Are Geniuses Born Or Made?
“Your level of success in life is essentially determined by how well you harness your body and your mind”
Methods As Good Insurance
The question of method versus genius always troubles people. And most leaders often fail to articulate their genius and constrict their potentiality by following the methods they have employed, as genius is not something you can speak about – your life speaks about it in many different ways.
On that note, there is always a process and a method for any activity to successfully take place, but there is also a genius. Methods are good insurance to fall back on, but without the spark of genius it may not work the way you want it to.
For, even though you may have a perfect method, you may remain mediocre for the rest of your life. So, is genius something that you are born with? Or is it something that one can develop? Is there a method for that too? The answer is, yes there is!
A Method To Genius Story
These thoughts on method and genius bring to mind a beautiful situation that once occurred with Henry Ford. Since I am very interested in any machine that works, I have been to most of the large machinery plants and particularly automobile industries.
On one of my tours to the research wing of Ford Motor Company in Detroit, I was talking to a senior scientist who has been there for over 35 years and who holds over 52 patents for different things that are being used in automobiles worldwide today. During the course of this visit, he told me a story.
Don’t Make Mediocrity The Way Of Life
Once, Henry Ford found that a lot of things happening in Ford Motor Company were not very efficient and were going all over the place. Hence, he decided to hire an efficiency expert. The expert came and went from office to office, person to person. straightening up all the key people in many different ways.
But one day he came and complained to Henry Ford saying, 1 have been fixing up almost everybody here, but there is one guy who just doesn’t listen. And most of the time when I walk into his office he’s got his feet on the table and is smoking a cigar. He does nothing. And he is one of the most highly paid employees in the company. I checked on him and I have spied on him. He does nothing. He’s unwilling to take any Instructions from me. So you’ve got to fire this guy.”
When the expert mentioned his name, Henry said, “Don’t disturb him. Last time he had his feet on the table and was smoking a cigar, he came up with a billion dollar idea.”
This incident resonates with the fact that, it we do not set up or allow a situation where somewhere there is some sparks beyond the method, then mediocrity will be the way of life. But method is always an insurance to tall back on, because genius may not be sparking every day, every moment.
There Is No Human Being Without Genius
A few years ago, a group of doctors from United States visited India. They went to visit my father without asking me because they wanted to talk to ‘Sadhguru’s father.’ During the course of the conversation they asked him, “How was Sadhguru when he was a child?” My father thought about it and said, “He was such a dull boy, but suddenly he’s become a genius!”
Hence, there is no human being without genius. There is a method to incubate and activate a genius within you. But is it sparking or is it buried under a huge method of life? Method need not necessarily mean the business processes.
People are trying to evolve method for every aspect of life. In all this heap of methods, the spark of genius simply gets buried but there is no human being who does not have it. It just needs an appropriate atmosphere to find a proper expression.
To create an inner atmosphere where this can burst out, one important aspect is paying some attention to the basic vehicles with which you travel this lite. And here, I’m not talking about your Mercedes I’m taking about your body and mind. Not enough attention has been paid to these things but your level of success in lite is essentially determined by how well you harness your body and your mind.