until it comes time to do the work that legends do.”
“This is one of my wedding gifts to you two.” The billionaire pointed to a
breathtaking
painting of Thomas Edison, the great inventor. Over Edison’s
face, in an edgy modern art script, were the inventor’s words: “The best
thinking has been done in solitude. The worst has been done in turmoil.”
“I commissioned one of my favorite artists, who lives in Berlin, to do this
for you. He did a lot of the artwork in my Zurich flat. He hardly paints
anymore. Did this as a special favor. You cats could retire if you sold it—trust
me on that one. Please flip it over,” requested
the billionaire politely, sitting
down on the sleek chair again and surveying the expansive penthouse that
overlooked the skyscrapers of São Paulo. Many of the high-rises had helipads
on top of them so the icons of industry who operated within them could skirt
around without having to waste precious hours of productivity—and life—
sitting in São Paulo traffic. Because as you now know, the hours most people
waste epic performers exploit.
On the back of the immaculately framed artwork was a chart with this title
on it:
The 10 Tactics of Lifelong Genius
.
The billionaire continued talking. “Thomas Edison exemplifies prodigious
creative achievement like few others in history, having recorded one thousand
and ninety-three patents over his lifetime and giving us everything from the
lightbulb to
the motion picture camera and, in 1901, a battery that was later
used for electric cars. He wasn’t only an inventor. He was also a stratospheric
company builder.
“Yup,” the billionaire continued. “His life is absolutely worth studying
and then deconstructing in your journal so your intimacy and fluency with
how he did it grows.
Edison once said, ‘Being busy does not always mean
real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment.’
“And as you granulate the inventor’s achievement formula, please go deep
on studying his ability to focus. Edison also observed, ‘You do something all
day long, don’t you? Everyone does. If you get up at seven o’clock and go to
bed at eleven, you have put in sixteen good hours, and it is certain with most
men, that they have been doing something all the time. The only trouble is
that they do it about a great many things and I do it about one. If they took the
time in question and applied it in one direction,
to one object, they would
succeed.’”
“That’s on point,” observed the artist, who was dressed in black gear this
morning and wearing his standard issue combat boots. He’d shaved off his
trademark goatee. “It goes to the point you made in Mauritius about us
waking up with a limited amount of cognitive
bandwidth and every
distraction that steals our attention lowers our chance to do masterful work.
Because we leave attention residue on every diversion that we allow into our
workplace—and lifespace. And if we’re not really careful, we’ll end up with
the digital dementia referred to on the last diagram you shared with us in
Rome. I’m getting this piece in a pretty big way today. When I get back home
to my studio, I’m definitely going to set up my environment up so it’s totally
quiet. Zero devices. I also plan to do a big-time technology detox. No social
media and no cyber surfing for at least a few weeks, so I get my concentration
back. What I’m understanding is that once I’m in the clear space of silence, I
should focus only on one project at a time, not spread out my creative power
and physical energy on many. That’s what I take from Edison’s words. Don’t
diffuse my genius on being pretty good at many things when I have it in me to
be legendary by working intensely only on one thing.”
“And I’m realizing that even one interruption when I’m thinking about a
hot new product or my next blue ocean venture could cost me many millions
of dollars—or more,” said the entrepreneur excitedly.
“What you two just said is massively important if you are serious about
leveraging your talents and expressing the fullness of your inherent
greatness,” the billionaire affirmed as he beamed cheerfully.
“Edison would climb up the hill to his Menlo
Park laboratory and work
for hours and hours, and sometimes days upon days, with his team on the one
invention that was the center of their inspiration. That groovy cat was a pretty
gnarly dude.”
The billionaire then pointed to the chart on the back of the painting.
“I know you both need to get going, so you can get ready for the
ceremony. Kindly take this gift with you. But first, read what it says here on
the back, so you start the process of wiring in these ten tactics that will
accelerate your progress in The 5
AM
Club
and set your gifts, talents and
powers ablaze. Rising at dawn and running
The 20/20/20 Formula
is your
main move to lead your field and upgrade your personal life. These ten
calibrated habits are your amplifiers. They’ll ensure that you go from seeing
results that are linear to rewards that are exponential.”
The learning model looked like this:
Under
The 10 Tactics of Lifelong Genius
model, the entrepreneur and the
artist read the following list of strategies along
with precise explanations
about what they mean. And how one was to apply them.
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