Who does a true genius look like to you?
Superman or Elon Musk?
Well, here’s the difference:
Superman is a made-up superhero character with inborn superhuman
abilities. So he does heroic things effortlessly.
Superman carries buildings or kicks ass instantly without needing to
work out for days or months. His heroic deeds are effortless.
But true, real-life geniuses, like Elon Musk, aren’t superhuman. They
don’t have “superhuman abilities” that lead them to greatness by default.
They are hard workers, they consistently put in the work because they
know that to consistently create the genius-kind of impact, you need to
put in the genius-kind of work.
Hey, note that I used the word “CONSISTENTLY”.
Have you looked up Elon Musk’s track record?
He taught himself how to code in three days; earned degrees in both
physics and economics; borrowed books from friends and taught himself
how to build rockets (Careers.workopolis.com).
Plus he advises start-up entrepreneurs to work way too hard.
Musk voraciously consumes the subjects he needs to know about. He is a
voracious consumer of knowledge.
The knowledge is not “follow come”. He actually learns a lot here on
planet Earth not Krypton.
When he decided to start SpaceX, he needed to learn the basics of rocket
science.
And one of the books that helped him was “Structures: Or Why Things
Don’t Fall Down,” a popular take on structural engineering by J.E.
Gordon, a British material scientist.
That shouldn’t be shocking because he has always been a reader before he was even a teenager. That should tell you something.
Let me chip this in: it’s not too late to start improving your reading
habits even if it’s not for your sake but for the sake of your unborn
children or your children if you already have kids.
And yes, I get that some people might be born gifted, but effort/hard
work converts your ability/talent into accomplishment.
In fact, more and more research is showing that while talent is indeed
responsible for some extraordinary results, most accomplishments
generally result from a combination of practice, habit, and mindset
(Business Insider, 2020).
Lastly, I leave you with this quote by Robin Sharma, “Genetics don’t
make geniuses. Very good habits make geniuses.”
Written by Osham Ndubisi.
