Practical Genius (21 page)

Communication, generosity, and constantly adding value fuel your genius relationships.

Learn to curate extraordinary group experiences to feed and grow your genius tribe.

Francesca Prado

The body is an exquisite mystery, an intricate machine of magnificent power and possibility. Yet most of us treat it like a lumpy old sofa. We take it for granted, we ignore its needs, we starve it of all kinds of things—sleep, exercise, nutrients—that are necessary to keep the machine in motion. And as things start to break down or fail (as they inevitably will), we wonder, “Hey, how did that happen? Why me?” Or we chalk it up to aging and begin to brace ourselves for the long slow, increasingly painful march to our Final Destination.

So it is with genius. It’s a brilliant, beautiful asset—the essence of you—that is unique and infinitely, exponentially valuable. If you’re lucky (or smart) enough to discover it (which is where I hope you are right now!), you ought to treat it like a prizewinning orchid, a rare vintage sports car, a Monet you discovered in your attic. You’ve got to take care of that baby, or it’s not an asset, it’s just another dead house-plant, a crap car on cinder blocks, or fodder for your next garage sale.

Sustaining your body is not rocket science (which makes it all the more inexplicable why we don’t do it very well). Sustaining your genius isn’t rocket science either, but it is an art and involves a surprising variety of components that will feed and help grow big muscles on your genius.

Genius is a lifestyle, a practice that requires a conscious effort to sustain the mind, body, and spirit that get us to that other G-spot—and keep us there. My approach to sustaining genius isn’t the usual eat-pray-love stuff. As you might expect, it’s a little more practical than that! The way I see it, what we read and watch, the rituals we practice, what we eat, all the things that fill our time—those things represent the
content
of our lives, the content we consume, digest, and turn into the energy that fuels the genius. As with relationships, the content you consume is a choice, and it can either stoke your fire or smother it—you pick.

In order to really shift the paradigm in your life and your work, you have to act upon practical genius as a self-selected lifestyle that sets you up for continued growth, gratification, and ridiculous success. And here’s the simple secret of sustaining genius: it’s all about choosing the right content for your body, mind, and heart.

I guess you could call this the “tough love” part of our journey. Why? Because if you’ve come this far and don’t understand how important it is to feed this beautiful beast of genius properly—if you think you can keep chowing on Ho Hos when your genius is starving for
mille-feuilles
—well, you’re not quite ready to unleash your genius on the world. So let’s break this down into pieces.

First, we’ll look at your genius mind, where we will explore a radical approach to spending (not managing) your time, which is your greatest energy reserve; gorging on genius stimulants; and the imperative of shutting down. Next, we’ll consider the genius body, where we will explore how food, motion, and sleep are critical to active genius.
Finally, we’ll look at the genius heart, which will reveal how the mind, body, and heart come together in play, how joy is realized in the “flow state,” and how to expand your self-awareness and spend your genius in order to preserve it.

Here’s a funny truth: time management is a hoax. Billions of dollars a year are spent by well-meaning folks who have an idea that they’re not getting enough out of their days and go to great lengths (and expense) to organize their lives, to be more productive, and to figure out the secret of checking off every item on the daily to-do list.

Think about the routines and patterns of your typical day. Are you one of those type As who approach each day with a plan of attack, feeling delicious pangs of gratification with each accomplishment? Is your schedule like a carefully planned military campaign, with every objective supported by a strategy and clever tactics for getting it all done? Or are you more relaxed about how your day unfolds? A little of this, a little of that, but basically just keeping on keeping on, without much to show for your twenty-four hours. As different as these two approaches seem to be, they have one powerfully mistaken thing in common: they assume that time is a tool, like an ax, and the better you wield the tool, the bigger the pile of wood you end up with at the end of the day.

I know this because I’ve been there. I
was
that person celebrating every task ticked off my many lists, thinking that the tasks represented the important work I needed to accomplish every day if I could only organize myself and manage my time properly. In my mind, ticking off the tasks proved my market value; the more I could do, the more I was worth to the people I worked with, my friends, and my family.

Do you see why this is not a viable or even humane way to look at your time? Attempting to “manage” your time in order to increase your output misses the point of time entirely. It’s time itself that has the value, not the millions of tasks and chores and to-dos we try to pull off within it. Time is precious, limited, and the single most important resource supporting your genius. You don’t
manage
time, you
spend
it.

Instead of attempting to manage your time focused on output, think about how to
spend
your time focused on feeding your genius. Consider for a moment the act of spending—making a choice to acquire something you have convinced yourself will have value to you, taking out your wallet, carefully counting out your hard-earned cash, handing it over, and finally extracting value out of the purchase itself. Thinking about time that way changes things, doesn’t it? And thinking about its being pointed inward instead of outward changes things, too, right?

Somehow, we have gotten into the bad habit of assigning value to the time we manage (our working hours) and looking at the time we spend (after hours, vacations, Sunday mornings) as
free.
The fact is, every minute of the day, awake or asleep, is valuable and free, strictly optional and ready currency. Here’s the crux of it: managing time is an organizational pursuit; spending time is an expression of your purpose.

Why do you think vacations are so good at recharging your batteries and reengaging you with your more authentic self? Because you
pick
everything you do on vacation to indulge your passions, your physical desires, your intellectual curiosities. You’re much more inclined to say “What the heck” and try a new food or activity or pass an hour doing something you would never do “at home.” You’re more relaxed and open, you’re feeling risk-frisky. (Hang
gliding? Hovering over a volcano in a helicopter? Taking a tango class? Why not!) Everything feels like a little treat you’re giving yourself.

That’s because you are 100 percent in input mode. On vacation, it’s all about feeding and indulging and replenishing. You’re turning your energy inward, pursuing pleasure, wellness, contemplation, and a little mindful stillness. You’re exposing yourself to sights and sounds and experiences that stretch and enrich you. You go home feeling more than just refreshed; you are expanded.

Back at home in your day-to-day, time-managed life, you’re in the output mode, turning your energy toward what you think you must produce or accomplish, which tends to sap, deplete, and expend your resources rather than increase them. Routine replaces enrichment; your schedule puts you back to work on tasks, chores, and obligations. Your to-do lists do not include items such as “seek adventure” or “ride bike at twilight.” You see why the genius is not having any of this, right?

Three years ago, I realized I had become a slave to the output-oriented way of life, and I made the conscious decision to build my days around what I love first and foremost and to look at the input—the content I consume—as my prioritizing force. I made a commitment to use my natural resources, both soft and hard, to make this shift, and the outcome was more dramatic than I’d imagined. Here’s what I learned along the way.

You know when you’re on a plane, about to take off, and the flight attendants are explaining the emergency procedures? I love the part where they tell you to put your own oxygen mask on first before helping someone else. From an emergency procedures standpoint, this is necessary because you’re not going to be much help to a child who needs assistance with his mask if you’re gasping for air yourself. So
it goes with genius. Your primary obligation—to yourself, your colleagues, your friends, and your family—is to take care of your own needs first in order to be most useful and valuable to others.

From a strictly practical perspective, the best way to do this is to feed your genius first. That means spending time on your own edification and growth before you do a single other thing in your day. In other words, don’t reach for your BlackBerry first or dive into the chaos of getting the kids off to school before you focus on yourself. Instead, get up an hour early with the purpose of investing in your genius assets—stimulating your curiosity, stretching your intellectual or creative reach, taking a brisk walk around the block to fill your lungs with the fresh air of a new day, listening to music that inspires you, thinking about color or light or anything that interests you that is outside of the “what you do” scope of your day.

My client John Gordon who is the controller and senior vice president of BET Networks, spends this hour in a wonderful way that feeds his genius—and feeds his family, too. John is the classic high-powered executive who also happens to love to cook. So he gets up early every day to experiment with breakfast for his wife and four daughters. He makes porridge, oatmeal, or grits; eggs and bacon; hotcakes or fancy waffles. More than producing all that good food for his girls, though, he is
creating
—writing a symphony, painting a masterpiece, designing an architectural wonder. He teases his kids by saying “Did you know that breakfast eaters score higher on math tests?” But he’s dead serious in setting the tone and intention for his own day in a way that stays with him through his last meeting of the day.