the Principle

  When you take command of your own learning, you will no longer be completely dependent on any one curriculum, or on what anyone else decides you should learn. You will be able to learn beyond the limits imposed by your educational system. For example, as a biology student, you may choose to study aquatic life, or desert life forms, even if those topics are neglected in your formal studies. You may even choose to learn the history of life, going back to the earliest lifeforms. And of course, you can even delve into other topic areas, such as the physics of life, or you could study how we can improve the conditions of the Earth to be the best for all life. When you choose what you want to learn, you will make much more progress in your areas of interest, and you will learn how to learn.

  Of course, you don’t have to make the choice of having a teacher or guiding your own learning. The best option is probably to do both. This may provide the greatest benefit. It is important to have some structure when you are learning, especially when starting out, because you don’t know enough yet to understand what the most important things to learn are. But it is also good to be free to explore what you are most interested and curious about. Otherwise, the learning experience will become stale, and you may grow bored with it and stop learning altogether.

  This is a principle where the benefits are clearer if we look at those who do not abide by it. If we get too comfortable in following a set curriculum, we lose our sense of control. And through this feeling, the learning will not feel especially important. We will begin to learn in order to meet the criteria, such as to get praise, a grade, or a job. The last reason on the mind will be that we are learning to learn, to understand, to gain mastery. Being active in your learning pursuits will help avoid this problem. You will have chosen that you want to learn something, and you will know exactly why. And any formal teachers and classes will be viewed as just an aid in the process, not just a chore to get through.

  How to Apply the Principle

  Seek answers to your own questions

  Practice coming up with your own questions, and then seek your own answers to them. You can look through any sources you wish. There are libraries, online sources, and experts you can ask. But it can be powerful to take the initiative and to choose your own direction. Then, the sources you use will just be tools on your journey to greater learning. Rather than blindly following a set path, you will be creating your own.

  Look up information

  When you come across something you do not understand, perhaps a word or concept, look it up yourself. Marilyn vos Savant (from quote above), known for her high IQ, has stated in a 1986 interview given by Harold Channer that when she asked questions as a child, her parents told her to look things up for herself. It is good to ask questions, but if there is not an expert right at your side, your best source of information will probably be through your own research. Understand that if you do not put any work into getting an answer, you will probably just as easily forget the information. Also, a dictionary, or other authoritative sources, can give you more accurate information and detail than most people can give you. Many experts will simply recall what they have read, and this is information you may already have access to online, in books, dictionaries, or other sources.

  Take advantage of free resources

  If you have access to the internet, or even a good library, there is no excuse for remaining ignorant. I believe this is an especially important point to make for those who may not have access to the best formal education, or may not have the income or time to commit to it. Realize that there are a variety of high quality free resources online to learn virtually anything. You can start with a simple Google search, or you can read a free report I wrote, about the best free learning resources.

  Here is a link to the signup page to get the report: bit.ly/Robledo. You may click the link or type it into your web browser (I just ask for your email address so I can send you updates on my new books).

  Secret Principle #11 : Build a Solid Foundation of Knowledge

  “If you go and talk to most people, they mean well but they don't have much of a breadth on education, of knowledge of understanding what the real issues are and therefore they listen to pundits on television who tell them what they are supposed to think and they keep repeating that until pretty soon they say, ‘Oh, well that must be true.’”

  – Ben Carson, retired American neurosurgeon, known for successfully separating conjoined twins, and former candidate for President of the United States.

  Geniuses Who Applied the Principle

  Aristotle, Jorge Luis Borges, Ben Carson, René Descartes, Thomas Edison, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Steve Jobs, John Stuart Mill, Plato, Tupac Shakur, Leonardo da Vinci, Swami Vivekananda, Orville and Wilbur Wright

  Description of the Principle

  Perhaps you feel that you are prepared and ready to unleash your genius to the world. Not so fast. It is good to have ambition, but it is even more important to have the right foundation necessary to nurture the genius mind. You may be aware that brilliant people are often good at making connections between many topics. Understand that this ability requires having a basic amount of knowledge in or
der to help see such connections. The best thing you can do is build up a foundation of knowledge early in life. This can be accomplished through formal schooling, reading, discussions with learned people, or in other ways. There is no single correct path. Ideally, you would combine book learning and practical hands-on learning.

  In this foundational learning phase, the goal is to attain a broad understanding of a variety of fields. Your studies may include history, philosophy, mathematics, art, and science, among many other topics. Don’t expect to become a leader of any field while building your foundation. For many, this will be a period of self-discovery, of finding what you truly want to focus on in life. But it is important not to jump ahead too fast. If you fail to grasp the fundamentals early on, you will just be playing catch-up later on.

  Realize that there can be danger in knowing only one thing, even if you know it very well. Many occupations require a broad range of knowledge, for one thing. Also, if you over-focus on one topic, you may set yourself up for making silly mistakes. A scientist may get excited, feeling that he is on the verge of the greatest discovery of humankind. But if he only knew the history of his profession, he would realize this discovery was already made 80 years ago, and found 15 years later to be incorrect. History is a particularly good example of a topic to gain some familiarity with, because as Edmund Burke said, “Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.”