Practical Genius (24 page)
Authors: Gina Amaro Rudan,Kevin Carroll
GENIUSHappiness is one thing; joy is quite another. I’m grateful for happiness, don’t get me wrong, but I’m ecstatic when one of those bright, stand-alone moments of joy happens. To me, joy is dessert, the wonderful reward for being open to it, for searching for it, for building a life where joy can happen. It’s also one of the best indicators we have that we’ve truly unleashed the genius in our lives.
Play is the place in which the mind and heart engage in joyful union that is like a shot of adrenaline. Lots of incredibly accomplished people who disparage exercise engage in play in all its recreational forms, understanding its benefit for body and mind. For one, play is a great way to dissipate stress and lift your spirits and is actually one of your greatest basic abilities as a human being. It’s also a naturally social endeavor, so every time you play, you create the potential for genius engagement. Every time. I mean it.
“Play is serious business because it changes people’s lives,” says the play guru Kevin Carroll. Research has shown that play—particularly unstructured, spontaneous games, as opposed to scheduled activities such as music lessons or football practice—is a powerful force in human development. Whether it’s a bike ride, a round of tag with your toddler, flying a kite on a Sunday morning with your family, or shelling alone on a beach, a playful state is
always
a healthy state.
From kindergarten to probably sixth grade, recess was the best part of your day, right? Everyone needs recess, geniuses most of all. Regular recess-style disengagement from the norm and active engagement in play can change your mental, physical, and emotional life if you do it with purpose.
You will be surprised how powerful play can be in the workplace
in increasing productivity, creativity, problem solving, team spirit and engagement. The play expert and founder of the National Institute for Play, Dr. Stuart Brown, believes that play is more than just fun and is actually the way we build trust with others, as is the case with all animals. If you need to be reminded how to embrace play, just watch your pets; they are your greatest teachers. Infuse physical or mental play throughout your day, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s social, imaginative, or designing your dream life with Legos or any other objects—just play.
Go deep inside yourself, where play resides, and know that while you are playing you are actually growing your practical genius. When you are in a play state, you are emotionally and physically engaged as well as cognitively engaged. Play allows you to use your head and heart simultaneously, which in turn allows you to engage the true axis of your practical genius, the source of all your personal power. “Where we may have felt pulled in one direction by the heart and another direction by the head, play can allow us to find a balanced course or a third way,” says Dr. Brown.
PLAYBOOK
How Do You Play?
Consider your play history. Explore your past, and see what was your greatest moment of play was. Was it with a specific toy? Was it a sport? Was it at a park or while on vacation? How does your early life experience with play compare with what you consider playtime as an adult? It’s important to plumb your play history, and don’t be surprised if this small exercise is a profound reality check on the power of play in your life.
Have you ever been in a kind of zone while working on something or maybe while practicing an instrument or working on a project where you felt one with your experience, where you were doing it, but learning from it at the same time? Where you were feeding it but it was feeding you, too? This is called “flow,” a state where you are so wrapped up in an activity that you actually lose yourself completely in the activity and become one with it. “The” flow guy is Mihaly Csíkszentmihályi (Chick-sent-me-high-ee), who describes flow as the state of operation in which a person in an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity. According to Csíkszentmihályi, “flow” is completely focused motivation and is the ultimate in harnessing the emotions in the service of performing and learning.
PLAYBOOK
Where’s Your Flow?
Try to remember an instance when you were so absorbed and rewarded by what you were doing that you looked up and realized that hours had passed; you got lost in the experience. What were you working on? Was it even work, or was it something else? What time of day was it, early or late? What
kind
of day was it—sunny and bright or cold and dark? Did you produce something during that time? Did you learn something? Did you have a personal revelation? Were you alone or with others? Experiment with time of day, location, and light to try to replicate the circumstances to create an environment for flow.
The more time spent within your “flow,” the greater your sense of purpose will become and the more it will motivate you to greater and greater accomplishments and rewards. I have been in the flow many times, sometimes unexpectedly, sometimes as a result of a great deal of focus and effort and passion for the work I was involved in. I have learned that it is a fierce kind of magnet; once you experience this feeling, you constantly hope for all of your experiences to feel this way. All of the many components and triggers of genius are great contributors to this state. So you get there, you taste this satisfaction, you figure out how to stay there. I mean it.
“But only man is truly capable of knowing himself.” Socrates knew it, and you should, too. Understanding what distinguishes you from the emu referenced in an earlier chapter is your ability to really “know thyself.” Flow often comes from being deeply in tune with oneself. This self-awareness is both the gift and the burden of the human race. I choose the gift.
Self-awareness is achieved by constantly reflecting on your intentions and your actions. It is being aware of your own emotions and how to channel them to achieve what you want from life. Too many of us react to life instead of imposing our intentions on our lives. Awareness of ourselves enables us to be proactive and therefore more in control of where we go.
To be mindful is not to edit this body of self-knowledge but just to accept it—all of it. The good, the bad, the needs-improvement areas, the downright ugly, and, most important, the fun areas in your life that have been neglected. Spend the time on self-understanding so you know what you love, how you want to live, and what you can’t live without. Become an expert in you. It’s difficult to understand your full potential if you haven’t studied yourself.
Carlos Dominguez, a senior vice president and technology evangelist with Cisco, motivates audiences worldwide on the power behind social media and how technology is changing how we communicate
and collaborate. Cool job, huh? Well, Carlos didn’t come to this place in his life by accident.
Carlos, a passionate advocate for innovation, has always loved speaking, motivating, and activating people, teams, and ideas around innovation, but he really didn’t make his own greatest passion his professional priority until a few years ago, after his daughter was diagnosed with leukemia.
“Before my daughter got sick, I was traveling five or seven days a week corunning a business unit for Cisco. I was exhausted, missed a bunch of family functions, and frankly, I had lost a little bit of myself. I was off balance and only about ten percent of my time was spent with family. All of a sudden, my wife and I were in Italy on a vacation, and we received a call that my daughter had fallen ill. We came home, and within forty-eight hours we learned she had leukemia. We battled that new reality for nine long months, and we got through it. After that, it changed me forever.
“I returned to work after my ordeal and attended a meeting with my team, a new generation of leaders doing an incredible job; they had a lot of zest and life for the work and had done some really creative things while I was away. As I watched, I excused myself from the room and knew I wasn’t needed, nor would I be returning. In this moment, I transitioned to a second chapter in my life, where my family had to come first, and this self-awareness changed my entire professional and personal experience moving forward.
“I went to my boss to tell him of my intention to retire. But instead, he said, ‘Carlos, you should probably do what you do best—inspire others.’ Cisco had always used me for presentations at customer events because I was one of the most requested speakers for motivating teams across departments. Thinking about this talent, meshed with my desire to honor my family values and combined with my passion for innovation, I decided to give it a shot and reinvent myself. I guess you can say I was finally acknowledging, after twenty years,
my practical genius, and through self-awareness and emotional intelligence I knew this was the right change—the only possibility—for me. It wasn’t easy and required a lot of soul-searching and logistical adjustments, but I knew I wanted to do something that could make a meaningful and measurable impact on the business. Since my decision, I have discovered that it’s been an incredible asset for me and the company and deeply rewarding. Gina, my life gives me joy.”
This is what I learned from Carlos: everywhere assets sit underutilized within a company, a community, a family—especially an asset operating in isolation, in a silo, where you’re innovating for the sake of the silo but not for the whole. Well, that sucks! By now you have to know that you really have to leverage everything you’ve got and access all the expertise you have and never prioritize one area over the other. Carlos could easily have retired to nestle down with his family. Instead he acted upon his own innovative, organic genius, creating a new role for himself based on the whole of who he is. Note to self: self-awareness—it’s powerful to connect the unlikely dots, to be the whole of yourself, and realize the product is a whole new and improved way to approach your work and life as one. Now, that’s innovation!
PORTRAIT OF A PRACTICAL GENIUS
Dr. Christiane Northrup is internationally known for her empowering approach to women’s health and wellness and is a leading proponent of medicine and healing that acknowledges the unity of the mind and body, as well as the powerful role of the human spirit in creating health. Following a career as a practicing physician in obstetrics and gynecology for more than twenty-five years, Dr. Northrup has dedicated herself to helping women (and the men who love them) learn how to flourish on all levels by creating health, prosperity, and pleasure in their lives.
When asked why the heart matters so much to genius, Dr. Northrup answered, “We’re not a brain on a stick. Genius thrives in a healthy body, and we live in a culture in which we have worshipped the brain, the intellect, the linear and the logical thinker within us. And I will tell you this: emotions always win, even if someone has to drop dead of a heart attack. Emotions always win. Knowing this, I have led my entire life toward ‘What is my unique contribution?’ And these decisions have been made based on my emotions. What moves me to tears, what inspires me and is right on that edge of joy-filled pain, pain-filled joy—that is what I go for. For example, when I first saw a baby being born, I thought I would fall to the floor weeping from the beauty of it all. And so I have followed that and when it comes to me—intuitively—I’m always really surprised.
“The intellect always wants to believe that it’s in control, and it isn’t. The spirit is in control. And the spirit is where genius comes from, and spirit resides in the heart. You know we say chance favors the prepared mind and that it takes about ten years to become an expert at anything; ten years of immersing oneself in a field. Now, that’s true, and yes, we all love the left-hemisphere kind of rigor, but it takes more than that. I’m a big fan of footnotes and scientific rigor and all the rest of it. But if it is not balanced with this more feminine faith-based receiving, it’s worthless because it’s exhausting and there’s no rest to my sympathetic tone without enough parasympathetic tone.”
Dr. Northrup’s empathetic ability to make connections between things that aren’t necessarily connected is remarkable, and speaking with her is like speaking with someone who has a direct line to the gods. So the next time you want to lead life from the head instead of the heart, think twice about that decision, for the heart and emotions, as Dr. Northrup shared, always win.
Practical genius is a self-selected lifestyle, where mind, body, and spirit consume content that provide critical sustenance to your genius. Living this lifestyle isn’t about dos and don’ts, it’s about making choices that feed you, elevate and expand your experience, and bring your awareness into brilliant detail. Keep these ideas in mind.
Time matters.
Input comes before output in the way a genius spends her time.