But here’s the catch: the relation between IQ and success follows the law of diminishing returns. That is, when you compare two people of relatively high IQs, you can no longer predict success by IQ alone. A scientist with an IQ of 130 is just as likely to rise to the top of his discipline as one with an IQ of 180. (Location 21)
Just because someone is seven feet tall doesn’t mean he’s a better player than someone who’s six foot six (Michael Jordan’s height). The point is you only have to be tall enough to have a shot at the pros. The same pattern is true of intelligence and success in life. You only have to be smart enough to fulfill the intellectual requirements for success. History’s greatest achievers—practical, savvy people that did big things and changed the world—are heralded as the greatest geniuses to ever have walked the earth, but while many of them had remarkably high IQs, many others were just smart enough. If we can’t explain their success in terms of IQ alone, what else did they possess that allowed them to rise to such heights? Most people would answer along the lines of “extraordinary inherent talent.” And they would be wrong. (Location 28)
While many theories were put forth, there was one common factor that researchers recognized in all great performers: they practiced so hard and intensely that it hurt. (Location 56)
Studies of people with extraordinary abilities, like Ted Williams, have given rise to what Swedish psychologist Dr. K Anders Ericsson called the “10,000 hour” rule. The rule’s premise is that, regardless of whether one has an innate aptitude for an activity or not, mastery of it takes around ten thousand hours of focused, intentional practice. (Location 68)
What is generally recognized as “great talent” is, in almost all cases, nothing more than the outward manifestations of an unwavering dedication to a process. Thus, the advice of “work toward your ten thousand hours” sounds completely reasonable. Right? But there’s a problem. There are millions of people that work incredibly hard, yet have little success to show for it. Is ten thousand hours too simple of a prescription for greatness? Yes. It overlooks another aspect of great achievement that cannot be ignored: opportunities—conditions that often appear to be plain old dumb luck. (Location 77)
This extra developmental time predisposes you for selection onto more elite teams, which in turn leads to more ice time and better coaching, which advances your abilities even further. Sociologists call this phenomenon an “accumulative advantage.” For the elite Canadian junior hockey leagues, the result of this advantage was that for many years, the distribution of birth dates for the top performing kids was heavily weighted toward “first-quarter” babies—kids born between January and March. (Location 94)
Whether we’re talking birthdays in sports, or the fact that Bill Gates just happened to go to a high school that housed one of the most advanced computers of the time—a computer that most colleges didn’t even have—we can easily see that being in the right place (physical, educational, societal, or otherwise) at the right time can influence our destinies as much as anything else. (Location 98)
Most opportunities never announce themselves with trumpets and confetti. They’re easily missed, mistaken, or squandered. They can be scary. And they never come with a 110% money-back guarantee. They’re often nothing more than chances to improve on something other people are already doing. (Location 105)
Opportunities are whispers, not foghorns. If we can’t hear their soft rhythms—if we are too busy rushing about, waiting for thunderclaps of revelation, inspiration, and certainty—or if we can spot them but can’t nurture them into real advantages, then we might as well be blind to them. (Location 107)
Well, as the preeminent mythologist Joseph Campbell said, deep down inside, we don’t seek the meaning of life, but the experience of being alive. And that’s what the nature of genius is ultimately about. It’s about how we can empower ourselves to bring true meaning to our lives and the lives of others in ways most people would consider impossible. It’s about rising above a life of, as Thoreau said, “quiet desperation” that ends with our songs still in our hearts, and experience the rapture of truly living. It’s about saying yes to our adventures. (Location 149)
Note: Being alive
“Facts and ideas are dead in themselves and it is the imagination that gives life to them.” -W. I. B. Beveridge (Location 160)
The philosopher Edmund Burke said “there is a boundary to men’s passions when they act from feelings; but none when they are under the influence of imagination.” Imagination is the life force of the genius code. This force amplifies and colors every other piece of the code, and unlocks our potential for understanding and ability. It’s no coincidence that geniuses not only dare to dream of the impossible for their work, but do the same for their lives. They’re audacious enough to think that they’re not just an ordinary player. (Location 185)
There’s a lesson here. In every field of human endeavor, the more visionary the work, the less likely it is to be quickly understood and embraced by lesser minds. For one reason or another, many people just “don’t get it.” (Location 210)
His imagination was a factory with unlimited resources, and the world an exciting playground with unlimited possibilities. (Location 271)
Tesla’s selflessness was a testament not only to his generosity and goodwill, but his belief in his ability to continue to create his future. (Location 348)
This is the beauty of imagination. An unexpected dead end in one journey is merely an opportunity to set a new course for another. Losing what we have can only do us real harm when we feel we can’t create it, or something equally valuable or compelling, again, and that ability resides squarely in our imagination. (Location 350)
Tesla spent the 1920s working as an engineering consultant, regularly finding himself at odds with his employers due to the “impractical nature” of his plans and designs. (Location 460)
Einstein said that “imagination is more important than knowledge,” because “knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” (Location 500)
All great geniuses are incredibly creative in their own ways. They’re able to take what is known, dream of new possibilities, and bring them into the world. (Location 502)
Marcus Aurelius once said that a person’s life is “dyed with the color… (Location 505)
What is next? We look to the imagination of geniuses… (Location 508)
What is imagination, though? Michelangelo said he saw angels in the marble and carved until he set them free. Most of us regard creativity in the same way we regard that statement—as a mysterious gift that can’t be explained or cultivated. But we’re… (Location 509)
Steve Jobs said creativity is “just connecting things.” Salvador Dali said “those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.” Picasso said “good artists copy but great artists steal.” Mark Twain said “all ideas are second-hand, consciously and unconsciously drawn from a million outside sources.” No magnificent product of the… (Location 515)
When you start viewing creativity as a process of combination, and imagination as the ability to connect, stretch, and merge things in new ways, creative brilliance becomes less mystifying. A creative genius is just better at connecting the dots than others are. That’s why the coffee house in the Age of Enlightenment and the Parisian salons of modernism were such engines of creativity; they were spaces where many people… (Location 520)
Note: Connect
Don’t confuse creativity and imagination with “thinking” either. Ray Bradbury said that thinking is the enemy of creativity because it’s self-conscious. When you think you sit calmly and try to reason through something in a structured, logical way. Creativity dances to a different tune. Once you flip that switch, things get a bit chaotic. Ideas start buzzing. Images start popping into your head. Fragments of all kinds of data find their way into orbit. We’re pulled in one direction, then suddenly our instincts send us flying in another. Material collides and fuses, disappears… (Location 525)
Note: Creativity is chaotic
“Our first endeavors are purely instinctive prompting of an imagination vivid and undisciplined,” Tesla wrote. “As we grow older reason asserts itself and we become more and more systematic and designing. But those early impulses, though not immediately… (Location 530)
There’s a catch to “combinatorial creativity,” though. Before you can connect dots, you need to have dots to connect. The more material you’re exposed to in the world, the more… (Location 533)
Note: More dots. More connections
Tesla fully immersed himself in the world of electricity. He read hundreds of books. He conducted thousands of… (Location 534)
The more varied your knowledge and experiences are, the more likely you are to be able to create new… (Location 535)
Note: Varied
Your mind has an incredible ability to cross-pollinate—that is, to connect disparate things to solve problems in unique ways or envision new creations. Einstein attributed many of his physics breakthroughs to his violin breaks, which… (Location 536)
Note: Kruisbestuiving
This brings us back to the beginning of the genius code: curiosity. It’s an essential part of becoming more creative. Expand your interests in life. Seek out new, interesting experiences, no matter how mundane or inconsequential they might seem to others. Read books, watch documentaries, and discuss your ideas with others. No subject, no matter how specialized or… (Location 539)
“The air is full of ideas,” Henry Ford said. “They are knocking you in the head all the time. You only have to know what you want, then forget it, and go about your business. Suddenly, the… (Location 542)
By exposing yourself to an abundant variety of ideas, facts, art, and stories, and by pulling from your vast collection in many different ways—by entertaining any idea no matter how… (Location 544)
Note: Entertaining any idea
It takes curiosity to find your call to adventure, it takes courage to venture into the unknown, and it takes imagination to create your path. And to, like Tesla did, create it exactly as you envision it, no matter how… (Location 549)
Note: Curiosity. Courage. imagination
What ends will you work toward on your journey, and why? Where will you diverge from the trails laid by people before you, and where will you go instead? How will you tackle problems faced by your predecessors, and what will you do that they didn’t? When will your eureka moments strike? A genius answers those questions audaciously and lavishly. She dares to imagine everything… (Location 551)
Note: The question
