After being bombarded with the subtle imprinting on my subconscious that has been going on, on my twitter and bbm for what feels like almost a year now, regarding this Genius Level thing, I found myself reading the Blog. At first, I thought Genius Level was some new catch phrase with a hashtag next to it that I wasn’t quite catching on or two words that one (Kagiso) says to themselves to assure themselves that they are cool, of higher intellect than their counterparts or that they have life figured out. Mine is #LiveForever. Anyway, I took a bash at reading the blog and the further I got the more one thing became certain; I needed to contribute. And so the same way this all began, I sent a BBM and I was well on my way, and I decided to start it like this. See what I did there, the beginning had begun and I haven’t even began yet #GeniusLevel.

I was at a Pizza Place yesterday and I saw a father and a daughter playing while they were waiting for their order. It was not a very complicated activity, the dad simply took one of those free pamphlet menu things that they have (at every fastfood joint) and was using it to swat at his daughter’s face, side to side and up and down almost like he was removing a very stubborn fly from her face. She in turn loved it, she couldn’t stop laughing. It was infectious and gave you that warm fuzzy “Faith in Humanity Restored” feeling that you get from seeing exceptional parenting and a father having fun with his daughter. It then hit me, something so simple had made this girl so happy. Something so unequivocally trivial that would probably piss her off had she been 10 years older, made her so happy, the happiness was contagious. That is the beauty of the child-like state, carefree-ness that cannot be explained. I found myself with endless questions, when did we lose this sense of wonder and availability towards happiness, self-belief and confidence?

I remember when I was 16 I had convinced myself that I would be rich and successful by 18. I am 25 now and while I have more money than both my 16 and 18 year old self combined and then take whatever total you get and times that by 2, a part of me feels like they had more than I do now. That ballsy attitude that allows you to blatantly believe in your own hype, regardless of how ridiculous the notions are that you ascribe to. My 16 year old self believed in me long before I was smart enough to understand the value of self-belief and believing your own hype. Yet somewhere along the way, somehow that instinct has dried out. What used to be an unwavering certainty in your own success has become stained with thoughts of an unwavering reality. When you are younger you think everything will happen smoothly and without incident, and while the incidents and reality help rack up your life experience a little naivety can contribute a lot more to your success than you give it credit for. This is why Steve Jobs said Stay Hungry, Keep Dreaming; the young ones (and young at heart) are always dreaming at some point or the other and it is this dream-like state that we should harness power from.

You see, the modern Billionaire made his wealth when he was still stupid enough to believe in his own hype. Richard Branson for example started Virgin when he was probably an actual Virgin. He (and to be fair, his partner) named the company Virgin because they considered themselves Virgins in the business, the kids, the new-borns, the inexperienced. He was young, stupid and naïve and even though he did face his fair share of hiccups along the way, he did everything with an unconventional naivety that allowed him, and made him believe that he could do it. He didn’t even have to invent anything, he just saw whatever he liked and put his name next to it; Virgin Cola, Virgin Airways, Virgin Money, Virgin records, Virgin Mobile, Virgin Media, Virgin Active, Virgin Festival, Virgin (Health) Care, Virgin Vodka, Virgin Connects, Virgin Holiday the list keeps on going and is sooooo endless it’s actually quite impressive. And now because of his Naivety he reeled in about 15 billion gross last year (pounds mate not dollars) employs about 50000 people and you have to call him Sir. That is the end result when you dare to approach life with the confidence of a child.

Now I am not saying be childish in your decision making and your careers, I am simply saying allow your child-like creativity and a dash of that unwavering self-belief to accompany you on your journey. Become your own hype-man. There is a reason why every Hip-hop magician has had one and dammnit if a Hype man is good enough for Tupac and Biggy it’s good enough for you. Ciroc has Diddy, Nike has Michael Jordan, even Mark Zuckerberg had a hype man; at least in the movie Social Media that’s what Justin Timberlake did. Justin helped Mark understand the value of his own work and how it was important that they dream bigger than a small dorm room prank. If you still don’t get me, take a page from Steve Jobs’s life. That gent believed his own hype so much he was impossible to work with, they fired him twice from his own company and both times he saved the company when Apple was going under. And both times he was fired, instead of crawling in to a billion dollar whole and collecting his I am a co-founder at Apple Cheque he did something on the side that revolutionised media industry, one of those was Pixar Animation, and they brought you Despicable Me not too long ago and that movie gave you the song Happy that you crazy about. The value of seeing yourself as better than the challenge, rival, or whatever stands between you and your success cannot be overstated. Never go anywhere without your hypeman lest you lose before the battle even starts.

“You Only Get One Shot Do Not Lose Your Chance To Blow, Opportunity Comes Once in a Lifetime YO” Eminem Lose Yourself

By the way, Richard Branson grew up with Dyslexia and Steve Jobs was given up for adoption at birth.

And oh hi, I’m Rati and I believe in having a hypeman

Article by Rati Mofokeng, editing by Kagiso Maloma

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