What He Didn’t Find

Before we talk about what my good friend Mr. Jay Niblick did find in the Genius Project, let’s look at what he did not find because it’s actually quite important as well.

After crunching all of that data, and conducting all of those interviews, what he did not find was a single attribute, or natural talent, that showed up as being more responsible for success than any other, at least not on a universal scale. It turns out that being better at seeing the big-picture (the natural talent known as Conceptual Thinking) is not more likely to make everyone successful than being better at seeing the small picture (the natural talent for Attention to Detail). Neither does being better at understanding others (Empathy) have any greater impact on success across the board than does being great at doing what you are told to do (Following Directions).

Sure, in some roles a specific set of attributes may be more critical to success than others. We see this all the time in the job benchmarking work we do with our corporate clients. For example, possessing the natural talents for understanding and persuading others is crucial in most sales roles, but when you look at non-sales roles those talents may have little impact on success. Yes, some natural talents may indeed be vital in certain roles, perhaps even lots of roles - but not all roles.

While finding out which talents play an important part in any single role is beneficial, that’s not what the Genius Project was designed to do. The Genius Project wasn’t meant to understand what talents might make someone successful in any single role. The question he wanted to answer was, “could he find natural talents that are a common denominator among all successful people, in all roles, industries, markets, levels or locations?” In order to answer this question he was looking for natural talents that showed a high correlation with success in all the roles andall the successful people we studied. And guess what…he didn’t find any.

That’s right. He failed to find any single natural talent that was the key differentiator between success and failure in all cases. This is great news, however, because if this was the case, and he did find talents that must be present in order to succeed, and you happened to not possess such talents, you would pretty much be out of luck. If he had found certain talents as mandatory for all success then only people with those certain talents would be able to achieve the 5th level of performance and become geniuses at what they do. But thankfully that’s not what he found.

What He Did Find

When I say that he didn’t find any natural talents, however, that doesn’t mean he didn’t find anything at all that correlated with the most successful people, just no natural talents. What he did find in the Genius Project were two acquired talents, and these two acquired talents were present in all of the successful people, and quite absent in those who suffered from The Problem, individuals who struggle with feelings of frustration, lack of fulfillment and dissatisfaction with their personal performance and success.

These two acquired talents are called self-awareness and authenticity. We’ll get into the differences between natural and acquired talents in my next article, but suffice it to say that natural talents come from the way you think and make decisions and acquired talents are the knowledge, experience and skill that you develop throughout your life. If natural talents are engrained in you early on in life, acquired talents are added later.

Acquired talents are just that - acquired. They are those things that you do very well because you learned to do them very well. You weren’t born with these talents. You acquired them through gaining knowledge and experience. Unlike the natural talents we studied, the two acquired talents we found to be so common among the most successful people can be developed through conscious effort. These talents can be learned, and in so doing, you can become much more successful.

As I said, all of this is great news because it simply means that regardless of the natural talents you do possess you can take whatever those fixed talents are and become more successful with them. This means that the playing field is level. Genius performance isn’t reserved for just those with IQ’s above 140. It isn’t just for those who were lucky enough to be born with certain talents. Everyone possesses his or her own unique set of talents, so anyone can become a genius at something. It just requires that you develop the acquired talents we discovered in his study, and I’ll show you how to do just that in my future articles.

Let’s look at those two acquired talents now, and don’t worry if the following brief definition seems a little shy because you will become a whole lot more familiar with these two acquired talents as you progress through this and my future articles.

Acquired talent #1. Self-Awareness

Self-Awareness looks at how aware people are of their own natural talents and non-talents. For example, does John know he has a great natural talent for strategic thinking that makes him a genius for seeing the big-picture and making accurate long range plans? How aware is Mary that her greatest natural talent is for empathizing and understanding others? Self-awareness also looks at how well a person understands their non-talents, so while John knows he has a natural talent for strategic thinking, is he also aware of his lack of natural talent for paying attention to details, or being empathetic.

Being self-aware is being aware of your own true potential and this is a beautiful thing. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby is described as having, “something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life.” When a person has high levels of self-awareness, they too seem to hold a heightened sensitivity to all the promise they contain. They know very well what they are and are not good at, and what potential lies within them. When a person has low self-awareness, on the other hand, they do not have a clear sense of their natural abilities. They do not possess a significant level of sensitivity to their own true potential or promise.

If self-awareness is knowledge and understanding for your natural talents and promise, than in order to realize that promise you must possess the second acquired talent we discovered, which deals with the way you apply those talents. We call this second acquired talent Authenticity.

Acquired talent #2. Authenticity

Authenticity, at its simplest level, is “being true to you.” Knowing your strengths and weaknesses (self-awareness) is only half the picture. Properly applying that knowledge to your life is the other half. Setting goals that capitalize on your natural talents is being authentic. Finding a job that depends primarily on your natural talents is being authentic. Working from your strengths is being authentic.

The opposite of being authentic is being inauthentic. When you are aware of your natural talents and non-talents, but fail to incorporate this knowledge into what you do and how you attempt to achieve success, you are being inauthentic. When you allow yourself to fill a role that requires you to excel in your non-talents, you are being inauthentic.

So, of all the people he studied and all the various aspects of those people we looked at, the only two things that showed up as being really different between the most successful and the rest were their level of understanding for the natural talents and their ability to act on this awareness, to incorporate it into what they do and how they do it. The message in this study then becomes, the more completely you know your own natural talents and non-talents (i.e., are self-aware), and the more honest you are about this awareness, and the more you use it to determine what you do and how you do it (i.e., are authentic), the greater your satisfaction and performance will be.

Figure 1 below demonstrates the simplicity of this concept.

Level of Self-Awareness  +  Level of Authenticity  =  Level of Performance

Philosopher G.E. Moore puts it as simply as anyone could. He said, “Everything is what is it, and not another thing.” In other words, we are what we are, and not what we are not. We are our natural talents and our non-talents, and the more aware of these we are, and the truer we are to this fact, the better we perform. Trying to be something we are not is fruitless. If your natural talent is not for strategic thinking than the more your success depends on this ability, the more you are likely to suffer from The Problem.

~ Only when we are what we are, and our roles and objectives are true to that - only then can we reach the 5th level of performance ~

Don’t let a failed startup kill your entrepreneurial dreams. Get back in the saddle again with these encouraging words of wisdom.

Is it necessary to fail in order to succeed? We’ve all heard the statistics–one out of every “X” restaurants/new businesses/retailers fail. The numbers are staggering. What happens when your startup tanks? Do you quit? Run away? Hide? No! You’re an entrepreneur, so you get back in the saddle and you try again with the additional wisdom and insight you gained from the previous experience. Easier said than done, I know–but that’s what makes people like Thomas Edison entrepreneurs. Edison once said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” What a great attitude!

I’ll admit I’m a positive person who always sees the glass half full; I’ve been that way my whole life. I’ve come to realize through my own experiences as well as my clients’ and colleagues’ that you can’t learn anything important if you aren’t willing to make some mistakes along the way. Teddy Roosevelt said, “The person who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything!”

The road to great success is paved with fantastic failures. The most successful people I know will admit they’ve all hit bumps in the road, suffered major setbacks along the way and learned from each of those experiences–if they were smart. Michael Jordan admits, “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

So now do you believe me? You can’t separate the successes from the failures–it’s all part of the same journey. Optimism can be learned; choose happiness and see how it feels the next time you get down. It may be hard at first but I guarantee you’ll enjoy the journey a lot more trying it this way. By carrying around a lot of bitterness and anger, you’ll never lead a full life. Forgive, forget and move on. This quote from E.B. White should give you the courage to at least try it: “I wake up every morning determined both to change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning the day a little difficult.”

I’ve quoted some pretty impressive people here, all of whom accomplished great things. They did it one step at a time, learning with each interaction, every encounter and conversation. They weren’t born with the answers; they fumbled their way through it just like the rest of us. When they reached a good place, people started quoting them–like Charles F. Kettering who said, “Failures are finger posts on the road to achievement,” or H. Ross Perot who said, “When building a team, I always search first for people who love to win. If I can’t find any of those, I look for people who hate to lose.” That’s the entrepreneurial spirit!

I’m sure there are people out there who’ll claim they’ve never experienced failure. It reminds me of the 80s when Wall Street was the place to be and the answer of choice when asked in interviews what your weaknesses is was to say “kryptonite.” I think if Supermen and women were being interviewed today about when they stumbled, the best response would be to admit you’ve missed the last shot at the buzzer and tell them why next time you’ll make it instead. Show what you learned from the experience, how you’ve reflected on the lessons and what steps you’ve taken to course correct going forward. I think the best people put themselves out there knowing they might not always win but they’ve trained hard and done their homework, prepared and planned for the moment to shine.

So don’t be scared to fail your way to success. Turns out, that’s the way it’s done. My husband cooks and he always jokes about the four stages of roasting pine nuts: not done, not done, not done, burnt. How do you get them perfectly roasted? Practice! Nobody’s born with an Olympic Gold Medal or Academy Award. When you find intrinsic motivation from a sense of joy, purpose and mastery, you’re on the right track. Just keep failing until you succeed!

Richard Risher

Copyright 2008 Merna D. Throne