A few years ago, I wrote a blog post called “Where Have All The Geniuses Gone?”
Basically, TL;DR: the whole “genius” model is sort of B.S. We think of geniuses who lived in the past but there don’t seem to be any around today. I think the model of thinking about genius is wrong.
First, as outlined in that post, it’s not really about the person. It’s about the idea.
Second, it’s not really about the person, it’s about the people who worked together to create the opportunity for that idea.
There’s this lie that we have to sit in our underground labs, alone, for an extended period of time, to then emerge with our genius. Where did that come from?
That’s just not how genius really occurs in the wild.
Genius is the team that just put a robot on Mars. Genius is the team that figured out how to turn sunbeams into electricity. Genius is the team that figured out how to make an Oreo cookie hold milk and still be crunchy.
You think I’m kidding about the Oreo? Those things are feats of food science engineering.
So, let this be a reminder that while you’re sitting alone at your desk, or while you’re quarantining due to the COVID-19 pandemic, that it’s a lot of brains together that create the opportunities for a genius idea or a series of genius ideas.