What kind of genius are you?
What up, fam?!
Sooooo, you know how I said this was going to be a three-part series? (Click to read Part 1 & Part 2.)
Yeah. Well, turns out brevity is not my strong suit. Surprise!
Rather than trying to Stretch Armstrong your attention span by making this the Next Great American Novel of blog posts, I decided to crack this mutha in two.
So let’s do a pirouette into Becoming Something You’re Not, Part 3 of 4 (probably) without further ado, boo!
In case time has become an amorphous blob to you too, I’m reminding you that last week we talked about Prodigy Syndrome and Overnight Success Envy (and Spider-Man), and how their breed of magical thinking gets in the way of us becoming who we want to become (Harry Effing Potter).
This week we’re talking geniuses, baby!
When someone throws down the word genius, we’re often left thinking of wild-haired physicists and deaf composers. Hawking, da Vinci, Mozart, van Gogh, Spielberg…
*ascends soapbox* AHEM! We should also think of Dorothy Vaughan, Heddy Lamarr, Lise Meitner, Élisabeth Louise Vigée-Le Brun, Sau Lan Wu, Sofonisba Anguissola, Virginia Hall and the thousands of brilliant women whose contributions were appropriated or lost to history—but we don’t because, ya know, the patriarchy don’t like that. (The thought of which turns me into the purest little lump of dissatisfaction. #smashsmash) *digresses but keeps soapbox within reach*
Basically, we tend to think of genius as something a person inherently is.
But it hasn’t always been that way.
In Roman mythology, a genius was a protective deity—a guiding spirit that each person turned to throughout their lives. Like Siri, but in a toga.
The Romans believed that a person’s genius dictated their personality and abilities. If a person displayed an impressive talent for a thing, their genius spirit got the credit.
Can you rub your belly and pat your head? Thank your genius.
Write eloquent haikus about your boyfriend’s pet ferret that bring readers to tears? Thank your genius.
Whistle the Hawaii Five-0 theme song while creating perfect Rembrandt forgeries using paint you made out of mold and freeze-dried bologna? Thank your genius. Then call your therapist.
Over time, though, our geniuses stopped being external forces. They merged with us and came to be seen as part of who we are. Thus, all the credit for those feats is now laid at our feets… along with all the criticism.
I believe this evolution in our concept of genius had the equivalent effect of someone dumping a pile of soggy old undies in our lap. Before I explain why, I want to offer a different perspective on genius—this one from whip-smart, art-loving economist, David Galenson.
According to Galenson, there are two styles of genius. The first he calls “Conceptual Innovation.” This kind of genius aligns preeeeetty closely with those Overnight Successes that poke at our inner green-eyed joy-killer. These are the people who revolutionize something or make a big mark early in life. They work quickly from idea through execution and—Bang! Pop!—magic time.
These delicious little talent-waffles, smothered in confidence and dripping with flair, are often the first to jump up into our grey matter when we hear the word “genius.” Picasso, E. E. Cummings, Harper Lee, Orson Wells, Joseph Heller, and Albert Einstein—who once said, "A person who has not made his great contribution to science before the age of 30 will never do so." Thanks, Berty-boy.
But there’s a second, slower kind of genius that is the more fascinating of the two in my book.
This group possesses what Galenson dubs “Experimental Innovation” (Damn, even the name sounds cool.).
These, my friend, are the Harry Effing Potters.
These are the people who tinker and toil and fail. They accomplish incredible feats—not through all-at-once-wizz-bam-lightning-bolts kind of genius, but instead through ongoing-development-of-skill-and-molding-of-talent-over-time kind of genius.
Galenson explains, “Experimental innovators are people who never have a clear, easily articulated idea, they don’t work quickly. When they start off, they don’t really know where they’re going, they work by trial and error, they do endless drafts, they’re perpetually unsatisfied. It can take them a lifetime to figure out what they want to say.”**
Alfred Hitchcock, Herbie Hancock, Madonna, Robert Frost, the indomitable Betty White, Frank Lloyd Wright, and—my personal favorite Lord of Snark—Mark Twain (Oooh! The Adventures of Snark Twain is definitely the title for my next book?) all possess this kind of genius.
I have a suspicion that Experimental Innovators may have a slight preference for introversion and Conceptual Innovators for extroversion due to their different speeds of action, but as far as I know, there’s yet to be research to back it up so just consider it intriguing conjecture.
I am, however, doubling down on the assertion that the way to work through the belief that you can’t do the thing is to do that thing really badly.
If you’re not seeing the results you want, you need to become an experimental innovator in your own life.
This is not meant to be a nose-to-the-grindstone, pull yourself up by the bootstraps, insert-other-unhelpful-idiom-that-ignores-important-factors-like-privilege-and-opportunity-here pep talk.
This is just math.
(I know, math is the actual worst. But hear me out.)
This is knowing that to get from here to there requires foxtroting all the steps between. I’m just pissed that this isn’t the glamorized part—because it’s sure as hell the most important part.
But this is often when a nasty ogre who smells like rotten trout milk lumbers over and mucks up the works—especially for perfectionists and slower-to-act-introverts.
This ogre tries to make us forget the one thing that’s critical to remember—that we must separate doing the thing badly from the idea that if we don’t earn gold stars on the first try, then we are bad. (I mean, the universe had to try for like 14 billion years before it created Keanu Reeves, so cut yourself some slack.)
There are ways to make the process of going from “meh” to “OH YEAH!” a little easier though.
(Re)enter the value of having your genius exist outside of yourself via a fun and quirky-to-the-point-it-can-only-be-human concept called enclothed cognition.
Enclothed cognition involves stepping into the clothes—quite literally in some cases—of someone who can do the thing you feel you can’t yet do.
(If you’re reading this naked, I’m not judging. It’s hot outside and putting on actual pants is akin to spotting a unicorn for me most days. This is CoronaWold. There are no rules anymore.)
How does it work? Well, studies have illustrated that when participants are asked to wear a white lab coat—the calling card of doctors and scientists—they perform better on cognitive tasks than control groups. Children who don Batman capes or Dora the Explorer costumes spend more time trying to solve puzzles than costume-less kiddos because they believe those heroes wouldn’t give up so easily.
When people step into the shoes of a person with a notable trait, their ability to access that trait within themselves increases.
HOW FORKING COOL IS THAT?!
Another impressive benefit of enclothed cognition is its ability to modulate confidence and distance.
When we don the persona of someone who we believe can do a thing, it gives us the confidence that the thing can be done. It no longer seems insurmountable.
Enclothed cognition also offers some much-needed distance between critique of your performance and critique of your personal value. If a project crashes and burns, it’s the Cher/Warren Buffet/Idris Elba/Macho Man Randy Savage costume you’re wearing that takes the hit, not you. This bit of distance helps us avoid the destabilizing or debilitating effect of criticism while we’re working to develop skill.
In case you’re wondering, no, you don’t actually have to wear black lingerie and a leather bomber jacket while sitting on a cannon à la Cher to make this work (but if that’s your thing, you do you). It can be helpful to have something you physically put on and take off like glasses, or lab coat, or Infinity Gauntlets (check out this spot-on replica on Etsy!), but it’s not mandatory. The important part is to do whatever you need to do to feel like you’re stepping fully into your chosen identity.
There is one more really beautiful part about enclothed cognition. Possibly my favorite part. And that is that you get to take off the cape at the end of the day if you choose.
Sometimes you become something you’re not because you want to grow and change as a person. Other times, though, you become something you’re not as a means to an end. There’s an outcome you desire, there’s a project you’re passionate about, there’s a person—or a whole group of people—you’re seeking to influence. In order to serve those purposes, you have to get good at things that are challenging, things that might not come naturally. (A piece that dives deeper into this topic is coming soon!)
Wearing an identity costume enables you to be who you needed to be to get where you want to go. You can choose to assimilate the new skills into your own identity over time or you can opt to hold onto the distance the costume affords.
It can be a trait, or a tool. The choice is yours.
I want to hear from you! What area of your life could use a Dora the Explorer makeover? How would seeing your genius as a wispy, pearlescent spirit help you get where you’re going? Tippy-tappy the reply button and let me know!
Keep an eye on your inbox for the final installment of this series, where I’ll take you through my Brief History of Time (abridged version) and explain (again) why math is the worst!
**Galenson’s ideas are featured in a really great episode of Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History podcast. The episode, titled “Hallelujah,” tracks some real-life examples of the two types of genius (including Paul Cezanne, the Post-Impressionist who broke the rules that preceding rule-breakers already broke).