Let Your Genius Emerge

A Dormant Genius Inside of Us

December 27, 2021 Julia Bright Season 1 Episode 1
Let Your Genius Emerge
A Dormant Genius Inside of Us
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

Julia Bright, the host of this new podcast is asking you the question: Do you believe you have a genius inside of you? Or do you think becoming a genius is predetermined and nothing you can do about it?  Well, we all have much more potential within us than what our parents and schooling can get out of us. The problem is that they don't have the patience to let us develop our internal drive and interests, they tell us what to learn when and how, and humans naturally don't learn that way.

Homo Sapiens means 'the human who knows, but we are pretty far from becoming wise in general. For that we need to understand ourselves from within, the world, find credible information through credible people, surround ourselves with people who will help us grow, stimulate our thinking. Our social and communicational cushion surrounds us all our lives, we need to take full advantage of it. 
But we need to know how to build the foundation. First things first! We don't want to slide back and forth in life to progress and regress because we made mistakes we could have avoided in the process.
Julia will provide you with a map, a framework, a blueprint for this life-time work of ours. She will tell us what we need to take care first, without delay, day by day, diligently, so we can set goals and ultimately fulfill our purpose and live as long as we can.

No wonder Let Your Genius Emerge is under the umbrella of the Humanly Genius Project. 
We hope you will enjoy the podcast and the transformation it offers in yourself, in your life.

Hello and welcome to the introductory episode of Let Your Genius Emerge podcast. I’m Julia Bright, your host. 

What do you think about our podcast title? Are you wondering what I am about to sell you or if I want to be the next self-help guru full of offers for you to become smarter, happier, more successful? No away! No prescriptions from me! I will never tell you what you should do or you shouldn’t do. I have complete trust in you. You are a thinker and you will do what you deem is best for you. 

However I’m still going to ask you the question: Would you believe me if I told you that you have a sleeping genius inside of you, a dormant one, that desperately wants to be awakened from time to time? 

You’re probably shaking your head thinking that geniuses have the genetic disposition to become extraordinary, they are most likely to be born into a nurturing environment with the necessary educational resources at hand so they overall are privileged and that is how they can contribute something nobody ever have thought of before  to human knowledge.

Let’s think about that for a moment! It helps if you can come up with some names you think are geniuses. So they had lucky genes or were born into privilege, gained the right education, learned the right skills, had exceptional personal characteristics like diligence, self-regulation, extraordinary organizational skills, determination, drive, self motivation, or they might have had good mentors that had chosen the right path for them? 

Well, as for me, I used to think about geniuses when I saw my young students with all their potential. I started out as an elementary school teacher, surrounded by 6 to 10 year-olds, bright-eyed, unspoiled, loving and enthusiastic beings. I believed in their unexplored capabilities and sure enough later on with further research, experts validated my beliefs. In the 90’s I started to teach ESL. The great thing about teaching another language like English as a second language is that I had a chance to talk about anything and everything, what’s even better, I needed to learn about different professions, different fields of interests, science, hobbies, you name it  if I wanted to teach advanced students, I needed to know their inside jargon too. 

I started to learn about memory, memorization techniques, accelerated learning, different ways of communication, positive psychology, Big History, stories that society tells us and what science teaches us all the while I started to put together a humongous puzzle. 

That is what I want to pass on to you all.

I admit, we do have all the information at our fingertips on the internet that is all jumbled together from false, fake, made up to believed but not proven, pseudo-scientific to under peer review, to proven scientific. 

Even when the information is credible, how do you deal with it? Where does it fit? How will that enrich your knowledge? Which parts of your life will it enrich, I should ask.

That is what I can help you with. 

We need a map that connects information.

In school we studied subjects, separately. Physics, chemistry, there was biology, or history or geography. No one taught us how human knowledge is connected. Natural sciences with humanities. How math, languages and music are related. 

I strongly believe that we could learn from ancient mythology where people passed on their knowledge about nature, humans, and society through stories. We’ll talk about that in later episodes. It’s fascinating!

I can be your guide, I can provide you with a framework, with my help you can build a strong foundation for your life, knowledge for your aspirations, purpose and values.

In this episode I will tell you bits and pieces of what we will explore in later episodes.

Ah, wait a minute, Julia! So you say you can help, you might say. But isn’t it too late for me to learn any knowledge or skills as an adult, well, you need to start as a child, right?

That is a misconception that has been proven wrong many times over. It’s only too late if you give up on yourself! I believe we all have a genius hidden inside of us, to get it out however, we need to understand ourselves, grow up, yes, mature, get strong, become whole.

We all have to find our own genius, experience it, so we can authenticate it, show that it‘s worth striving for more than money, wealth, power over people or institutions. So later we can pass it on to our children.

So the time has arrived for me to tell you what I mean when I say you have an everyday adult genius in you. I am talking about you, that doesn’t just survive, make a living, fit into society, but an intelligent, creative whole person, striving to be complete, to become fulfilled, authentic. You know yourself fairly well so you can afford to have humility, have respect and be fair and will expect the same in return from others. Our geniuses manage to thrive day by day, make a living, fit into society BUT by their own terms. They can express their own needs and adjust to circumstances but never exploit - because they are intelligent, creative, and becoming complete. I know, completeness is just like being perfect, we can only strive for and enjoy the journey knowing that we will never get there. There is no 100% perfection and no 100% completeness, but we can always come close!

I do not claim to have the complete knowledge either, but I have the structure that I can pass on to you and when you find and build your own solid structure, you can do the same, pass it on. As an example, babies and children are natural learners. Learning gives them eternal joy if we let them explore. They will come up with the rules themselves, be it grammar, math or science, you just need to provide them with enough examples and fun experiments.

I believe that genius adults also learn and create through joy, play, hobby, experimentation and never through drilling and sitting still in boring classes and meetings.

So let’s have fun! Expand the meaning of genius and talent to more than just knowledge! There is artistic genius, painters, sculptors, writers, musicians. What about one of a kind neurosurgeons who need exceptional hand-eye coordination for the job? Or the chef creating new tastes, irresistible dishes and recipes? Designers who are not just hairdressers or tailors or home decorators anymore? Did they all start out as children, realizing their talents early on or did they find their calling later in life?

You might be able to name some exceptional people who only realized their potential later or really late in life. So schooling might not matter that much in that sense. It’s not created for the exceptional. It’s an assembly line to give basic knowledge for the masses despite all the efforts. And budget cuts always affect education almost the first time around.

Institutionalized education is not all that bad though. Everybody learns the three R’s reading, writing and arithmetic. It wasn’t like that over a hundred years ago, so I do not wish to throw stones there. Mandatory education for ages 7-16 is beneficial for society. The problem is, it’s one-size fits all. I often wonder how many children got buried, mistreated, misdiagnosed, misplaced. Those are the geniuses who never happened.  

I read and studied cases of how geniuses could be made and how a child could be guided to be the best of a chosen field. But that is not enough.

Overall society and adults are not ready to raise geniuses because they haven’t experienced that themselves. They are afraid of it!

When I was little, I heard outrageous stories that someone studied so hard they lost their minds in the process. And they believed it. Some still believe it. It’s just as outrageous as the idea that we only use 3-10% of our brain’s capacity. Our brain is working in full capacity, thank you. Although our memory could be almost limitless.

Our memory stores images the easiest way but we recall thoughts and words. We talk to ourselves, to each other, we read knowledge of the past. The key to everything is language. Communication.

In schools ideas are communicated to students, they try to comprehend it. I’m talking to you. Spoken words are the easiest, and have been for the last 60,000 +years. We can also use sign language, send smoke signals, and Morse code. Language is the winning strategy of Homo Sapiens. It helped us cooperate over tens of millennia, exchange ideas, and survive.

So how are we to communicate in the 21st century?

It is crucial that we change the ways our ancestors, our parents, our grandparents have been talking to each other. They inadvertently passed it on to us but we have to realize they use phrases and say things that stop communication, offend others and lead nowhere. 

We will talk about assertive non-violent ways of communication so we can keep a conversation going without blocking it, so it will keep on giving more information, more satisfaction, more joy, more clarity and it will not die prematurely. This way we will be able to verbalize our needs effectively and we will also hear the needs of others without misinterpreting them.

Talking about needs!

We will discuss our most basic needs, our physiological, psychological, social, intellectual needs so we know how to look after them and how to verbalize them. Some cannot possibly be overlooked, missed or disregarded no matter whose needs they are. They need to be fulfilled day by day to survive. Basic living needs, like having a bite to eat, to drink some water, to stretch our legs, go to the bathroom, to breathe.

Then you might just be living paycheck to paycheck, pay rent, hydro, heat, fear for your safety. Do you realize how many millions or billions of people get stuck on these primary basic levels, just to survive? If they can’t get unstuck, how can they find out more about themselves, about the world? No digging for genius there!

In the next level you work hard to fit into society, have a job, have children, make ends meet, so you have no more time, money or energy for anything else. You might take part in elections but barely pay attention to policies.

But self esteem, higher status, strength are only waiting for you on the next level!

The 4th level is not for everyone. And those who get there are not likely to use it for the benefit of others. CEO’s politicians, top managers, just to get there they needed to compromise something of themselves. 

But not everybody. If they become self aware, have learnt to find their values, their purpose, and can stand up straight and have humility, they will continue to the final level.

Your genius will emerge when you reach this level. I promise you you don't need much money to get there but it will be hard work. You need to find your wisdom, need to find credible knowledge and credible people that will help you along. 

You might know what homo sapiens means: the human who knows. It is the level when you finally become a wise human.

If you are clear of your needs at those levels, know what they require from you, you can decide what you are willing to do and sacrifice for them.

Sadly many people choose to exploit others to get from one level to another. That is just simply wrong. Taking advantage of others, manipulate, abuse any situation, cheat and swindle…

You do what you need to do for yourself - YOURSELF - to better your life. As far as I am concerned, you can hire help if you pay them as much as you would pay yourself or your family member. If Jeff Bezos is vacuuming, that takes the same 20 minutes that I would be vacuuming, you know, time is equal, everybody has the same amount. And vacuuming is vacuuming, doesn’t take higher education… Sorry, I was just sidetracked here.

As far as I’m concerned life is not about money. Sure, we have to provide for our needs, for our family’s needs but past that it’s about knowledge and wisdom. 

I can collect and integrate information. Not all will fit together, I need to use my prior knowledge and analytic skills to decide what to do with it. I’m definitely not pessimistic but I want to be a healthy skeptic when I accept or reject something I hear or read.

Are you familiar with the scientific method? You don’t just take something that is said for granted; ask questions, test, analyze, conclude, observe, research, it’s a whole circle. 

But we rely on each other to exchange ideas, talk them out. We can inspire new ideas, stimulate new thoughts within us.

Did I say we are social animals? It’s unfortunate that at the start of the pandemic they coined the term “social distancing”. You should never be social distancing.

Call, video chat with your family and friends, keep in touch. Keep your physical distance if you must but not socially. Isolation can have fatal effects on the individual.

Solitary confinement used in prison over 15 days is considered torture by the United Nations.

We just don’t yet have any idea what long-term psychological effects this pandemic will have on children, seniors, on vulnerable people.

Social connections are there all the way throughout our lives. We might die alone but we definitely are not born alone. We have a mother and then a significant caretaker, a family, a community surrounding us.

Dr. Gábor Máté said that our species were probably the happiest when they were hunter gatherers where children were surrounded by parents, family and the tribe all the time. 

Who would be in your tribe today, the 150 people tops that you could count on?

No, not Facebook or Instagram friends, not bobbleheads who like everything you post. Honest people who can debate you, can challenge you, can stimulate your growth?  Who can look after you, your place, and your family?

We might have thousands of acquaintances but may not have 150 tribe members. Would you be a member of this tribe?

So what about a life-long partner? Our hormones might choose one when we are in our 20’s but we can live way into our 90’s. Are we prepared to live with the same person for 60 years? Divorce rates tell a different story. Young people don’t even get married anymore.

But divorce and break-ups are hard. We leave a piece of ourselves behind.

Where will be the promised Happily Ever After? What is happiness, anyway?

I don’t want to be happy. I want to be challenged, I want to grow, I want the journey and not the destination.

So what will you look for in a partner if you don’t want to be disappointed? One major characteristic is self-control and if you both have it, it compounds. Good news is that it can be learned, it is a skill, a muscle that can be trained. Although you can be the lucky one that is just born with more self-control.

I don’t know how you are but I think the hardest person to live with is myself. Talking about myself! I have to put up with all my thoughts, many of them are repetitive and negative, that cause me to feel ways I don’t like to feel and then I do things I might regret. You might be familiar with the triangle of cognitive behavioral therapy. Your thoughts affect your emotions and your actions and vice versa. 

So we will talk about ways to become more aware of what’s going on inside of us.

No, I’m not a psychologist, I’m a teacher by profession. It was 40 years ago when I was introduced to psychology. That was mostly about the history of it and about children. In the past 12 years I have been fascinated by positive psychology. Mistakenly sometimes it is called the science of Happiness. But it gives us the wrong impression about it. It is concerned about the healthy mind, the growth, being content, living a purposeful, meaningful life. I want to share some of the things I have learnt about it with you.

So you might sense that I could already fill dozens and dozens of episodes. Not just about pure knowledge though but about skills and techniques as well. How to build good habits, routines, how to get rid of old, useless ones, about study and memorization techniques and much much more. I don’t claim that I know and I can teach you about everything I’m mentioning, but I can surely point you in the right direction to find out more. I will post some credible resources on the website on HumanlyGenius.com. 

I will leave you with a question at the end of each podcast and if you want you can join us on our Forum at HumanlyGenius.com.

Today’s question: Who are the geniuses on your list and why are they exceptional? What is your definition of a genius? 

So as I said: Our website is HumanlyGenius.com

Follow us on Facebook Let Your Genius Emerge.

On Twitter and Instagram also Let Your Genius Emerge.

If you’d like to sponsor us, you can do so on Patreon Let Your Genius Emerge

I will release a new episode every Tuesday by 9 am Eastern Standard Time, so that is 3 PM Central European Standard Time. So from here on you can do the math.

Our next episode then will be January 11th. In it I will honor Abraham Maslow the American psychologist who called his work positive psychology and introduced the hierarchy of needs that is widely used today. I built my ideas on it too. I will talk about his life, his ideas and the criticism he got.

In the second part of the podcast I will explain how these different levels fit into our system, how we can build and extend on it so it will fully serve us.

I hope you bring your imagination and empathy as well for the next few episodes because we might want to find examples from different walks of life, historical era, to make it feel real. It will be an adventure, although not always a happy one when we talk about survival.

And now we have arrived at the end of this episode. I hope you enjoyed everything that I had to say in the past twenty some minutes and you are looking forward to the next episode. My hope is that we can converse in different ways during the year and we can enrich each other’s lives in the years to come. Until next Tuesday I wish you a thought stimulating and active week.

And next is some advertisement. Self-advertisement that is

As I mentioned before, I am an ESL teacher. In traditional speak this means I teach students who want to learn English as a second language. 

But I have to be honest with you. I always admit to every student I ever taught that I don't have a magic funnel so I can’t fill their heads with knowledge. The burden of learning is on the student every time. I can be your guide, your coach, your instructor. I have specialized to guide intermediate to advanced speakers of English to learn the skills of assertive non-violent language. Yes, it is a brand new set of skills that we need to memorize, practice, and get familiar with so it will become a habit. Then we can learn the words in any other language, that is just the application. 

Real life conversations in any situation are not how textbooks model them to be.

People are moody, provocative and you might not be able to know what to say even in your own language. I bet you have been in those situations, I had and have been all my life. That is why I started to guard myself with words and phrases that will keep my integrity and align with my values instead of losing it and regretting every word I say and everything I do in those situations.

Through assertive non-violent communication you can clearly state your needs without offending anybody and at the same time you learn to hear them out, what their needs are, so you can come up with a healthy compromise. You don’t need to lose but neither do they. 

My guided conversations, within the lessons I am stressing verbal communication, although that is the hardest way to learn, also the most important and it is how we best learn a language and also sharpen our brain.

So if you are interested, leave us a message. The first hour is a consultation, free through Zoom or any kind of video call. So again, get in touch with me through HumanlyGenius.com,

Let Your Genius Emerge through Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. I hope to talk to you soon.

Happy chatting, conversing, socializing for 2022.



Introduction
What Julia means by genius
Regular schooling is for the masses
Communicating and our needs
Our social circle
Thoughts, feelings, actions
Wrapping up
Assertive Non-violent Language Lessons