There’s a concept called ‘beginner’s mind’, same concept as beginner’s luck. Individuals who are not aware of how the mind works will call this chance. Firstly let’s get one thing out of the way, luck or beginner’s luck does not exist! Phoof! Let’s call it a mere excuse a conformist would use to defend his lack of idea/innovation pull consistency. If you have ever had to babysit a 7 year old or below, you’d know what I’m talking about when I say it’s somewhat of a nightmare……………….

****I’m getting ahead of myself, let’s pause and start from the BEGINNING SHALL WE.

I function on a different level of sanity than most people I think. Imagine if one’s thoughts could be projected onto a screen and seen by others, I’m pretty sure I would find myself in a mental institution. But again, what if crazy was normal and normal was crazy? Because you godda admit you would have to be crazy to want to be normal. Even a psychopath believes he is sane. I cannot be the only one. All of us have that inner slightly or overly crazy Genius we hold back from time to time, you’ve seen it, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Why exactly do we hold back? Call it fear of the unknown, or rather that there is so many normal people out there that when you do act out your real self you are immediately ridiculed. This has successfully managed to paralyze extreme levels of creativity and swapped it with a cheaper lesser value adding trait called normal.

It’s like we have all come to a common agreement that normal is the standard and that is how we will operate, if anyone goes over and above that we shut them down, ridicule them and their ideas, tell them that it’s not possible, it will never work. Guess me and yourself where not normal enough to deserve an invitation to that Convention Centre where all was written, voted on and put into practice. Normal Ideas suck simply because anyone can generate them, what I’m interested in is those ideas most deem too crazy to implement, those get my blood flowing and immediately incite my interest. Logical solutions have never worked.

I remember watching Kung Fu Panda the other day and remember hearing Master Oogway the tortoise say:

“If the path you walk always leads back to yourself, then you never get anywhere”

From the above I sense at least two questions headed my way with a speed on light.

1. You watch Kung Fu Panda? How old are you?
2. How the hell can a tortoise be a Kung Fu Master? They so slow and lazy.

To answer the first question, I’m 24 and I think cartoons are awesome! Although a bit overly dramatized at times there is a great deal we can harness from them; the humor, the crazy ideas, the crazy solutions to problems. We all awe a great portion of our personality to childhood activities we engaged in, and some if not most of those activities included watching a lot of cartoons, although stored in your subconscious we often simulate with this hidden glimpses at a later stage in life without even knowing it. Steve Jobs was once quoted saying “Stay hungry, stay foolish”. This is a guy who created Apple, to think most would listen to him.

Thinking differently! What this does is, it taps into that creative part of your brain and brings it into harmony with your more cautions (safe) conscious mind. I have come to find that the best ideas come from silly crazy acts. Isaac Newton the most influential Scientist of all time was inspired to formulate his theory of gravitation by watching an apple fall from a tree. Einstein married his cousin and had an afro; and you mean to tell me these guys where normal? Enough said.

For the second question, think of it as a way of challenging the status quo. For far too long we’ve seen a tortoise as being slow and lazy, yet we never thought any different of it, we never viewed it to be a harmonious creature that is constantly focused on its thoughts through meditation, but anyway…………

Realising your Genius Level requires a paradigm shift in the way you think and view life. How can a Panda become a Kung Fu Dragon master? How did Oprah go from being that chubby little girl to the multi-millionaire that she is now? How did Bill Gates go from being a nerd to Genius? This is just simply a mockery of the real world, all those people you deem stupid, boring, nerdy and unsociable are usually the ones who go on to do Genius things, they will one day boss you around and write out your pay cheque.
“Only the ones crazy enough to think they can change the world actually do”

There’s a concept called ‘beginner’s mind’, same concept as beginner’s luck. Individuals who are not aware of how the mind works will call this chance. Firstly let’s get one thing out of the way, luck or beginner’s luck does not exist! Phoof! let’s call it a mere excuse a conformist would use to defend his lack of idea/innovation pull consistency. If you have ever had to babysit a 7 year old or below, you know what I’m taking about when I say it’s somewhat of a nightmare, try and explain to them that they can’t do something and see what happens. Children believe they can do anything. Jump out the window and crash land headfirst because you told them Spiderman was a lie and they believed it to be true. In a child’s mind there are many possibilities, but in an adult there is only a few; whatever we accept as truth becomes fact to us and we think no differently after. A young mind or a beginner’s mind isn’t overflowing with experience or infatuated with systems and doing things the way they have always been done, past knowledge provides you only with a limited scope while in a beginner’s mind the possibilities are limitless. While in a game of chess I can be able to device strategies that I deem strategies, while in actual fact they aren’t because the other player is thinking the same way, in a rookie’s mindset there are a million strategies that no counter attack can be devised upon. This is due to his moves being aided only by what he thinks, no external influences!!

I remember in grade 10 I entered the Math Olympiads, I was never really that good in math but what happened when the results got announced stung even my math teacher and science teacher simultaneously. I was in grade 10 competing with grade 11 and grade12 learners. I only entered because a friend of mine (Morwape Mapheto), funny I still remember his name had enticed me into entering. I won overall in the high school division and won overall regionally. Till today if you asked me how I did it I’ll jokingly say “obviously because when you reach my stratosphere you immediately become a genius”. I keep on saying this and the funny thing about confirmation is it works. But to tell you the truth it’s because I only entered the competition for fun, unlike those learners that where under pressure because they were always getting A+ in math higher grade; I was somewhat just relaxed and that way I was able to naturally apply fully my mental Genius.

You see experts and people known to be good at something have this heavy pressure to perform whenever they go against a lessor opponent that they end up freezing their prefrontal cortex which is the front part of the brain responsible for most of our brain power. Going into the competition I did not have this pressure nor did I have any standards to live up to. Actually I did not even care about the outcome also. Procedural memories can only be extremely useful for repeat tasks only, but when it comes to applying your Genius in a higher level platform, innovation type of thinking will prevail.

So go on ahead and entertain those overly crazy ideas you have been hiding away, the best person you can ever be is yourself, and boy no one can play that role better considering you have been rehearing and auditioning for that role all your life. Lights! Camera! Action!! Take the lead and play yourself, you the star of your own reality show.

And oh HI, I’m Kagiso and I’m Geniusly insane.

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