Discover The ‘Practical Genius’ Inside You With Gina Rudan
Gina Rudan visited the KCAL 9 studios Tuesday to talk about her new book, “PRACTICAL GENIUS: The Real Smarts You Need to Get Your Passions and Talents Working for You.”
There’s a little Steve Jobs in All of Us
Here are five things I learned from the way Steve Jobs lived his practical genius:
1. Put all your assets out there.
Genius happens at the intersection of our hearts and minds, that sweet spot where our hard assets (strengths, skills, expertise) and soft assets (values, passions, and creative abilities) converge.
Steve Jobs the technologist was at one with Steve Jobs the artist; all of his abilities and his beliefs were seamlessly fused. To me, this was the manifestation of his genius—not the amazing products we love so much, but the extraordinary way he put everything he had—all his assets—on the line throughout his career entire career. I also loved how he seemed to stay true to himself through failure and success.
It’s only when you’re engaging all of your assets, all at once, that you can see for yourself what’s truly possible. It doesn’t mean it won’t be a boatload of work to get where you want to go; it just means that you can see your objective clearly and are able to keep all of your resources focused on it day-by-day.
2. Genius takes time.
Living your legacy isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon. Steve Jobs was patient with his projects and took the time necessary to realize his vision for each of them. Once you have identified your genius it will flourish over time. You will see the change in the quality of your experience immediately, but it’s the long-term, big picture transformation you need to commit to.
There’s a snip of video I love of a young, bearded Jobs that’s been played many times in news reports over the last couple of weeks. He’s demonstrating an early Apple computer and is explaining that the adoption of personal computers would take some time; it would be “very gradual, very human, and will seduce you into learning how to use it.” He lived his genius in the minute-by-minute and day-to-day, but it was also clearly ingrained in his vision for the future he would eventually help invent.
3. Listen to your heart.
Steve Jobs loved what he did. The joy and delight so clearly expressed on his face each time he unveiled a new Apple product should inspire each of us to lead with the heart…because when push comes to shove, the heart is always right.
4. Know your audience.
Steve Jobs was a modern tastemaker and he knew his audience well—often better than they knew themselves. He made creative decisions and business decisions based on his natural, almost intimate awareness of the nature of his audience. For example, a story in the New York Times describes Jobs’s decision to use a glass screen on the iPhone. Most would have chosen to use a plastic screen, for reasons that usually turn up on a P&L projection. But he knew that a plastic screen would scratch easily and many people would view that as a design flaw. Acting as an advocate for the audience he knew so well, he went with the glass. It was a big risk, but right on the money.
Attraction has nothing to do with you and everything to do with serving your audience’s needs and aspirations. Steve Jobs showed us how that’s done.
5. Fail forward.
We don’t hear much about Steve’s failures and that is because he failed forward. Even when he was ousted from Apple in 1985, he went off and started NEXT, which was a computer system that was a disappointment in the marketplace, but laid the foundation for the eventual development of the iPhone and iPad. His failures were epic, but he used every one of them to move ahead.
Failure is always a possibility. The trick is each time, to fail closer to your goals and aspirations.
Geniuses! Spread the word and win an iPad 2!
As a huge THANK YOU for your support, I am giving away an iPad 2 to one of my readers.
My upcoming book Practical Genius: The Real Smarts you Need to Get Your Passions and Talents Working for You is now available for presale on Amazon.
Every one of us has a capacity for genius. You are capable of achieving something so extraordinary that it could change the game for you, your business, and every aspect of your life. In Practical Genius, I show you how.
To help get the word out about the book, I’m asking you to share news of its release. Every time you spread the word about the book, you receive an entry into a drawing for a brand new iPad 2.
There are four ways to enter to win:
Read the rest of "Geniuses! Spread the word and win an iPad 2!"
Geniuses! Big Announcement!
Hello geniuses!
Today I’m proud to announce the brand new website for my upcoming book, Practical Genius: The Real Smarts You Need to Get Your Talents and Passions Working for YOU (in stores October 11th). Please check it out at www.PracticalGenius.com.
A love letter for you!
Dear Reader,
Last week, I submitted the final manuscript for my book, Practical Genius, to my publisher, the Touchstone division of Simon & Schuster. I just want you to know that I could never have gotten to this point without you in my corner. Thank you for supporting my message, adding your own dollops of genius to the work, and, most importantly, thank you for sharing your heart and mind with me in the three years since I launched this blog. You my are the inspiration behind my work and it’s not an understatement to say I love you.
You were the one who gave me the courage and discipline to haul my ass to the library every day to write for six hours a day, seven days a week over the last seven months. It was you who stayed with me spiritually while on this sometimes lonely journey. And today I sit in my home office with fresh flowers, a great cup of green tea and of, course, a bowl of blueberries and I smile in gratitude as I write this love letter to you.
I missed you while I was in what I like to call “writing cave mode” and I’m glad I am back. Although we were separated for a short time, you helped me write Practical Genius and will see yourself on every page. You were there with me every step of the way as my coach, my reality check, and as my greatest source of inspiration. Writing a book is “no joke,” as my brother would say but it’s also the greatest intellectual luxury I have ever experienced. It was a revealing spiritual journey and a rigorous process filled with surprises, peaks and valleys. Some days were completely spent in an extraordinary flow state where the words just fell onto the page and other exasperating days I would look at the page and think, “What do you want from me?!?” Overall, though, it was an out of mind and body experience that required extreme focus, discipline, and lots of heart—mine and yours.
Thank you and let the Practical Genius Movement begin!