Daniel Smith » genius

Iconoclast: What does it take to be extraordinary?

Daniel Smith — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 03:18:08 +0000

In the pursuit of excellence and freedom, there are a few domains to consider. One is the field of expertise, a major contribution of which, Deliberate Practice, I have discussed elsewhere. Yet what about those unique individuals who really change things? Those people (‘freaks’ – in a good way!) who change the world. What is different about them? How do they do it?

Gregory Berns calls them Iconoclasts in his book of the same title, where he notes that they “see things differently than other people. Literally… because their brains do not fall into efficiency traps as much as the average person’s brain.” Berns argued that one way is to “bombard the brain with things it has never encountered before.” And Adam Dachis was saying much the same thing when he suggested doing things that make you feel uncomfortable. When we have rich experiences, we are able to access a more profound heuristic to understand the world around us, being less constrained by the examples that happen to be before us or the ways of thinking that we grew up with.

Berns also noted that these individuals are less subject to the desire for social approval, which reminded me of my old friend Wayne Dyer speaking of self-actualized people being “independent of the good opinion of others.” Robert Greene pointed out that thinking for yourself can be dangerous, and suggested that one should, “Think as you like but Behave like others”. Perhaps that might be a good start though it might be more rigorous to refer to the importance of social intelligence.

Being able to think for oneself is challenging. It is hard. It is scary. And it must be done carefully.

The results can change the world.

Flowing in the pool hall

Daniel Smith — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 03:28:41 +0000

Late last night, I dragged my brother Andrew out for a quick game of pool at the local pool hall. It’s a simple place – a big room filled with blue felt-covered tables, open 24/7, and cooled by cigarette smoke-infused vents.

A pool table in Café Zéphyr, Paris, France

Living on different continents, we don’t get the chance to play as much as we once did and I’m so amazed at how good he is! Refined by many hours of play, his technique is really very good. Impressive… and perhaps a bit scary since he’s so much younger than I!

I’ve noticed how I play my best when I’m not thinking too hard. Not that I’m not concentrating – on the contrary, I’m totally focused on what I’m doing. But I am not consciously thinking and analysing as much as I am allowing the shots to be played.

When I analyse and evaluate, I miss shots. My skills aren’t refined and disciplined enough to consistently shoot the ball where I intend it to go all that often, so even if I calculate things “right” there’s a good chance that it still won’t work.

But if I can allow myself to be guided by my intuition and just go for the shot that I feel is right, it’s amazing how consistently I can pull off the most remarkable shots. You (or Csíkszentmihályi) might call it a state of flow.

Yet, my emotional state becomes even more important. If my attention starts to wander or my mind starts to drift, I can also miss the easiest of shots! Playing through my intuition makes me able to do things my technical skill level wouldn’t allow yet it leaves me vulnerable to making horrible mistakes if I don’t keep in that ‘zone’.

It’s like when I sense that I’m ‘supposed’ to call someone or meet with someone, even if I don’t understand ‘why’. Or if I pick up a book that I sense I should read – even if I don’t understand what it could do for me. Being open and being ready is challenging and potentially risky, yet it has the most amazing rewards.

And with thanks to Drew, I can appreciate being in that space through something as simple and common (or, in our case, perhaps uncommon) as a game of pool.

Preparing to Awaken Genius

Daniel Smith — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 02:29:39 +0000

Tonight we have our second Awaken Your Genius event (also on Facebook). It’s really exciting for me – though challenging to compress the very best material into perhaps 90 minutes!

It’s always like that though. There is so much that we can say, yet we have very limited attention spans (ala my friend Warwick’s book, The One Minute Presenter)… effective communication is so often more about deletion than it is about creation.

When we communicate with people that we care about, we need to delete information. We can’t tell them everything. So we generalize. We delete. Sometimes we even (innocently?) distort what happens and what is going on.

One of the participants on my current Personal Transformation workshop shared how she doesn’t tell her parents what she is doing because she fears that they wouldn’t understand and instead would just worry about her. But we all do it.

We change our focus on the basis of many things. Mostly these are unconscious. But what happens when you can take personal responsibility for the spotlight of your attention is amazing.

It’s genius.