Read on if you are curious about one way to generate your own genius (regardless of whether you are in marketing or in business.)
Read on if you are feeling stuck in moving your marketing, business or projects forward.
Read on if you are wishing to always improve your marketing and your business / leadership mind.
Genius: The Mixed Blessing … and why I would not change my life?
I work with awe-inspiring visionaries everyday.
I have been doing this for at least the last 15 years or more.
Working with visionaries gives me ideas and the courage to take on more.
Working with visionaries leaves me humbled but not with false modesty to avoid stretching myself for greater things.
Everyday.
Everyday is a blessing and everyday is a curse.
A curse, because along with the blessing of exciting my neurons with amazing ideas,
comes the curse of doubts, second thoughts, ‘yeah-buts’ and “I just can’t do thats” and closer relatives of these thoughts.
“You can resolve all sorts of problems and gain a better self-assessment,
when you are willing to consider yourself as a working genius
and ignore what yourself and others think about that, no matter what your past is.”
— Sunil Bhaskaran.
“Most people value insight and clarity.
Few are willing to work for it.”
— Sunil Bhaskaran.
How do you build your own “Working Genius”?
1. Moving away from Ineffective Questions towards Effective Questions.
People who start out in business or in any big venture tend to ask questions like “How will I know this is a good idea?”,
“How can I avoid failure?”, “What are the tips and hacks (I detest this word) to get to success?”.
Then there are the people who answer (I have been foolish enough in the past to have done so 🙂 .)
The truth is whilst there may be some genuinely decent answers to these questions, life and business alike are too complicated to really
give an overall accurate answer to any of these.
If you examine these questions, they are based in the past (e.g. referring to times that you have succeeded or failed) or they
are based in survival (e.g. avoiding ruining your reputation which could harm your ability to make money and feed yourself or your family.)
These are valid concerns but the inquiry into these questions do not yield much.
I invite you to consider that more effective questions are based in the future.
e.g.. If this did work, how could I make it work.. or even more successful than what I thought?
e.g What defines success for me in the future?
e.g. What does not define success for me in the future?
e.g. What would serve my community and me and my family in the future?
e.g. What would people pay for such services?
2. A new of way of Being Courageous – Thinking Bigger to Resolve Doubts and Fears.
There are different forms of courage. But courage in the world of being a visionary is different. Visionaries recognize each other by
their demonstrated courage in moving forward with ideas where others refrain, step back or run away.
This is partly why visionaries are considered crazy sometimes. This is also why some visionaries who are successful are considered ‘god-like’.
(Most visionaries who are true to themselves will tell you that this god workshop is unnecessary.)
Bringing courage in answering the future based questions brings one from a ‘near-life-experience’ to one of feeling alive, challenged
and genuinely passionate.
3. How do you define Your Genius?
List out all the times when someone called you a genius. List out all the times when you unexpectedly or expectedly hit success.
What did you have to be, do or have in order to make that happen?
Chances are … each person is different in their genius approach. Identify your access:
a. Being e.g. being unstoppable or persistent e.g. being outrageous but loving.
b. Doing – what habits or practices did you follow?
c. Having – what results, resources, people you know, etc. that you can leverage?
4. Imagining good reasons for other geniuses to meet you.
Why would other geniuses want to connect with you?
e.g. You feel their pain and their power / abilities.
e.g. You have resources that they want to share with you along with their resources.
e.g. They feel alone and wish to connect with someone like-minded.
What other reasons can you think of?
If you had 5 more geniuses in your community, how would your life be different?
5. THE GOLDEN AVENUE TO GENIUS: TAKE 1,000 Percent Responsibility – even where it is unreasonable to do so.
This goes along with the genius ability to say ‘what will happen in the future and then make it happen.’ This requires
boldness (not necessarily brashness but boldness.)
You are saying this is how it should/will go because you say so and you are willing to do what it takes and beyond to make it happen.
This includes halting ALL blaming including people you pay. If you hire someone as an employee or as a consultant, it is still incumbent upon you
to take the full mantle of leadership 1,000+ percent to make sure that the goals and vision are realized inside of that partnership.
Hands-off ownership of your business or project is a fantasy unless you have tons of money – and even then.. I think it is an unsustainable fantasy.
6. THE PLATINUM AVENUE TO GENIUS: Exercise Extreme Patience.
If you want overnight results, I would plead with you to examine these needs unless you are in survival mode.
Going for overnight results has consequences – usually not good. Even though it may give you a sense of urgency,
it typically precludes ‘real thinking’. Genius comes with patience. Some of your ideas will fail but you must try them,
or else never learn enough in the long term about what it really takes to create sustainable and continued breakthroughs
for yourself and the people around you.
7. GOLD AND PLATINUM LEVEL: Build an audience, Make Requests & Grow your network and Create a Support System.
Part of the reason why competition exists is that people think that resources are scarce: e.g.money is scarce, customers are scarce etc.
Nothing wrong with competition except that if you only compete, then you are operating within scarcity and there is no other option for expansive growth.
But if you shift that thinking from scarcity (or a zero sum game) to that ‘maybe there is more than enough for everyone’, then the idea of
building collaborations whilst you are competing starts making more sense and could yield more than you think.
What do I suggest? Build a large audience of followers and an audience of collaborations – potential and current. Ask them to engage and work with you.
Practice the art and science of influential, difference making conversations designed to engage and create commitments.
Slow down on the opinions, increase your influence – look to see how you can get massive things done with a clear mind and an effective
tongue that speaks the future. If you feel overwhelmed by this: HINT = you don’t have to work with everyone, just the ones that will commit.
SECOND HINT: If you do not have a community of visionaries or cheerleaders around you, this could be the single most important thing to start working on
today.
Actions to take:
a. Get our free trainings on building an engaged audience – massive and high level connectors (who are interesting and interested enough).
b. Reach out to me if you are serious and wish to invest time, money and energy to make this concrete –
www.MeetupChat.com .
Have I perhaps oversimplified? Of course I have!
Working genius requires work – dialogue, refinement, tears, blood, sweat, friends, enemies, struggle, complexity … and joy, aliveness, embracing of
work and more.
If you already see this, come and speak with me – we should at least have a cigar or a cup of coffee – time and relevance permitting.
If you are ready for more, come to an event, reach out to me (
www.MeetupChat.com) or just get in touch somehow using your working genius.
If you are not ready, I understand. Working genius is not a perfect life – it is not for everyone
– it is for those who choose and if you choose not to,
you can still have a good life.
Here’s to having a good … and great life!
Sunil Bhaskaran
for again this year. You can drop off unwrapped toys at our office until Dec 10th.
