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?

There is an old cliché in real estate that the three most things in real estate are: location, location, and location. This is also very true in the world of individual performance and success. My use of location in this sense represents where you are standing in the future, what your roles will be, what your job duties are. If all of us have talents, why aren’t we all equally as successful? Granted there are lots of contributing factors as to why one person may be more successful than another, but one major reason we see such diversity in performance is where we live (and I don’t mean our street address). Everyone may indeed have talents, but unfortunately not everyone does as good a job of positioning themselves in a location (i.e., job or role) that is a great match for their talents. Many people occupy locations where their success depends on their non-talents more than their talents. The geniuses among us do a great job of knowing what they are good at and not good at, then finding or creating a locating for themselves (roles, jobs, etc.) that accentuate their strengths and minimize any weaknesses. A good location is one that allows you to depend as much as possible on their talents, and as little as possible on their non-talents. Geniuses occupy locations that allow them to be authentic, that allow them to be more successful.

There are a lot of analogies that demonstrate the significance of location. Imagine you were a dune buggy. Your natural strengths would be for racing in the desert, over rough terrain, in horrible conditions that required very high body clearance, an insane amount of suspension, lots of raw power and huge tires that get good traction in the soft sand. These are your talents as a dune buggy. Now, would it make any sense at all to take that dune buggy and enter it in a NASCAR or Formula One race? It would seem obvious to us that attempting to race a dune buggy in a formula one race wouldn’t make any sense because the differences between the strengths of the dune buggy and the strengths required by the location (i.e., the tight, winding city streets some old European town) are so blatant. Athletes are another good analogy for the importance of location.

Take Peyton Manning or Michael Jordan and switch their location. How well would Peyton Manning, a star NFL Quarterback, perform as a Kicker or offensive lineman? How well did Michael Jordan actually perform as a professional baseball player? When it comes to finding the right location for our natural talents, the non-physical ones, the matter of fit is just as important.

The problem is, our thinking talents are not as obvious or observable as are our physical talents. Failing to find the right location in which to apply your potential, however, has the same kind of negative impact. How much of a genius would Albert Einstein have been as a marriage counselor? Would Oprah make a brilliant administrative assistant? Would the world remember Patton the artist, or Van Gogh the military commander? In the wrong location, all of these geniuses would have never been considered the best at what they do. These examples may seem obvious and silly to you, but due to the legacy of dependence many people suffer from, many still believe it is the company, or others, who are better suited for determining their best location. As Peter Drucker, the elder statesman of management wisdom, says,” even today, remarkably few Americans are prepared to select jobs [location] for themselves.”

You are the best one to determine your best location. You are the only one who can hear those voices in your head and understand your own best path. Unfortunately, our natural talents are much less obvious then our physical talents, therefore many times the best location is not as obvious to us. We don’t realize we are a dune buggy, or that we are the only dune buggy in the race. As a result we attempt to modify the dune buggy with a new suspension, different tires, and other “developmental” efforts to try and make it fit the location better. As silly as this would be for the physical world of a racecar, that’s what people all over the world do when they find themselves in the wrong race. They fail to see the incompatibility between themselves and the race they are competing in and they spend a great majority of their time trying to change themselves to fit their role better – all the meanwhile the race goes on while they are stuck in the pits trying to modify their racecar. Understanding your natural talents better, and then understanding which roles you fill and how you fill them is the key to reaching the 5th level of performance. Geniuses do a great job of finding roles and setting goals where their talents are optimally aligned with the demands of the environment. In a way, Geniuses are expert real estate agents.

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?

~ You can’t control what talents you possess but you definitely can control what you do with them ~

Geniuses are two things: self-aware and authentic. Now that you have met your genius – again – and have become more self-aware, you have the first part of the puzzle. The next few posts will show you how to take that awareness and become authentic to it.

Three Parts of Authenticity
There are three parts to choosing your authentic self, or choosing how you will become authentic. First, you must have a clear strategic vision for where you want to go (your Point B on your life map). This requires creating a vision, and goals, for where you want to go that are authentic (i.e., based on your natural talents). Second, you must know what to do in the present, on a daily basis level, to reach those future goals. Third, you have to believe in yourself and that you not only deserve to reach these goals, but that you can. These three aspects of becoming authentic are formally known as:

• Self-Direction: your clarity for the future authentic self you will become. This is your point B on your life map and it is comprised of the authentic goals that you set for yourself.

• “Roal” Awareness: your clarity for understanding how to merge your authentic future goals with your real-life roles (goals + roles = Roals by the way)

• Self-Belief: your level of belief in yourself at this point in your life

Part 1: Self-Direction
“One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. ‘Which road do I take?’ she asked. ‘Where do you want to go?’ was his response. ‘I don't know’, Alice answered. ‘Then,’ said the cat, ‘it doesn't matter.” When Lewis Carroll wrote these lines in his book Alice in Wonderland, he may not have realized how poignant they were when it comes to becoming a genius, but before you can get somewhere, you have to know where that somewhere is. Everything that is created is created twice; first in the mind, then in reality. Not knowing where they want to go - in your mind - is one of the most common problems I see with my clients. If you don’t know where you are going (what your concept is, who you are to become), how will you get there or even know when you have arrived?

Creating a clear picture of where you want to go is vital to reaching the 5th level of performance. Without this guide it is easy to get lost, just as easy as getting lost in the wilderness without a map, compass or GPS. Just like the racecar driver needs to know the race course in order to maximize every ounce of energy and second of time, so too do you need to be completely aware of where you want to go. Your natural talents may be the Ferrari, but your understanding for how to use those talents is like the racecar driver.

When the driver doesn’t know the course well, he goes too slowly around one corner and too fast around others - because he isn’t sure exactly where it goes. He slows down as he approaches a hill because he isn’t quite sure what lies on the other side. Lack of clarity for your direction in life is one of the most crippling issues people who are inauthentic suffer.

Not having a clear self-direction in life has a very negative impact on your ability to perform at peak levels. When you don’t have a clear understanding in your own head of where you want to go you are leaving some portion of your potential talent as just that - potential.

The main questions you must answer for yourself, which this chapter will help you do, are:
• What does your future self look like?
• How authentic is that future vision or image?
• What specific talents will your success depend on and what non-talents will you not depend on?
• What will your future roles look like (location)?