Inform Yourself

My good friend Jay Niblick, founder of Innermetrix International, recently completed a study called The Genius Project. His study became the basis for his latest book, What’s Your Genius?

“Gnothi Seauton” – Know Thyself. These words were inscribed above the entrance to the temple of Apollo at Delphi, the site of the sacred Oracle in Ancient Greece. People who visited the Oracle sought to find out what their destiny was or which course of action they should take in some particular matter. Ironically though, those who entered seeking guidance failed to truly understand the real meaning of the message right above their own heads. The message “Know Thyself” didn’t mean know for yourself – by asking someone else. It meant know of yourself as in “the answer lies within.” The best answers as to your destiny, or how to proceed, lie within you and the only way to get those answers is to know yourself by developing your own level of self-awareness. Your destiny is written by your own hand. While you may have been created with certain talents, what you do with those talents – your destiny – is up to you.

Aristotle said in the first line of the Metaphysics, “Man, by nature, desires to know.” Few would argue with this, but the key to success has a whole lot to do with what we know. The conventional belief on being successful focuses on having as much technical and factual knowledge as possible. A good lawyer must know the law, and a good scientist must know his or her science. While true that one should possess a significant amount of knowledge for the specifics of their job or work, the Genius Project highlighted self knowledge as another kind of knowledge that is even more important to success. Self knowledge involves a keen understanding of and awareness for one’s own self (e.g., talents, limitations, motivations, etc.).

When Descarte said, “I think, therefore I am”, he may have been correct, but knowing “I am” is quite a different story than knowing, and being honest to, what I am. To become self-aware you must transcend the simple awareness of “I am” to understand “what I am.” There is a whole lot that goes into what you are. You are a wonderfully unique and singular mix of physical, emotional and spiritual content. You are your emotions, your experiences, your genetics and your dreams. As a matter of fact, you are so much that a definitive understanding of exactly what you are is just impossible. The one aspect of what you are, however, that we are concerned with can be defined and known. That aspect is your normal mental habits for thinking and making decisions.

Self-awareness is the combination of these desires to know and acknowledge what you are. Yes, we need to know, and yes we need to know what we are, because this is the first evolution in your journey to becoming more authentic and eliminating The Problem from your life. Unlike the natural talent that it seeks to understand, self-awareness itself is actually an acquired skill. You can develop it, and it increases the more you practice it. This is great news because self-awareness is one of the keys to achieving the highest levels of performance. As self-awareness increases, so too do people’s levels of satisfaction. People with higher levels of self-awareness take time to first learn, and then understand, their natural talents. They recognize the situations that will make them successful, and this makes it easy for them to find ways of achieving objectives that fit their talents. They also understand their limitations and where they are not effective and this helps them understand where not to go or how not to be as well. Those who understand their natural talents are far more likely to pursue the right opportunities, in the right way, and get the results they desire.