The surprising way to cultivate your genius.
Even though 2020 has been a crazy year, I am more surprised at the amount of self help books getting published every day on places such as Amazon.
From time to time, some of them grab my attention and they are actually pretty nice.
Then There are some like “Outliers” (2009) by Malcolm Gladwell, that just makes me grin and say: “Now THIS is for Me!”
I bought it 2 days ago, and I am already at the half of the book. Malcom’s writing is soo good and persuasive, the research is detailed and the chapters are short and sweet!
This article is dedicated to his 3rd Section Of The book: “The Trouble With Geniuses”
Let’s get started:
The Analytical You:
The higher your IQ is, the more analytical your thinking is.
That’s the baseline of Dr.Terman’s research that analysed hundreds of gifted children and students around the world.
Terman called the gifted people “Termites” and spend the most of his life studying them.
He came to the conclusion that these individuals would be the future leaders, businessmen, pioneers and lawyers of the future.
It would be an understatement to say that he was DEAD wrong.
When the children and students grew up and started their careers, Terman divided them into three groups:
The As: The Ones with Masters Degree, PhD and beyond.
The Bs: The ones that got a bachelor and in rare cases a masters degree.
The Cs: The Ones that dropped out.
A Group:
It turned out, that although the As had prestigious diplomas from top universities and institutions they didn’t do something extraordinary at all.
Some of them wrote papers and got published in scientific journals, but that was just about it.
They weren’t a failure, but they weren’t success either.
They were mediocre.
B Group:
This group did even worse. They had normal jobs, some of them didn’t make a family, some of them even dropped out of university, and others lived with their parents.
C Group:
Almost every person from this group dropped out.
The vast majority of them settled for a minimum wage job or became couch potatoes.
Utter failure.
Terman was wrong.
The researcher himself admits that analytical intelligence is indeed a worthless asset if that’s all the person possesses.
There was something more to success than having a high score on the IQ test, and Terman didn’t see that.
Oppenheimer knew the game
Arguably one of the greatest scientists of the 20th century, Oppenheimer was an emotional mess.
He struggled with depression, even tried to poison his tutor and yet he somehow wounded up with probably the deadliest and most important job a human can tackle:
Making The Atomic Bomb.
The secret of Oppenheimer is in what psychologist Robert J. Sternberg calls:
“Practical Intelligence”
Practical intelligence is the ability that individuals use to find the best fit between themselves and the demands of the environment.
(To learn more about practical intelligence, click here)
Oppenheimer found the best fit between him and the judge who was ready to take him to prison for attempted murder.
He somehow persuaded the judge to put him on a probation period and from there he even got a job! The making of the deadliest weapon in history of mankind.
However, Malcolm Gladwell argues that this is not surprising, not even the slightest bit.
Oppenheimer grew in the family of a rich man, and contrary to popular belief, his parents didn’t teach him to be spoiled and needy. instead they taught him practical intelligence.
A Study conducted by a famous sociologist(whose name I forgot) found out that the rich people and the poor’s people success didn’t depend on family connections.
It depended on the parents themselves.
In Some of the poor people, the sociologists found that they taught their kids to bow their head down, be quiet and just do what they are told.
In the middle and upper class, the parents taught their kids to always ask if they don’t know something, and to be independent, but not arrogant.
Environment mattered more.
That is how Oppenheimer got the job. He was aware of the environment and used his adaptability instilled in him by the practical intelligence, which led him to ask the right questions and win.
We are in the right environment:
Environment if constructed in the right way will make you smarter, fitter and richer.
You may not have rich parents that can send you to private school like Bill Gates had or you may not be born in Silicon Valley like Steve Jobs was, but you have the absolute control over YOUR environment.
The Internet and the digital age have given us the opportunity to ask more questions, reach out to more people, get mentored by our idols and learn whatever we want.
You don’t need to be into a private school to be like Bill Gates and You ABSOLUTELY don’t need to be born in San Francisco to be like Steve Jobs.
The 13 wealthiest people in the U.S. were born in the exact 5–10 years period. The period before the civil war and at the start of it, was a goldmine for people because new industries are booming.
Now Multiply that by 100 and we have the same opportunity today, without having to go to war. And that opportunity is not just in one country.
IT IS EVERYWHERE!
Keep learning, keep taking action, your goals are waiting for you.
Resources mentioned in this article:
