Practical Genius

Touchstone
A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com

Copyright © 2011 by Gina Amaro Rudan
Foreword copyright © 2011 by Kevin Carroll
Illustrated by Francesca Prado

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thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address
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First Touchstone hardcover edition October 2011

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Rudan, Gina Amaro.
Practical genius : the real smarts you need to get
your talents and passion working for you / by Gina Amaro Rudan.
p. cm.
1. Self-actualization (Psychology) 2. Genius. 3. Self-perception. 4. Success. I. Title.
BF637.S4R837 2011
158.1—dc22
2011011987

ISBN 978-1-4516-2604-9
ISBN 978-1-45162606-3 (ebook)

My husband, Stephen, whose love and support permeate this book And for my son, Lucas, whose life is empowered by inventive play and from whom I learn something amazing every day

Foreword by Kevin Carroll

1. A Spark of Genius:
Where the Journey Begins

2. Identify Your Genius:
Only You Can Find It

3. Express Your Genius:
It’s Time to Tell Your Story

4. Surround Yourself With Genius:
You Are Who You Walk With

5. Sustain Your Genius:
Find What Fuels You

6. Market Your Genius:
Where the Rubber Meets the Road

Epilogue:
A Call to Genius:
Back to the Beginning

Acknowledgments

Index

I’ve been lucky to have known and worked with a lot of geniuses in my life, from the author Paulo Coelho to Cameron Sinclair from Architecture for Humanity to Mel Young, the cofounder of the Homeless World Cup, to Nobel Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu. To my mind, these folks are geniuses not for their accomplishments or intelligence, though they are certainly accomplished and crazy intelligent, too. What makes them practical geniuses, as Gina would describe them, is the unique combination of heart and smarts they possess, as committed to the joy, humor, and creativity in their professional lives as they are to excellence in the work they produce. You know one of these geniuses when you see one, believe me.

The first genius I think I ever knew was my great-grandmother Nana Carroll. Nana Carroll was my grandfather’s mother. She was mostly Cherokee, and two long, pitch-black braids framed her face and fell past her shoulders. My grandfather Pop-Pop drove my brothers and me to see her every Sunday, each week following the same ritual: the scramble and scuffle to sit by a window; the squeak of the “pleather” of the car seat under my legs; the familiar sights and sounds and smells that came through the window all the way to Brook Street in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, where Nana Carroll lived.

As much as I loved the ride to Brook Street, it always turned to dread as we got close to Nana Carroll’s house. I knew she would be waiting for us, sitting in the rocking chair in her bedroom listening for us to thump up the stairs to say hello. Then, after giving us each a kiss, she’d impose what felt like a life sentence on us, sweetly but firmly saying “It’s good to see you boys again. Now, before you go outside to play I need you to be still for five minutes.” Be still. For five minutes. Three hundred seconds, to be precise. A lifetime to a grade-school-aged boy with ants in his pants and jumping beans in his pockets and a million shimmering play possibilities beckoning from outside Nana Carroll’s bedroom window.

Before I’d enter her room, I’d pray for a pardon from the weekly torment, but it never came. So I’d turn myself over to her, sacrifice my natural state of constant movement for the stillness she demanded.

300 seconds.
When I had trouble settling down, she’d gently touch my head or shoulder to soothe me.

245 seconds.
A couple more squirms and fidgets, then finally stillness and silence.

215 seconds
. I would begin to notice that I could “see” all sorts of things with my ears when I was still. The squeak of the floorboard under Nana Carroll’s rocking chair. The clang of a chain-link gate in the neighbor’s yard.

180 seconds.
Pop-Pop’s deep, warm voice telling a sports story to his brothers. The smell of coffee wafting through the cracks in the floorboards. My brother’s stomach growling like an alley cat.

120 seconds.
Bikes skidding on street gravel. Cheers from a stickball game that was happening without me. A basketball walloping a makeshift milk crate hoop. To which I could only listen, not respond.

60 seconds.
One more long, painful minute of stillness to bear. And when precisely five minutes had passed, Nana Carroll would wave us on to freedom.

It wasn’t until I was much older that I realized the genius of this ritual. She wasn’t torturing us, she was sharing a very sacred and common Native American practice that she knew would be valuable to us as we gained life experience. She was passing on a gift of her genius, the art and power of being exactly in the moment and nowhere else—and the secret of awareness and discovery that could be found in stillness.