Strategies of Genius: How to Redesign Your Mind
Among the many traits that set humans apart from other species, each of us was born with an extraordinary gift called an imagination. Whether we know it or not, we use this faculty extremely well every day. However, many of us use this incredible faculty in ways that take away from our experience of life. Many of us imagine bright, vivid images of negative possibilities and live in constant worry and anxiety. Others make colourful pictures of failure and despair and wonder why the future seems so bleak. Some of us create bothersome internal voices that speak to us in a haranguing tone saying such things as, “You can’t do that,” or “You’ll never amount to anything” or maybe even worse. Most of this is out of conscious awareness, of course.
What you hold in your mind will determine the quality and richness of your experience. The richer your inner world, the richer your life will be. To lead an extraordinary life, you need to have an extraordinary mind. Correction, to lead an extraordinary life, you need to put something extraordinary in the mind you already have.
For most people, the way we organize our thinking is often extremely random and not very strategic. That inner voice we hear might be that of a parent or teacher. Our tendency to worry might have been acquired at home or at school. These things are never deliberate, but are learned accidentally. Yet what if we were to make better decisions about what we program into our mind?
Those who are happy and fulfilled use their capacity to imagine in a very different way. Cheerful internal voices that say cheerful things and vivid and positive internal images leave them feeling happy and fulfilled. But we can take this one step further. What do super achievers and geniuses do with their imagination? Take a moment to imagine the internal reality of an Einstein, a Mozart or a Da Vinci. Their exceptional contributions to humanity began in the world of the imaginary.
Like all of us, super achievers and geniuses hear internal voices and sounds and see internal images. But instead of scary pictures and berating voices, they see lively, glowing images of their hopes, dreams and desires while voices spur them on with encouragement. Top athletes hear words of congratulations and the roar of the crowd before they perform. Musicians hear beautiful music in their minds before they play a single note.
What we need to do is take conscious control over unconscious processes and optimize our inner reality. We can go far beyond merely solving problems in thinking to deliberately richening our internal experience to produce outstanding results. When you intentionally redesign your internal world, incredible things become possible. To unleash the genius within get rid of the tiny old internal TV. No more dull pictures with wimpy soundtracks. It’s time to install an IMAX theatre in your mind in full Technicolor with Dolby digital surround sound.
Let’s test this out. Choose something you would like to accomplish. Perhaps you are shy, hesitate to do certain things or lack motivation. Now, what internal image would you like to see that would propel you forward? Is it a picture of outstanding career success? An image of you being loved and accepted by others? Unleash your creativity and come up with something exceptional. Next, what sounds will drive you forward? A cheering crowd? The sound of a jet engine? How about a chorus of singers? What voices are there and what are they saying? Are they loud and encouraging?
All this may sound a bit outlandish, but if you want to be the best, you have to do what others are not doing. You have to engineer mental strategies that are better than life itself. And it’s easy to install a new type of mental process. Just think of how often you have seen a commercial and walked around singing the jingle automatically or watched a horror movie and were haunted by images of it for days.
A famous artist I once worked with was lacking in motivation. He explained that when he would go to paint, he would hear an internal voice whine, “You’ve lost your touch. This won’t be any good.” Not very motivating! I took him back in time mentally to moments when he was inspired to create works of art and the process was effortless and enjoyable. We discovered that in the past before he would pain a masterpiece, he would hear a choir of angels behind him getting closer and closer and then a voice would cry out, “Pick up the brush, pick up the brush!” That enabled him to paint paintings that sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Although spring is not quite here, it might be time for some mental sprint cleaning and some internal renovations. You can redesign your inner world and have a state-of-the-art mind for free.
