Awaken Your Genius

“Care about other people’s approval, and you become their prisoner.” – Lao Tzu. Are you ready to awaken the genius inside you and break free from limiting beliefs?

1. Genius Is Innate, but We Forget

Many of us are born as unique individuals, rich with creativity and boundless potential. However, school, work, and societal expectations often smother this uniqueness. Creativity declines steadily from childhood to adulthood, as shown by Hallmark artist Gordon Mackenzie’s observation during school visits. When he asked students if they were artists, nearly all first-graders identified as such, but by sixth grade, only a few did.

Reclaiming genius starts with recognizing how the structured environments of life strip away your authenticity. These environments prioritize conformity over individuality, rewarding compliance instead of exploration. Consequently, you forget your original creativity and individuality.

You can start recovering this greatness by questioning these imposed narratives. Understanding your unique combination of lineage, experiences, and inherent qualities creates the foundation for rediscovering your genius.

Examples

• Children's natural creativity declines due to rigid schooling environments.
• Many adults lose touch with their artistic or inventive sides because of societal pressures.
• Reclaiming individuality helps reconnect with powerful ideas from past experiences.

2. The Death: Shedding Outdated Layers

The first step in awakening your genius is letting go of what no longer serves you. Like Gillian Lynne, the choreographer of Cats, who found freedom through dance after a misfit childhood, you must release habits or roles that confine you. This requires dismantling harmful identities to make space for new possibilities.

Your attachments to roles, possessions, or external markers of success can hinder growth. For example, being "the lawyer" isn't all you are. By limiting yourself to one role or label, you diminish your complexity. Likewise, clinging to these layers keeps you from building something new.

Question your choices, entertain doubts, and embrace uncertainty. In doing so, you create space for the authentic version of yourself. Sitting still amidst this chaos is difficult but will prepare you for transformation.

Examples

• Lynne embraced dance to escape a misaligned school system.
• Releasing static labels (e.g., "doctor" or "successful") enables greater self-discovery.
• Detachment from material indicators (cars, houses) empowers identity shifts.

3. The Birth: Recombining Your Unique Talents

Rebirth involves identifying and rearranging your core skills and passions. Think about YouTube, originally designed as a dating site but reimagined into the world-changing platform we use today. Similarly, you must take apart your perceived identity and retrieve usable building blocks for something new.

Your talents and quirks might initially seem trivial, but in fact, they define you. These can be unexpected combinations like being a lawyer with a love for filmmaking. Keeping an energy journal can also help you identify what invigorates you and what exhausts you.

Avoid relying on external validation—awards or societal recognition rarely tell the full story of someone's talent. Whether it’s Jason Alexander not winning an Emmy for Seinfeld or Isaac Asimov writing over 260 books before gaining mainstream recognition, persistence trumps approval.

Examples

• YouTube's failed launch as a dating site paved the way for its rebirth.
• Keeping a journal highlights energizing activities to shape your path.
• Jason Alexander's career shows talent can flourish without constant accolades.

4. Embrace Playfulness to Spark Creativity

To unleash creativity, you need to nourish your inner sense of play. Over-research or reliance on external input, like Google searches, can stifle this process. Instead, free-form exploration or activities like journaling and brainstorming stimulate new breakthroughs.

Physical movement also encourages creativity. A Stanford study indicated that walking before creative activities increased idea generation. Moreover, projects like Charles Darwin’s "fun" reading in geology led to his groundbreaking theories.

Play isn’t just for children—it’s essential for adults, too. Even The Office cast wrote ideas for other shows when stuck. Changing your work labels—such as calling an office "a lab"—can also help reframe thought patterns.

Examples

• Walking boosted creativity scores in a Stanford experiment.
• Darwin's interest in geology laid the groundwork for evolutionary theory.
• The Office team generated ideas by stepping outside their usual format.

5. Question the World Around You

Our modern age allows instant access to information, but we often fail to question what we consume. Many cultural “facts,” like breakfast being the most important meal of the day, originate from marketing (in this case, cereal maker Kellogg’s).

Sometimes, taking advice from mentors and guides comes with hidden biases as well. For example, Henry David Thoreau’s iconic retreat to Walden was less isolated than advertised—his mother visited regularly with baked goods, and he frequently dined at Ralph Waldo Emerson’s.

Questioning everything, from social norms to mentors' advice, leads to more thoughtful engagement with the world. Even the most trusted authorities can have blind spots, so remaining critical helps shape your individual journey.

Examples

• The phrase "breakfast is the most important meal" stems from marketing propaganda.
• Thoreau’s experience at Walden Pond was more interconnected than portrayed.
• Skepticism toward gurus grounds you in reality, avoiding one-size-fits-all fixes.

6. Let Go of Fears About the Future

Obsessing over problems that have yet to happen wastes energy. Asking yourself, “Will it help?” can keep you present. For instance, researching plane crash statistics before traveling won’t reduce anxiety but only reinforce unnecessary fears.

The future is unpredictable. If you tie your life to rigid plans, you may miss out on unplanned adventures. The story of Britain’s peppered moths during the Industrial Revolution beautifully illustrates this—changing environmental conditions flipped their survival dynamics almost overnight.

By bending to these changes and letting go of rigid self-concepts or plans, you make room for unanticipated but beautiful transformations, like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly.

Examples

• Fear-driven research, like plane safety studies, can heighten anxiety.
• Britain’s peppered moth adaptation shows unpredictability at every turn.
• Accepting change mirrors a butterfly’s growth from a caterpillar.

7. Seek Many Voices, But Forge Your Path

While guidance from others can be valuable, people offer advice based on their own experiences, not yours. Steve Jobs dropping out of college may have worked for him, but the same path won’t suit everyone.

Remember also that success stories focus only on survivors. Thousands of tech entrepreneurs drop out every year trying to be the next Jobs, but we don’t hear about their failures. Diversity in advice ensures you stay grounded in reality.

When following others’ paths, adapt their lessons thoughtfully. Their successes may inspire, but their context is personal to them, not universal.

Examples

• Jobs’ dropout success doesn’t mean everyone should leave school.
• Success stories generally ignore unsuccessful counterparts.
• A diversity of perspectives helps refine personal goals.

8. Trust Your Gut Instinct

Instead of relentlessly seeking external approval, tune into your inner guidance system. Honest self-reflection—not influenced by validation or criticism—yields better life choices.

For example, when struggling creatively, ask yourself what feels honest rather than searching for “correctness” or perfection. This internal compass aligns you closely with authentic decisions.

Letting the inner voice guide you provides clarity, freeing you from others' potentially limiting opinions.

Examples

• Trusting your voice fosters creative freedom.
• Reflection promotes alignment over external input.
• Gut instincts often provide valuable truth in murky situations.

9. Protect Your Attention

In today’s hyper-connected world, your attention is preyed upon constantly. Redirecting focus from endless notifications or social media consumption allows you to hone what truly matters.

Reserving mental energy for genuinely important projects ensures long-term satisfaction over fleeting distractions.

Set boundaries for your mental space and cultivate mindfulness to magnify your ability to awaken creativity.

Examples

• Turn off phone alerts to avoid scattering focus.
• Streamline social media use to preserve mental bandwidth.
• Setting time aside for reflection empowers intentional decision-making.

Takeaways

1. Question what drains or energizes you through regular reflection or journaling.
2. Release outdated or rigidself-concepts and embrace continuous rebirth.
3. Spend regular time disconnected to foster internal creativity and authentic decisions.