The Secret Principles of Genius Read online

  The Secret Principles of Genius

  The Key to Unlocking Your Hidden Genius Potential

  By I. C. Robledo

  I. C. Robledo’s Books

  The Secret Principles of Genius: The Key to Unlocking Your Hidden Genius Potential

  Copyright © 2016 by Issac Robledo.

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the author. Brief passages may be quoted for review purposes.

  Disclaimer

  Although the author and publisher have made every effort to ensure that the information in this book was correct at press time, the author and publisher do not assume and hereby disclaim any liability to any party for any loss, damage, or disruption caused by errors or omissions, whether such errors or omissions result from negligence, accident, or any other cause.

  This book is not intended as a substitute for the medical advice of physicians. The reader should regularly consult a physician in matters relating to his/her health and particularly with respect to any symptoms that may require diagnosis or medical attention.

  The views expressed are those of the author alone and should not be taken as expert instruction or commands. The reader is responsible for his or her own actions.

  Adherence to all applicable laws and regulations, including international, federal, state, and local governing professional licensing, business practices, advertising, and all other aspects of doing business in the US, Canada, or any other jurisdiction is the sole responsibility of the purchaser or reader.

  Neither the author nor the publisher assumes any responsibility or liability whatsoever on the behalf of the purchaser or reader of these materials.

  Any perceived slight of any individual or organization is purely unintentional.

  Table of Contents

  Introduction

  Why I Wrote This Book

  Why the Secret Principles Matter to Me

  What the Secret Principles of Genius Can Do for You

  What Does it Mean to Be a Genius?

  The Importance of These Principles

  Unblock the Path to Genius

  Personal Qualities of Genius

  Secret Principle #1: Senses

  Secret Principle #2: Curiosity

  Secret Principle #3: Adaptation

  Secret Principle #4: Challenge

  Secret Principle #5: Vision

  Secret Principle #6: Uniqueness

  Secret Principle #7: Perfection

  Secret Principle #8: Perseverance

  Secret Principle #9: Work

  Learning

  Secret Principle #10: Initiative

  Secret Principle #11: Foundations

  Secret Principle #12: Depth

  Secret Principle #13: Notes

  Secret Principle #14: Masters

  Secret Principle #15: Classics

  Secret Principle #16: Experience

  Secret Principle #17: Connections

  Thinking, Strategies, Problem-Solving

  Secret Principle #18: Question

  Secret Principle #19: Objectivity

  Secret Principle #20: Simplify

  Secret Principle #21: Define

  Secret Principle #22: Patterns

  Secret Principle #23: Anomalies

  Secret Principle #24: Analysis

  Secret Principle #25: Analogy

  Secret Principle #26: Perspective

  Secret Principle #27: Intuition

  Secret Principle #28: Freedom

  Secret Principle #29: Problem

  Concluding Thoughts

  Stay Humble

  Bringing it All Together

  Thank You

  An Invitation to Join the “Top 1% Club”

  Share the Book

  More Books by I. C. Robledo

  Introduction

  “Everyone is born a genius, but the process of living de-geniuses them.”

  – R. Buckminster Fuller, American architect, systems theorist, author, designer and inventor.

  Why I Wrote This Book

  The idea for this book has been on my mind for quite a long time. I’ve had an interest in the minds, abilities, and lives of geniuses for many, many years. I used to think the genius mind must process information so much faster than normal. I believed those people who were geniuses must have had an easy life with a mind so powerful. I also believed the accomplishments of many geniuses would have been impossible for anyone else. This was naïve, as since then I have found this thinking to be misguided. I have learned a great deal through my investigations of brilliant minds, and I want to share that with you. I assure you this will be an eye-opening experience.

  Briefly, I want to share with you how I first started learning about genius minds, and how I became fascinated with the topic. I studied psychology at Purdue University in Indiana. While I was there, I often went to the Hicks Undergraduate Library in between classes. Once, I was browsing through the books on the shelves, and one called Terman’s Kids: The Groundbreaking Study of How the Gifted Grow Up caught my attention. It was about a longitudinal study, examining the lives of many gifted students, reporting on their accomplishments as they grew up. I quickly finished the book, and the insightful details in it made me want to learn even more. This book was really just the beginning. I have since read many other formal studies, books, and a wide range of sources on intelligence, genius, and giftedness.

  After I had read many books and absorbed a great deal of information about brilliant people, I started to wonder if there were principles of genius anyone could learn and apply. However, I never found a book quite like the one I was looking for. There wasn’t one that clearly stated principles many geniuses through history have used, in a way that could be easily understood and applied. I knew these principles existed, but it was as if they were secret, or hidden away, waiting to be discovered. This motivated me to delve deeper, investigating what these principles may be, and ultimately compiling them into this book. In the end, I believe this will be a helpful resource to learning how geniuses think and work, and to unleashing your own genius potential.

  Why the Secret Principles Matter to Me

  Growing up, I often had a sense that I wasn’t using my mind to its full capability. I tended to do well enough at school or in any work I needed to do, but I knew I had more potential. It frustrated me that I didn’t know how to use my mind to its full power. This feeling started when I was a child, but it persisted into my teens and even into my early adulthood. I felt that there had to be a better way to think, learn, and solve problems. I often felt stuck, trying to figure out the best way to think through a problem, but unable to make any progress. To make things more frustrating, I had no idea where to go for help with this.

  For a while, I gave up. I gave up on improving myself, thinking there was no way to move forward. My mind stagnated, and I stopped moving forward with my goals. I was accumulating facts, but not truly learning, understanding, or advancing myself in any meaningful way. I fear this is common in society. We give up on ourselves too easily. This sort of thing tends to happen when we’re young, naïve and fragile, because we don’t know any better.

  When I had given up, I sometimes felt completely lost both in school and life, like I didn’t truly know or understand anything deeply. I was able to earn decent grades without understanding the material, which seemed backward and strange to me. But this became a terrible pattern, which made me feel less and less intelligent, as my grades showed that I understood things which I really did not. Luckily, after years of no real progress in my abilities, I decided my life was headed in the wrong direction. So I dedicated myself to solving the problem. But the first question was “What is the p
roblem?” Ultimately, I realized that I needed principles to follow which would set my mind on a better path. My mind felt untrained, unfocused, and even unintelligent. But I had a sense that I was not truly unintelligent. I just needed to train my mind to work better and get it focused again. This would help me to feel and act more intelligently. I would be more confident too, and as a result I would never give up on myself again.

  And so I set out to discover what these principles could be….

  What the Secret Principles of Genius Can Do for You

  I want you to think about what intelligence is for a moment. Intelligence is usually thought of as something that happens in the mind. But intelligence is also a behavior. Intelligence manifests itself through actions we take. Rather than focus on the intelligent thoughts that lead to intelligent behaviors, what if we could flip this around? What if we could focus on the intelligent behaviors that lead to intelligent thoughts? Of course, some of this book does focus on thoughts, but the main focus is on concrete actions we can take to lead intelligent lives. Whether you think you are very smart, or not as smart as you would like to be, I believe the Secret Principles of Genius will help you in building a peak performing mind.

  One of the big motivations for me to write this book was that I didn’t want anyone to give up on themselves, like I once did. Giving up is the worst thing you can do. When you give up, you stop seeing possibilities and opportunities. Everything becomes clouded in darkness. You will feel that you are not especially intelligent, but you will blame it on yourself, probably on your genetics or laziness. But the truth is if you keep an open mind, allow yourself to wake up to reality, and apply the principles in this book, you can start on your own path to genius. No one can stop you if you choose to move in that direction. But if you give up, no one will be able to help you either.

  Even if you are fully confident in your abilities, and you aren’t sure if this book is for you, I want you to consider this. If everything goes well in our childhood, then our families, parents, and educators will do everything they can to prepare us for the future. They often mean the best, and do everything in their power to show us the proper path. This involves the proper way to lead our lives, the way to success, and so forth. But there is something missing… I get a mental image here of a baby bird, up sky high in a nest somewhere. Sooner or later, you find yourself in the position of this bird. You feel unprepared, looking down at a hundred feet of air between you and the ground. You look at your tiny wings, and they don’t seem strong or big enough yet. You decide it’s best to wait for another day to fly. But wait a minute! Something bumps you from behind (maybe the wind, or even your mother) and you go shooting down fast toward the ground. You flap your wings so hard that you didn’t think it was possible. You’re flying, you’re falling, you’re flying, and you’re falling! Are you going to land safely? Are you going to hurt yourself terribly? Sooner or later, even as people, not birds, we will find ourselves in such situations. And we will feel completely unprepared, no matter what we were taught.

  For example, you may find yourself in situations where you are uncertain what is happening, what to do, where to turn. The Secret Principles of Genius can help with this. You may feel that everything you thought you knew was wrong. You have to start from scratch and you aren’t sure how to start over, abandoning everything you had learned. The principles can help with this. You may be faced with the most difficult problem of your life. It seems impossible and you can feel the weight of it heavy on your shoulders. The principles can help with this, too. But this isn’t a manual to use when you have a specific overwhelming problem that needs to be taken care of right away. The greatest benefits come when the principles are applied on a daily basis. Then, when you find yourself deep in the unknown, possibly with no one to help you, you will be much better prepared to manage for yourself.

  I am aware that the image of a baby bird falling from its nest can seem overly dramatic. Perhaps you have never experienced anything quite that unsettling. But life can be unpredictable. We don’t know what challenges we will need to face in the future. In my young adulthood, I often felt lost and confused. Sometimes that feeling led to great stress, and at times I did feel like the falling bird, uncertain where I would end up. But when I began to discover the principles, this changed. I started to feel more in control of my life. I started to have a better understanding of people and the world. The road to progress became much clearer. The feelings of being lost started to fade away.

  My point is if you find this book at the right time, you can use it to transform your life. I have used the contents of it to transform my own, so I know it can be done. I know you can do it.

  What Does it Mean to Be a Genius?

  If you have ever known a brilliant person, they make certain things look easy and natural. In their presence, you may get the sense that what they do really isn’t so tough. Maybe with a bit of time and effort you too could have painted the Mona Lisa. But the truth is they put a great deal of work in to attain that level of ability. Here is a quick story to show you what I mean.

  Legend has it that Pablo Picasso, the famous renaissance artist, was sitting in a Paris café when a gentleman came to him and asked if he could do a quick drawing on a napkin. Picasso politely agreed. Quickly and seemingly without effort, he made the drawing, and was about to hand back the napkin — but first he asked for a huge amount of money. The gentleman was shocked: “Why would you ask for so much? It only took you a minute to draw this!” “No”, Picasso said, “It took me 40 years.”

  Picasso was cleverly showing that just because he created masterful work on a napkin, made it look easy, and did it fast, doesn’t mean it was always this way. It took him 40 years of hard work to get that good.

  Genius often appears to occur instantly, automatically, or effortlessly, but the truth is that it is the furthest thing from this. We all wish these things were true, but wishing it, rather than abiding by the principles and doing the work required, is what will prevent most of us from advancing our intellect to a higher level. Understand that the outcomes of genius may appear easy, but the process to get there is not.

  How can we define genius? To me, a genius is someone with a brilliant mind who has had great accomplishments in a challenging field, and changed the world in some meaningful way. As vague as this definition may seem, the essence of genius is limitless. There appear to be no bounds to what geniuses can accomplish. To define it much further, is to limit something that is supposed to be limitless. Keep in mind that geniuses can occur in virtually any field – it could be music, art, science, math, literature, architecture, or something else. You may think you would know when you are in its presence, but perhaps not. Often times, the genius is only understood by another one, or by at least someone who is an expert in the same field. For example, if you only know basic math, a genius who is solving the most difficult problems in the field will go unnoticed.

  There is another perspective I would like to offer, which everyone may not agree with. Genius is defined not just by outcomes, such as a masterful work of architecture or a brilliant solution to a math problem no one has been able to solve for years. It is also defined by the expectations we have for a specific entity. I say entity because we have different expectations for humans than for dogs or for the intelligence of computers (e.g., artificial intelligence). Likewise, we have different expectations for people with different backgrounds. We will not expect the same abilities from someone who lives with nature, away from society and technology (such as indigenous tribes of Papua, New Guinea) as we would from an artist living in New York City. The former is more likely to have excellent survival skills in the wild, and the latter is more likely to be familiar with art and culture.

  As a last point, in case you are not convinced, consider computer intelligence. Do you think a computer is ingenious because it can calculate thousands of math operations in a second, while it would take you days or weeks to do the same thing? Probably not, because we ex
pect it to be able to do such things. They have so much processing power that it is trivial for the computer to accomplish this. Yet the late Kim Peek, whose life inspired the movie Rain Man starring Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman, was considered a genius by many. He has actually been referred to as a mega-savant for his phenomenal abilities. For example, he had the ability to calculate many times faster than a human with a calculator could. And he was known to speed-read, with a perfect memory of what he had read. Peek had a rare disorder called FG Syndrome, but he also had a great gift, a genius ability to help compensate.

  When defining genius, it’s also important to realize this is a status that is never fully reached. Instead, it is something to aspire to. Your status of genius or non-genius is something that can be debated after your death, if people choose to. If they debate it during your life, consider it an honor. But to join the debate or try to convince people you are a genius is a waste of time. There can be danger and heartache in pursuing the path of genius just for the glory. They are not always well recognized for their efforts, or even understood. Genius isn’t a status to reach, rather it is a journey to greatness. It is the aspiration and relentless pursuit of something greater than what you are at the present moment.

  As the topic of genius comes up, you may wonder about IQ (Intelligence Quotient). Some people may be surprised at this, but you do not need a super high IQ to be a genius. The tests are usually centered on math, verbal, and abstract reasoning skills. They are unlikely to capture artistic genius or other forms of genius that fall outside these skill sets. Also, the tests aren’t perfect, and people’s skills and abilities are more complex than the tests can measure. Someone with an IQ that isn’t very high may need to work harder, but I believe it is possible to attain a genius level accomplishment without the highest of IQ scores. Consider that many people with high IQs have not had special accomplishments. A high score alone will not be enough to reach a genius level. In the end, this isn’t worth worrying about. Regardless of your score, if you tap into the principles of genius, you will tap further into your true potential.