Genius: How to become one and stay that way

Wouldn't you like to have a way to release the latent genius within you? How would it feel to be free of all restraints in your life and able to simple create the way you've always wanted?

The road to doing this is much simpler than we suspected.

Some theory first:

Pareto principle is a tool to use in this. Briefly, from Wikipedia,

"The Pareto principle (also known as the 80-20 rule, the law of the vital few and the principle of factor sparsity) states that, for many phenomena, 80% of the consequences stem from 20% of the causes. Business management thinker Joseph M. Juran suggested the principle and named it after Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who observed that 80% of income in Italy went to 20% of the population. It is a common rule-of-thumb in business; e.g., '80% of your sales come from 20% of your clients.'"

If you follow the link to Juran above, you will get his full essay on how he found and named this principle.

For our use, it is a form of shorthand. The caveat is to ensure you also use Juran's phrase, "the vital few and the useful many" to not overlook resources or be too harsh in your estimations.

Consider the forward push of a civilization - it is literally won on the backs of a very few, singular people. Einstein, Madam Curie, Edison, Eleanor Roosevelt - just study these people back and you will find them immensely capable, far beyond what is common.

The rough math shows that you have 20 percent, and then 4 percent and then under one percent (20% of 20% of 20%...) and so find just a small handful of people doing incredible work. Juran was the first to point out that these numbers don't always hold true. While he held to Lorentz curves (which I have been unable to nail down for this post), I have found that the Long Tail exponential curve, as well as the Bell Curve both apply to this area.

That last is perhaps the most graphic. It sweeps down from the bulk of the group (population, in our case) to a small proportion on each side. If you widened this out into a 3D view, it would be a hill standing out in a field.

The Long Tail is what is fascinating along this line. There is as much money being made, cumulative, in niche sales as there is by the few market leaders.

Ability might have this take. The bulk of humankind is surviving and doing quite well. However, a small handful are doing intensely, extremely well.

Our educational system, as well as our marketing and government - through no fault of theirs - is built on protecting the bulk rights and status quo of this largest amount. That is where the common concerns and voters lie. (Both left and right have to court the center to get elected.)

Now, let's concentrate on the extremes for awhile. One extreme is criminal and the other genius. The reason for laws is to hold the criminal in check. However, this is only moderately successful - more effective in the America's than some other areas of the world - which has to do more with the philosophy of our Founding Fathers that enable anyone to succeed if they want to. (This idea is fascinating in and of itself - read Thomas Paine and Adam Smith in our modern light ... but this is not on our current path.)

Geniuses are a rarefied few.

How is this so? We only observe that this is the way it is. You might have concentrations of a group here and there, which throws off the above generalized math, but statistically that's the way it is.

These few find out early on that they simply need to devote themselves to full-time creative works. If they are really smart about this, they will get some one or several around them to be their support group and work on doing their marketing and cover their economic butt, as it were, to keep food on the table and the lights on. Artists Benton and Russell met and married their marketers - which is why we know about them today.

As any genius, you should get a body of people around you which simply work to support you and get your work out to humanity. Or, you can work a bit of your time on the more mundane aspects of marketing your own work and then setting this up to run on a semi-automatic basis through Internet autoresponders and similar tools. Ultimately, as Corey Rudl found, you will have to hire some people full time to take care of your millions in income.

I've looked up one corporation I had been intimately involved in earlier, and found that after the founder died, it ceased to expand shortly thereafter. They haven't replaced their core genius. However, that person left the seeds of destruction behind him, as he said he was the only one who could do what he did - closing the door on succession. No matter how expert or genius the manager that follows, that place is doomed to extinction.

However, the door is wide open for others to succeed. I did a study years ago of self-help classics which are continuing to be successful and expanding after their founder's end. And at the bottom of this are apparent universal principles which anyone can apply to improve their lives. (These are linked in the title.)

So anyone can literally make themselves a genius.

How to recognize and strengthen your own genius traits:

Part of this is to apply and use the Pareto Principle in your own life. Where are you wasting time - where is the 80% of your life which does nothing but take time you could be using for other things?

Perhaps you should concentrate on what is really working for you in your life. Those things you like to do - those things which bring you peace and satisfaction - what about these?

If you chase these down, you'll stumble over your basic purpose for your life. What you are here for can only be defined by you. The clues you get are in what consistently makes you happy, makes you feel good, enables the cares of the world to slip off your burdened shoulders.

Follow your bliss, follow your intuition - these roads lead to your understanding exactly what you want for yourself. And the legacy you wish to leave.

Success, as Earl Nightingale defined it in his gold record "The Strangest Secret", is "the progressive realization of a worthy goal." What goal is personal to you. Some want to become millionaires, some famous actors/actresses, some just want a happy family, or to teach children to become successful themselves. Your goal is what ever you choose it to be.

Look around and search in your life for where you've been leading yourself. You've been pushing for something - what is it? What gives you the clues you are on the right track? It is those simple indicators which you need to follow to determine where your best efficiency lies.

A note is that the bulk of humanity - 99 44/100th's - have no clue about you or your purpose or goals. It's going to be a solo attempt. Likewise, the only thing humanity has evolved is "conventional thought" and "common knowlege" - aka rumormill, scuttlebutt, trashtalk.

The main offspring of modern Western world has been

1. TV (especially afternoon soapoperas and talkshows, evening "news", pornography, and 500-channel cable filled with 2/3rd's content and 1/3 advertisements);
   
2. Movies (the bulk of which don't pay their investors back, as they are that unpopular or ill-concieved, poorly executed);
   
3. Modern "Art" (which the "artist" has to write a paper on what he was trying to say with his art - otherwise, it doesn't make any sense to anyone)
4. The "Beltway" where we send soon-corrupted politicians to spend our money for us - and where we elect a President on a regular basis that we can get tired of and blame for everything that is wrong in our personal lives.

You can safely throw overboard everything you've learned in school and in our modern culture - unless it would get you or someone else physically hurt or killed (like how to cross a busy street safely).

A mob never solved anything or advanced sciences, philosophy, or common sense. Only individuals ever did anything. So get over having to be approved by our modern culture.

Figure that you are really only going to get agreement from individuals like you. You live in a niche somewhere on the Long Tail. There are only a few of you on this planet, no matter how many people wind up living here at any one instant.

To not waste that talent, they have to recognise their rare gift and work on their real talent, which is constant creation. They must "take care of business" either by allocating a small amount of time daily to housekeeping (the original definition of economics) or get some people they can trust with their lives to do that for them.

Surround yourself with people in your 20 percent who have the genius of organization and running large, prosperous corporations. Then you will simply be able to create the way you want to in the remaining time you have on this blue mudball out in space.

You want to live a very full life, doing exactly and always what you should be doing. You'll be constantly cheerful, routinely healthy, and money will be no problem. This is because you'll be providing a very valuable service to all around you. People will want to give back to you just as openly as you have helped others.

You want to encourage others to find their own genius and apply their talents - whatever they are. The world needs all the talents it can use. The world does not need more people making terrorists out of poor souls who have no clue they could be the next Einstein, Curie, Walton, Gates, Sister Theresa...

And where those people in turn recognize their own genius and apply the Pareto principle to utilize those around them, they will build a true juggernaut and expand on the core genius they support.

Society will only improve as the result. And the dream of world peace could become reality.

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P.S. About the "criminal geniuses" - they have the inherent seed of being destructive to all around them, including themselves. Commonly, they live very short lives and cannot trust any around them. Organized law is more effective than organized crime. Your key emphasis should be on creating solutions which far outstrip the ways they can be misused.

Crazy dictocrats in this world ruin their own society for a short time. When true freedom is supported, true economic and quality-of-life choices are possible for everyone - then you have real progress and a society where both the rich and less-rich get richer, where more people live better lives and help each other improve conditions.

Those people who take choice and freedoms away from people are the ones to put in your prayers and meditations. Praying Peace is proved effective. Praying Justice is as well.