by I C Robledo
The Importance of These Principles
If you are going to read this book, you probably want to know where these principles came from. My research into many geniuses throughout history has led me to discover them. I have read many books about great minds, including biographies, psychological studies, and gained information from a wide variety of resources, over many, many years. I estimate that I have read at least fifty books and hundreds of articles in the area of psychology, intelligence, genius, and learning.
Sometimes, I have also had the good fortune to be in the presence of brilliant minds. At those times I have paid attention to anything that could potentially be a principle of genius. The important thing for you is to know that every principle in this book has been researched, and found to occur in a variety of bright minds, through a range of time periods in history, and in many different contexts. These are the universal principles of genius.
I have been searching for these principles for many years. I had a sense that they existed, and that if I kept searching, I would find them and understand them, and be able to show others how they could be put to good use. This search was a lot like looking for clues. In my research, rarely were broad principles discussed. Instead, it was usually detailed events. I needed to pay attention to the patterns and understand when I had come across a broader principle.
Are these ALL of the principles of genius? I am sure they aren’t. But my goal was to identify the major principles that most geniuses have used. These principles can apply to a wide range of situations. They can apply to the artist, the scientist, the engineer, the writer, the inventor, and so forth. Also, I believe these are the most important and critical principles we can apply to make progress on our path toward genius.
Ultimately, these principles are important because the great geniuses of current and past times have used them. This includes people such as Socrates, Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Ludwig van Beethoven, Stephen Hawking, and many others. These are the brilliant minds whose principles I have uncovered from their writings, biographies, and the lives they lived.
You may wonder, if these principles are so important, why have they been kept secret? One of the reasons many of them have been hidden is not because these brilliant minds intended to keep them away from the public. Instead, it is more likely that they discovered some of the principles, noticed how effective they were and applied them through habit. Then in time these people may have credited their own brilliance with their successes, rather than a specific principle. It is also possible that some people may have assumed certain principles were obvious to everyone else even when that was not true. Also, many geniuses through history might not have realized how great of an impact the principles had on their accomplishments. We have the privilege of being able to look back on many of their lives, and seeing how specific principles led them to some of the greatest discoveries of all time. They did not. In any case, the secret principles which were before hidden, are now available to you for your personal benefit.
Unblock the Path to Genius
The goal of this book is to unblock the path toward genius for you. Up until now, it has been closed off because without knowing the principles geniuses have used throughout history, it is extremely difficult to make much progress. Just understand that all I can do is unblock the path and show you the way, but it is you who has to put in the work to get there.
The premise of this book is that perhaps we could all be geniuses if we just knew the right principles to apply, which are ordinarily hidden away from us. Of course, this doesn’t mean it will be an easy road to get there. You may ask what you have to do to become a genius. Well, some of the best advice I have ever received in life is to focus on the things you can control. When it comes to the status of genius, you can either declare yourself one (and risk getting laughed at), or in time it is possible others will perceive you as a genius because of your accomplishments. The first option is not advised, and the second option (e.g., how others think of you) is out of your control.
Instead of focusing on those, I would recommend choosing the most relevant principles to your goals and life, and to put them into action. In doing so, you will become closer to the greatest minds in history. This will put you on the path to unlocking the true genius inside of you.
Personal Qualities of Genius
“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
– Albert Einstein, German-born theoretical physicist.
Geniuses tend to have certain personal qualities about them that start showing up even at a young age. They have specific tendencies that define them. These are things we may even attribute to their personalities. These qualities have an impact on their priorities, mindset, and the actions they choose to take. For example, geniuses tend to be curious (Principle #2), to pursue high levels of challenge (Principle #4), and to refuse to give up in the face of obstacles (Principle #8).
Personal qualities are important because we take them with us everywhere we go. These qualities are a deep part of who you are. Because of this, it doesn’t feel like a choice to have them, but it is. You can decide to change and do something different at any time you wish. This section is meant to help you achieve this. It will be a matter of implementing new habits, routines, and patterns. By having the right personal qualities in your life, you will be able to maximize your effectiveness with the rest of the principles of this book.
Secret Principle #1 : Use Your Senses to Their Full Power
“The functions to be established by the child fall into two groups: (1) the motor functions by which he is to secure his balance and learn to walk, and to coordinate his movements; (2) the sensory functions through which, receiving sensations from his environment, he lays the foundations of his intelligence by a continual exercise of observation, comparison and judgment. In this way he gradually comes to be acquainted with his environment and to develop his intelligence.”
– Maria Montessori, Italian physician and educator best known for the philosophy of education that bears her name and her writing on scientific pedagogy.
Geniuses Who Applied the Principle
George Berkeley, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Edwin Hubble, David Hume, Helen Keller, John Locke, Maria Montessori, A research participant identified only as “S” (from A. R. Luria’s The Mind of a Mnemonist), Nikola Tesla, Ben Underwood, Leonardo da Vinci
Description of the Principle
Today, most of us are very visual, and we may have to be reminded that we have other senses we can use to experience the world. Of course, there is sight, smell, hearing, touch, and taste. As much as we use visual information, it is limiting if that is all we use. Realize that when you see a bird’s feathers, you experience them one way. When you touch those feathers, you understand them on a much deeper level. They have texture, shape, and rigidity, for example.
As you know, we are surrounded by a massive amount of sensory stimulation every day. But every species, including humans, has limits as to what can be perceived. For example, humans usually cannot perceive infrared or ultraviolet light. We cannot perceive smells as sensitively as most species of dogs would. Also, we can’t perceive sounds the way a bat does. A bat is able to ‘see’ with echolocation. It makes a sound, and can judge where objects are based on how the echoes come off of walls and any surrounding objects. Nonetheless, even with our limited abilities we are well-equipped to sense the world around us.
Our senses are easy to take for granted. The most interesting cases of how people use their senses actually come from those who did not have all of them. For example, Helen Keller was the first person to graduate college who was both deaf and blind. She began a path to greater understanding when her teacher, Anne Sullivan, ran Hellen’s hand through water, and spelled out w-a-t-e-r onto the palm of her other hand at the same time. This was when Keller first realized that th
e feeling of running water in her hand could connect directly with the word “water”.
Another curious case is of Ben Underwood. He had his eyes removed at three years old because of retinal cancer. What is so interesting about Underwood is that he started developing a system of echolocation for himself at a young age. He would make clicking noises, which helped him ‘see’ the world, more similarly to how a bat does with its ears than most humans do with their eyes. He could perform feats that seemed impossible for a blind boy, such as playing basketball, riding a bike, and skateboarding. Underwood’s abilities were so phenomenal that he was the subject of the 2003 TV Series Extraordinary People, where investigators attempted to find the limits of his abilities. Ultimately, his resourcefulness even without eyesight reveals that most of us don’t use our senses to their full capacity. Tragically, he passed away in 2009 at just 16 years old from a return of his cancer.
Since this book is about achieving a genius level in our pursuits, I think it is powerful to consider where Ben Underwood may have gotten his strength and motivation from, to develop his senses to a seemingly supernatural level. Clearly this had to be his mother, Aquanetta Gordon. She wrote this at BenUnderwood.com:
Ben awoke from the surgery [where they removed his eyes] and said “Mom I can't see anymore, I can't see anymore. Oh mom I can't see.” After praying for strength and receiving from God, I said, “Ben YES YOU CAN SEE,” and I took his little hands and put them on my face and said, “[Touch] me, you can see me with your hands,” next, I put my hand to his nose and said, “Smell me, you can see me with your nose,” then I said, “Hear me, you can see me with your ears. You can't use your eyes anymore, but you have your hands, your nose, and your ears.” I tell this one thing, Ben has been seeing ever since.
Rather than focus on the sense he no longer had, his mother immediately chose to focus on the senses the young Ben did have. Recall that he was only three years old at the time his eyes were removed. Yet she found a way to explain her feelings to him in a way that would not make him scared and worried. Instead, he would be empowered through her words, as we can see that he grew up doing all of the normal things other children did.
When we think of the senses, most of us think of the traditional five: smell, sight, hearing, taste, and touch. But some researchers believe there are actually many more than this. You may wish to consider these as well when you focus on using your senses to their full power. For example, there is a sense of balance (or equilibrioception), which helps us stay upright and stable, even if we are in motion, such as in a moving car. We have a sense of temperature (or thermoception), which allows us to sense hot and cold. A kinesthetic sense (or proprioception) allows us to keep track of our own body’s position and movement. We also have pain sensors (or nociception) which allow us to feel pain. Of course, this is the body’s way of telling us something is hurting. Also, there are internal senses (or interoception), which are a sense for things happening inside the body, such as hunger. Keep these senses in mind as well as the traditional five.
Benefits of the Principle
To have a brilliant mind, one must take in information. All information is received starting with the senses, and your brain’s ability to interpret them. When you are learning, the more senses you use to gain information, the more channels or avenues you will have in your brain to remember and understand.
As an example of the importance of the senses in learning, consider Maria Montessori. As an educator, she noticed that children learned better when they were allowed to move, touch, and interact. In her book The Montessori Method, she described her daily schedule for her students as involving personal cleanliness, gymnastics, games, manual work, and caring for plants and animals. Notice that this allows more senses to get involved. Rather than just focusing on sight or hearing, her Method includes all of the traditional senses. Dr. Montessori’s techniques are world-famous and have been highly useful in helping children to learn all over the world. And of course, these children grow into bright and gifted adults. Some notable alum from the Montessori schools include Jeff Bezos (Amazon founder), Jimmy Wales, (Wikipedia founder), Larry Paige & Sergey Brin (Google Cofounders), and Sean “P. Diddy” Combs (hip hop recording artist).
Let’s consider the benefit of our senses in another way. Think what life would be like for someone who cannot sense at all. Imagine a baby is born, and cannot see, hear, touch, smell, or taste. This would be very sad of course, but think of this as an intellectual exercise. A baby in this situation obviously could not learn anything or understand anything. This is because all information intake starts with the senses. Then the brain interprets the information. Without anything to sense, the brain has nothing to learn, understand, or interpret. The brain essentially becomes a useless organ. On the other hand, paying attention to the senses more, and perceiving more, can help lead to greater understanding. As long as you don’t take in so much that you overwhelm your senses, this is a good thing.
How to Apply the Principle
Exercise weak and neglected senses
Many of us become very reliant on a few key senses. Perhaps in your profession you mostly rely on one or two senses all day. Think of which senses you use on an everyday basis. Then, think if there are any that you rarely use. Even if you do use a sense frequently, but it is always in the exact same way, you can consider that a weak sense. For example, if you work in an office you probably touch a keyboard pretty regularly. This may be stimulating when you first learn to type, but in time you become so used to the feeling that it isn’t very stimulating at all. We all touch things, but do you ever touch anything new? And we all smell and taste things, but do you ever do this with new things? To keep your senses strong, they need stimulation and variety.
Now, identify your weakest sense. Take some time each day to focus on that one sense. Make it a point to use it more often, in new and interesting ways. Remember, we use nowhere near our full sensory abilities. As an example, myopia or near-sightedness is reaching epidemic proportions according to the March 2015 article “The myopia boom” by the international journal, Nature. Of course, genetics play some role in this. But environmental factors are also important. People are spending more and more time indoors than we used to. Donald Mutti and his colleagues at Ohio State University College of Optometry have found that children who spend more time outdoors have better vision. Some researchers believe our eyes need to see in more natural light, or at longer ranges, to develop fully. Luckily, vision is easily corrected with glasses or contact lenses, but easy solutions are not always available with our other senses. Look at these findings on vision as a lesson in the importance of keeping your senses active. Our vision goes downhill when it isn’t exercised properly. Other senses likely do too.
Neglect your most dominant sense
On the other hand, you can choose to purposely neglect your most dominant sense for a short while. This will help to force you to pay more attention to other senses. For most of us, our dominant sense will be vision. As a way to neglect this sense, you can listen to a television show with your eyes closed as you imagine the scenarios in your mind. Or you can sit down on your porch outside, with your eyes closed, and pay attention to the sounds of traffic and nature. If you are feeling daring, you might even close your eyes and walk around your home, relearning the layout. You might find that even if you have lived there for years, it can still be difficult to move around efficiently. If you try this, of course, be very careful so you don’t hurt yourself.
Also keep in mind that even within one type of sense, we can still neglect parts of it. For example, a sense that isn’t in the traditional five would be kinesthetic sense, or motor control. In this regard, most of us are used to using one hand for most things. Since I was a child, I have enjoyed trying to use both hands for different tasks. By doing so, I felt more free and confident, knowing that I could rely on my full body, not just one side. I never thought much of this habit until at twelve years old I challenged a friend twice my
size to arm wrestle. We were both right handed, so we used that hand. Of course, he beat me immediately. Embarrassed that I wasn’t any challenge for him, I offered to do it again, with our left hands this time. At first he didn’t want to, but eventually he agreed when I reminded him of his size compared to mine. This time, I beat him almost immediately. I exercised my full body, whereas apparently he did not.
The lesson is that it’s easy to neglect a whole half of your body if you don’t make a conscious effort to maintain it. This is something that takes ongoing practice, but it can be fun as long as you don’t put too much pressure on yourself. You can start with brushing your teeth with your non-dominant hand. Then move on to using utensils at meals, then to writing out your name, and so forth.
By the way, my friend never agreed to arm wrestle me again. Apparently the only thing more embarrassing than losing to someone twice your size is losing to someone half your size.
Secret Principle #2 : Cultivate a Deep Curiosity of the World
“There is nothing in the world that is not mysterious, but the mystery is more evident in certain things than in others: in the sea, in the eyes of the elders, in the color yellow, and in music.”
– Jorge Luis Borges, Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish-language literature.