Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius.

Genius I look for isn’t solely squeezed into human form, it’s in the forces of nature, technology, culture. Whatever is driving evolution – for good or bad – where there is an epiphany and a marked change in direction. [It happens more often than most of us suspect].
 
Research and reporting back forms part of my day job, but in the course of my explorations I come across extraordinary people doing crazycool things out where there is no precedent. These bits of reconnaissance aren’t that useful for business – which rarely thrives on investing in true innovation but is better suited to adaptive imitation.
But leaders and curious individuals benefit heartily from tales and tools from the edge; of brave inventions, explorers, creators and heroes that drive social contagion. It inspires courage and craziness needed to keep their own genius aglow (genius is fragile). These geniuses, their dazzling discoveries, astonishing creations and epic adventures are not the stuff of commercial transaction perhaps. But they are no less valuable to us as a species.
 
Sharing and debating the freshest phenomena from science, social psychology, behavioural economics, globalization, culture particularly through the digital filter isn’t part of the day job, but a delight of my secret life. And one that I can happily indulge in on the blog and realworld learning events.
 
Yes I do look for human genius too. And help get returns on their intellectual capital where appropriate. I am not a talent agent though. However I do have a trusted group of people who can help you get work that better rewards your brilliance or helps you realise ways to do solo work on your own terms as a specialist. Because interesting people tend to hang out with other interesting people (genius begets genius so the company we keep matters!), if you know someone whose work (day job or secret tinkering has the capacity to reshape the world or us as a species by way of applied genius) please let me know.

“People like you and I, though mortal of course like everyone else, do not grow old no matter how long we live… We never cease to stand like curious children before the great mystery into which we were born.” – Albert Einstein in a letter to his best friend Otto Juliusburger sometime in ’42

 
 
The better part of genius -that doesn’t get subsumed by madness or misanthropy perhaps- is kept alive by the childlike wonder. Wonder from the simple stuff that Uncle Walt drew out in poetry to the ridiculously-cool scientific improbability of human existence. Uncrutched by a blanketing binary religious belief it could do your head in. THAT, if nothing else is what most religion has stripped from us,  the possibility of looking nakedly into the total perspective vortex (thank goodness we had the indisputable genius of Douglas Adams walking with us for a while).. the feeling of entitlement rather than feeling absurdly lucky, is dangerous beyond any cruel weaponry we can fashion.
 
wow, sidetracked. Okay so essentially:
Intelligent fun are us. I’m taking what I do in my secret life (the arcana vitae) and sharing the magic that I’ve seen, woven into everyday urban life and crafting edventures that others might enjoy too. Into social learning experiences, urban games and unusually powerful travel experiences for the slim minority that take delight in learning (even if you’re a grown-up, with the academic papers and debt instruments to show it) rather than just looking cool and together.
 
I’m doing this with a group of brilliant ones like some kind of oldskool Explorer’s Society. Global citizens who are up for adventure beyond cracking the corporate C-suite. We may have mapped the physical but there is still so much yet to be discovered.
Ah, heady delights.
We’d love to do this with you if you too are not entirely convinced that the smug consumers life is the life for you (and you’re not heading out for a monastry anytime soon).

Grey (matter) is the new black should you be looking to define your mark in a world wallowing in the happy shallows.
 
The revelation of our time, that our cerebral stuff isn’t sculpted and set early, but bendy and plastic throughout our lives, has opened a new realm of ways to stretch our brain cells out of the grasp of entropy.
 
There are a host of chemical hacks, from psychiatric drugs like Ritalin or Xanax, to street drugs that can force the brain to comply, buttressing the enhancement for as long as they’re taken. But the effects fade or leave the brain hobbled when they’re no longer ingested.
 
There are and will be ever more ingenious brain implant technologies that will change the lives of those bereft of standard functions like sight; and enhance the capabilities of those who dare to go transhuman with a bit of surgery and maybe clock up a super.sense or two.
 
In an embarrassingly old-fashioned position, neither the pharmaceutically-tamed, brain-steroid hack, nor surgical enhancement inspires me the way a naturally brilliant mind seems to.* Just as temporarily performance.enhanced athletes or spectacular silicon.moulded humans don’t delight in the same way either – by personal preference, not dogma.
 
Outpacing the limits of the expected with active effort can reshape our genes, and our evolutionary path as a species. Progress that we have to buy in and retrofit - rather than finding new ways to discover what the core functionality we shipped with can do and make it more robust – seems to render us humans even more vulnerable to staying within a narrowing band of existence. Even now so many of us perch precariously at the mercy of the Internet staying up and oil flowing from the wells.
 

As sexy and immediate as the quick fixes are, the results from natural brain tweaks, exercise, nutrition, learning and play can compete – with maybe a dash of determination & discipline - and win the long game. For those unafraid, I proffer the gatherings of the Brain Grower’s Association to accelerate organic, sustainable development of the cranial contents ..
 
(update: the site’s closed at the mo, but it will be up after I’ve wrapped up writing the book that is devouring my time like a failed dieter). Ping me here if you’re annoyed about it.

* [in those who have regular brain function.. but an incredible blessing of science for those who don't]

THINK AGAIN. If you are just such a being we’d be honoured to have you join our explorations.
Sign up here >> [click]. Or mail Max to find out more.

(peek at some of our previous Cerebella gatherings)

urban survival camp
CONFIDENCE
lifehacks
lionheart – roaring trade

Generally this kind of thing happens after near-death misses (I’ve had 2 so that’s first-hand talking).

What happens if you suddenly realise how absurd it is living/working/spending your time.money.energy the way you do? And instead of dissolving the irritating awareness in your morning coffee and ploughing back into life.as.we.know.it..

you stop.

And give the idea a bit of room to breathe.

What happens if you don’t want to go back anymore?

————-

What happens if you decide tomorrow won’t follow the same largely predictible script?
Is it even possible if you aren’t prone to multiple personality disorder, win the lottery, fall desperately in love or somesuch outrageous turn of irreversible external circumstance is foisted upon your being?

[Just asking. I'm feeling oddish & it could be contagious. Perhaps more of us are feeling like this.]

One of the joys of digital globalization is sharing moments of brilliance that can burst into viral meme streams. This is one whose RNA has infected many webheads with humour, humanity and heartbreaking inspiration, its Prof Randy Pausch’s legendary Last Lecture :

This is a fairly long video (just over an hour) & not friendly for those on slimmed bandwidth, but if you save up your bits & watch one video this month.
Make it this one.

“You are the storyteller of your own life, and you can create your own legend or not.” – Isabel Allende

(..and no mom, I don’t think I’m dying of any dire disease. Though I do apparently ail from an appaling addiction to alliteration.)

Innovation is one of those spaces that has to bridge both. This often elusive strategic advantage that could catapult you into uncontested territory (with the benefits of time, little competition, easy PR and high desirability in the marketplace) is often seen as the “soft stuff” best left to the creatives/scientists/inventors to envision. Mistakenly.

Never more so has there been such an urgent need for clarity on how to initiate, manage & implement innovation with accelerated competition and tightening resources on a crowded planet.
Companies that realise that the birthing of innovation is induced through rigorous process rather than entrusting it to luck or epiphanies of genius; those who specialise in it, like Google, BMW, 3M, GE, NASA offer insight on how to apply this in our own lives, businesses and careers.

I’m going to be writing 2 posts on innovation from our lecture series to de-fuzz the fluffy concepts around this word so treasured by management consultants. Essentially just as a memory recall for the students, so forgive me if they seem a little disjointed. (though as always you’re welcome to comment and nudge me if something needs more clarity or really connects with you & you want more info)

For me, there were a couple of insights from Dave’s introductory lecture that help discern practical innovation from the trance-inducing concept of innovation bandied about in boardrooms. Something that transforms the way we work, think, connect, play vs. more marketing vapourware.

THE BUSINESS OF INNOVATION

Innovation is NOT invention, nor is it improvement, inspiration or incremental change. Innovation is an idea that when applied has the ability to transform the society, market or holding pattern wherein it is let loose. It is not always positive, but always brings change.
It is a transformative solution to a known problem.

DEVELOPING THE INNOVATION DISCIPLINE

The crucial factor that strips out dumb luck/strokes of genius is to embody Edison’s model: Experiment with relentless determination to crash through a known problem. Successful business incubators like Idealab or pan-industry giants like Virgin or Google embrace the fact that not every dazzling idea will turn into a profitable endeavour, but fast implementation and reality testing are the only way to know without over-capitalising.

Whiteboards line the corridors at the Googleplex, collaboration is fostered actively online, with social spaces and 11 gourmet cafes to gather the multidisciplinary geniuses in realworld, structured brainstorming sessions, and curators of innovation process like Marissa Mayer, the Director of Web Products guide the distillation of bright ideas and get the best into production, fast. Ideas don’t get suffocated by entrenched bureaucratic layers and committees that tame scary ideas to what is guaranteed safe for shareholders before they see the light of day. So there have been lots of failures, but ultimately when the big ones hit they are worth multiple smaller crashes.

[Just in case anyone in the class felt I was being prescriptive and will say here too: This is certainly NOT for everyone, and I'm not pushing this as the only valid path for successful enterprise. It's primarily for those who need to get a tangible grip on how to lead an innovative process, those who want to understand what is called for to gain strategic advantage in an accelerated, progressively complex world. Imitation is as valid a business model, and by far less demanding on your sanity!]

RELEASE EARLY, RELEASE OFTEN

This is Dave’s repeated rallying cry. Get it out there, even if it isn’t perfect yet. In the software development world this is expressed as being in “beta” release. It requires risk, releasing a version that will be built mid-flight, with the help of lead users finding the quirks & bugs for you if you’re lucky.
Few innovations are guaranteed success first round. But the only way to know for sure is to reality test your idea/concept/product in the market and get feedback. Very few of us will take this brave move with ease, because we instinctively veer from potential failure.

FORTUNE FAVOURS THE BRAVE

Like safely watching someone absurdly wonderful/sexy/beautiful at a party and actually risking failure by asking them out; so it is with releasing into the market with a daring concept that could make us look foolish (the really good ones, the really innovative ones, always will by the way, or someone would’ve stepped in & done it already). The rewards could be utterly worth some minor terror. Unless you’re an omniscient being, slumming for some reason with us flawed humans, you simply CANNOT know all the reasons something will or won’t work. The more often we attempt, the less scared we are of trying again, the less personally we take the failures and the quicker we’ll be to spot other opportunities.The first rule for innovation (my opinion) is: Assume nothing. In both hunting your innovative idea and when the time comes to act on it.

Thanks Dave for the quote that encapsulates the real force of nature that innovators are:

“Ideas are a dime a dozen, people who put them into action priceless” – franchising pioneer Mary Kay Ash

For all of you who believe that genius is about superhuman intellect or world-encompassing insight on command. If you’ve ever been led to believe that working hard infers that you aren’t bright enough to achieve dazzling success on your first pass.
This one is for you.

It’s for those whose vision simply banishes the option of a safe job and bowing to social expectation of settling. For the restless and driven who withstand scorn and scoff of their ideas and persist through countless failures. For those who challenge the impossible.

The difficult is that which can be done immediately; the impossible that which takes a little longer.
- philosopher George Santayana

Many of our species have defied the impossible:
Roger Bannister shattering the myth of the 4minute mile, the Wright brothers giving humans wings, Walt Disney building a kingdom around a talking mouse.. the list goes on through those who reshaped possibilty on a large scale.
To almost all great ones it wasn’t some effortless conspiring of the “Universe” in the fashion of The Secret that powered their world.changing efforts.
Their successes came, borne of sweat, frustration and failure. Yet there is a persistent belief that if you have to work hard it must mean that you aren’t all that smart. We’re seduced into believing the diet pill fantasy. Our society tumbling into soft.headed infatuation with these promising shortcuts to success, like a love.sick teenager not yet topped up with common.sense or cynicism.

If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it wouldn’t seem wonderful at all. – Michelangelo

There is one inherently surprising quality to genius (as opposed to fast and hard street smarts for example). It is fragile. Genius is not inherited, unlike genetically-transmittable talents. It is volatile and easily crushed and muted by insult.
Which is why the unrelenting armour of tenacity is so needed as its accompaniment.

The armour your ally against the resistance, laughter, ego.bashing rejections and smug enjoyment you provide for detractors when you make mis.takes.
In China, this strategy comes through the development of an impenetrable “thick face”. Don the armour of determination if you have a truly innovative idea with world.changing capability, and buckle down for what may be a bumpy ride for the ego on that less.travelled road.

It may not make rational sense, looking at the radical pace of technology, but the world is curiously opposed to new ideas (the REALLY new ones that solve problems of long.standing inefficiencies in particular). Determination is wedded to a long.term strategy which will see you through the short term relief opportunities that come up. The quick money offers, the safer jobs and status upgrades, pay.off’s or even sidestepping physical threat as your ideas meet the market.

Great ideas are cheap and plentiful. Those who will actually work to make sure they happen, precious few. I finally realised we have no lack of passionate brilliant people with ingenious solutions. We have all the available capability to deal with the world’s woes very effectively. But the proportion of people who are prepared to risk their own time, money, reputation on birthing their ideas? And then the proportion left after a year or so? Or those who could have the patience to bear 50,000 experiments to perfect the alkaline battery for example?
Only genius buffered by tenacity would refuse to give up or settle for good enough.

Computer engineer & mathematician Howard Aiken said it best “Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you’ll have to ram them down people’s throats“

That’s why NDA’s are a giggle for the most part these days. If it’s a really great concept, good luck! because there are special devils set aside that will ensure that it is forged and fortified with its dues in time, sweat & tears.

Regardless of whether it’s a clean alternative fuel, getting your body in shape, or getting your business to get to the point where it pays without pain: endurance pays off, exponentially.

“Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.
Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not; un-rewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”
-Calvin Coolidge

Genius provides the visionary ignition spark and your tenacity ensures you get there, in one piece.

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this post is part of the monthly theme on Endurance
found here on Hunter of Genius & beyond.