I had an extraordinary experience this week when I spent a day at an intimate seminar led by Seth Godin.  Seth is known as a marketing guru, but what he really is is a genius.  He is a humble man with a vision for how ideas spread and he is almost solitary in his understanding of it, but it is widely agreed that what he sees and advises is true.  He would not say he was a genius, since most geniuses don’t.  They see something extremely complicated that others don’t see but because it is so obvious to them, they can’t call it genius because they take no credit for it.

Einstein was a genius.  We commonly agree on that.  He had a clarity about mathematics that was not obvious and although it took a long time for him to put it out for mass consumption in a way that was relatable, it was no less ingenious.

Why I even write this as a post today is not just because I am a Seth Godin fan, but because the phenomenon I experienced by spending a day watching him work and benefiting from his insight had to do with something that we can all capture and that some of us can grow to live.

What became clear for me when I spent a day watching genius at work was that the really smart person on the stage was not speaking down to his audience as the expert, genius or the only one with the answer.  He raised the bar in the room, just with his presence, that not only attracted really smart people to the seminar to play with him but also made everyone in the room be operating at a higher level of consciousness and receptivity. He changed the airwaves in a way and everyone became a genius along with him.

Genius is not necessarily limited to high IQ.  Certainly, there are humans that embody both, but there are plenty of geniuses in the arts whose accomplishments don’t seem to correlate with IQ.  Truly, what all geniuses have in common is a high vibrational frequency.  What I mean by that is that they operate at a level of consciousness and awareness that allows answers to reveal themselves to them versus efforting to conceptualize something.  Like a Buddhist monk sitting in meditation until a Koan (a Buddhist riddle of sorts) is solved or a doctor taking a break from studying data on a patient’s condition only to be struck by the solution to their ills, genius is a matter of the insight or information coming through you rather than being created by you.  Certainly, it may be a culmination of all your knowledge and learning that creates the answer, but also it is a preparedness and practice of being present and open that is required to spawn the revelation.

How does one prepare for genius?  They have to practice their art, make things up, take risks and lead.  Genius is not homogeneous with mediocrity and copying what is safe and already proven. Genius requires operating without a net and often, having to withstand ridicule.  The first makers of digital watches had to face great ridicule as they tried to alter the paradigm of what a time piece could do and what it was made of. Genius is often not knowing if you are on the right track until you have arrived at the station.

The times we live in now are requiring the genius vibration from all of us. Jobs, companies, job searches, individuals, small business—all have to require from themselves a higher form of consciousness to consider next steps.  The consciousness of fear, desperation and  copy-catting are too low a frequency to create the results that we want.

“Recognized geniuses may be rare, but genius resides within all of us.”*  To get at it, we need to shed the clutter, get back to what is truly us, and garner the courage to be sure of our Self.

*David R. Hawkins

Tags: Einstein, Genius, Geniuses, phenomenon, Seth Godin

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 21st, 2009 at 12:17 pm and is filed under Personal Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.