Marc Lewis – 5th May 2011

 

Our students presented their first ideas to a new brief this afternoon since coming back from their holidays.

And frankly, too many students were still in holiday mode.

Out of 820 applications, my team helped me to hand-pick about 30 phenomenally talented kids . We look for people who think differently. About 5% of people applying have what we are looking for.

But it takes more than thinking differently to make it in this industry. It takes passion. 100% commitment. Every day.

Today our students disrespected their talents. It reminded me about a story I wrote in one of my books.

I wrote this about 4 years ago (hence some of the football references), but it immediately came to my mind this afternoon at the school.

I wanted to read it out to my students, but I had to get home to look after Kitty. (or face a bollocking from Rachel).

So instead I decided to share it openly on SCAB.

I am sorry that it’s such a long post, but I hope that you enjoy it. If you do, you can download the entire book for free here.

 

 

What is Genius?

If asked to name five geniuses from history, we would probably build a similar list of names.
Here is mine;

(Mozart, De Vinci, Shakespeare, Churchill, Brunel)

But if I asked you to write out a list of five geniuses from the present day, your list might be quite a bit different to mine. Try it now, and then compare your list to mine. Write yours on the inside jacket of this book – we will be looking back at them a little bit later. Here is mine;

(Steve Jobs, Warren Buffet, Gordon Ramsey, Simon Cowell, Arsene Wenger)

Like the word creative, genius is loaded with different meanings. We sometimes use it to explain someone with exceptional ability, usually in the arts or science, in an ‘us and them’ sort of way. Most people believe that geniuses are born not made.

One of my favourite radio presenters uses the phrase ‘borderline genius’ when he is talking about somebody that he reveres. I like this because it implies that genius sets a marker or value-grading system that us mere mortals can aspire to climb towards.

I prefer the Arthur Schopenhauer quote, ‘Talent hits the target no one else can hit; Genius hits the targets no one else can see’. In his book, Genius Explained, Michael J.A. Howe demystifies genius by taking some of the most obvious case studies in genius history (Mozart, Darwin, Einstein etc.) and showing that their legacy is not the by-product from a freak of genetic good fortune, but the result of hard work, commitment, dedication and a characteristic drive to realise a vision.

Stephen Pinker is an expert in how the mind works and wrote the definitive book on the subject, which he creatively titled ‘How The Mind Works’. Having interacted with some of the world’s brightest students whilst in his role as Professor of Psychology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), he was perfect placed to demystify genius. MIT is the world’s leading innovation hotbed, an incubator to more revolutionary thinkers than any other university campus in the USA. This is what he had to say on genius:

Unfortunately, creative people are at their most creative when writing their autobiographies. Geniuses are wonks. The typical genius pays dues for at least ten years before contributing anything of lasting value. (Mozart composed symphonies at eight, but they weren’t any good; his first masterwork came in the twelfth year of his career.) During the apprenticeship geniuses emerge themselves in their genre. They absorb tens of thousands of problems and solutions, so no challenge is completely new and they can draw on a vast repertoire of motifs and strategies. They keep an eye on the competition and a finger to the wind and are either discriminating or lucky in their choice of problems.

These descriptions give us some insight into the relationship between creativity and genius. Creativity is the act of expressing an original idea that has value; genius is the label that we give to brilliant, obsessive, persistent creative people who have an all-consuming desire to articulate their vision. Luck plays its part in creativity and the genius is more aware than most of the idiom, ‘you make your own luck’. I consider genius to be an extreme form of creativity; the desire to express oneself through ideas becomes a reason for living, the exhilarating highs and lows serve to pump huge amounts of adrenalin chemicals through the body repeatedly with every heroic achievement or dramatic near-miss and, combined with a tendency for geniuses to display obsessive-compulsive behaviour, this chemical quickly becomes a positive reward for certain patterns of behaviour. Creativity is addictive and geniuses are junkies searching for a fix.

Have you ever noticed how you feel when you solve a problem like the crosswords or sudoku? Aside from the proven benefits of protection against the vicious and destructive Alzheimer’s disease, completing the newspaper puzzles can induce a real sense of achievement. The buzz can come from a number of achievements; completing it for the first time, completing it regularly, setting a faster time to complete it, beating your personal best time, moving up a level from the basic crossword/sudoku to the advanced. The rush that you feel is very similar to the one experienced by geniuses expressing their creativity.

Genius is in Your Stars

At the end of my course at John’s school I was offered work placements and jobs at quite a few of London’s vibrant advertising agencies but, with my dad back on his feet financially, I wanted to fly the nest and discover the world a little bit. Fortunately, I also received a few job offers from international advertising agencies. I decided to take a job with Leo Burnett in South Africa because the country was planning its first elections since apartheid and I felt that this was an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to witness the birth of democracy in a newly created nation.

Leo Burnett is an international advertising agency that spawned from Chicago and has produced a legacy of great work, creating memorable campaigns that have helped to build numerous worldwide brands such as McDonalds, The Jolly Green Giant and Heinz Ketchup. Creativity isn’t just a nice-to-have at Leo Burnett; it’s their currency. I was reminded of this every day through the founder’s quote, which was displayed in various ways all over the office;

When you reach for the stars you may not quite get one, ?but you won’t come up with a handful of mud either.

Dedication to a vision and the thrill of achievement

There are plenty of examples of incredible discoveries made quite accidentally, seemingly without any hard work at all. Mostly though, when we dig a bit deeper we learn that even the luckiest of discoveries required plenty of effort. When the apple fell from its tree in front of Newton’s eyes he didn’t suddenly develop Newton’s Law, he had devoted years of preparatory work studying mathematics, physics and philosophy to ready his mind to understand the solution to gravity’s problems. Addicted to solving new problems, Newton regularly competed with contemporary thinkers to finding answers to the day’s big unanswered questions.

III.

To demonstrate that creativity comes in all shapes and sizes, I wish to introduce another visionary genius who also competes with contemporaries in his field, throwing numbers in the air to achieve unimaginable feats of unique vision. This is the story of a devoted champion pushing his mind and body through extraordinary punishment in order to express himself through his craft – darts.

A normal, healthy baby will be born with 656 muscles (although it depends which expert you consult – some say the number is closer to 850). Some of those muscles, such as those found in your stomach and intestinal wall, will spend their lives moving involuntarily. You can’t control them without laxatives or by ramming a finger down your throat. Other muscles can be moved voluntarily, controlling parts of your body that you can easily wiggle around; such as your arm or your leg or your tongue.

There isn’t much that you can do to alter the performance of your involuntary muscles, other than perhaps change your diet or swallow a few supplements. We are all capable of building significant power and accurate control in our voluntary muscles with practice though. I’m not just talking about a few sit-ups or a circuit at the gym to work on the pecs.  I’m talking about an almost religious vow see a vision through to completion, meditating on a goal of spectacular achievement by rehearsing the action over and over, noticing variations in movement that an unskilled eye would miss and recognising the nuances in results that come from small changes in actions.

Professional darts players practice their throws again and again and again, training their muscles to behave in certain ways. Free kick specialists in football and rugby regularly practice for the same reasons. (A couple of weeks ago I watched Cristiano Ronaldo score a screacher of a free kick against Portsmouth from 25-yards. After the match, manager Sir Alex Ferguson spoke about how Ronaldo stays behind after hours at the training ground, perfecting his trademark dead ball ability.) The greatest athletes invest thousands of hours rehearsing a performance that commentators simply call “genius” when acted out in the arena. Scientists recognise this phenomena and have labelled it as ‘muscle memory’ – they have even been able to identify the chemical reactions occurring at the neurotransmitter level in the brain when it’s happening.

Before turning professional, Phil ‘The Power’ Taylor would have felt the occasional rush of adrenalin after a decent shot from the oche down at his local pub. He would have increasingly put himself into situations to repeat that feeling, certainly unaware that he was chasing the creativity drug. He was working at the time in a factory making ceramic toilet handles, so throwing pins at cork hardly felt like hard work.

Phil ‘The Power’ Taylor was lucky enough to be born with the right dose of spatial awareness and hand-eye co-ordination. He was also fortunate that he was brought-up in Stoke-on-Trent, otherwise the great Eric Bristow MBE may never have spotted him, sponsored him and mentored him through the ranks.  Unlike Bristow, ‘The Power’ wasn’t lucky enough to have been born with six toes on his right foot; being a polydactyl is said to have given Bristow a massive balance advantage over his competitors. Bristow and his six toes dominated the world of darts at the time – a sort of freaky innate ability, as it were.

Up to eleven hours of practice every day, working on his muscle memory by carefully throwing dart after dart at the board. Day after day, week in and week out, visualizing perfection. It took that level of commitment for ‘The Power’ to beat the odds (125-1) and his six-toed mentor, Eric ‘The Crafty Cockney’ Bristow in 1990 and win the World Championship. Although the level of euphoria that Taylor would have felt after smashing Bristow 6-1 to win his first World Title was unrepeatable, he went on to become the first darts millionaire winning a cabinet full of trophies and is recognised as the most successful darts player of all time. In interviews and his biography he talks about the feeling of elation that comes from winning trophies, but also that he was finding it increasingly difficult to find new motivations.

Like so many geniuses, he kept on imaging new ways to express his talent and was still chasing the ecstasy that you feel when you achieve something through your abilities. ‘The Power’ had often spoken in interviews about wanting to be the first player to record a nine-dart finish live on television. Despite its inexplicable popularity on TV through the 1970s, 80s and 90s, this feat had never been accomplished.

Dart after dart, day after day. First the treble-20, then the treble-19 and finally the double-12. Practice makes perfect. Feel how the wrist rotates slightly after the second throw. Treble-20. Treble-19. Double-12. Note when to breath in and when to breath out. Treble-20. Hold the neck still. Treble-19. Balance. Double-12. There are two other ways to make a nine dart finish. Treble-18, Treble-17, Double-18. Or Treble-20, Treble 15, Double 18. He practiced them all. Hour after hour. Throw after throw.

Taylor finally made history by throwing a perfect nine dart finish for first time on live television during the quarter-finals of the 2002 World Matchplay Championship and has since repeated the feat on five other occasions. Where he finds his next buzz from is difficult to predict, perhaps he will find a way to beat his opponents with both arms tied behind his back.