Your Genius at Work

You have a genius that is inevitably linked to your work and career. Everyone does. And each person’s genius is unique. Your genius can be thought of in a practical way: as the exceptional power that comes most naturally to you, as the process in which you engage so spontaneously and easily that you do not notice it, and as the business you are in as a person. It can also be thought of in a spiritual way: as the energy of your soul, and as an answer to the question of why you exist among the human community.

Your genius was a source of success and satisfaction in work that you have done in the past, and it can be a source of success and satisfaction in work that you do in the future. It is a major factor determining why some situations feel just right while others feel just awful.

The first step toward recognizing your genius is acknowledging that you do have a genius. The idea may seem surprising or quite foreign; yet it is not a new idea, but an ancient one that has become impoverished in our culture. We tend to think of genius as a mental capacity, a number on an IQ test, or as a quality attached only to those who produce extraordinary creative accomplishments. The idea is much more fertile than that, and has been alive in many cultures throughout many ages.

The primary method for recognizing your genius is to give it a name. To name something after searching for just the right name means to “get it” in both senses of the term: to understand it and to own it. The act of naming your genius will give you that understanding and ownership. It will make your genius more real and accessible to you. It will also alter your relationship to your genius as you will have a connection with it that is both more knowing and more intimate.

Although finding a name for your genius is an important technique, the more important outcome of the naming process is developing a felt sense of your genius. Finding a name is a device for developing that sense. You will know that you have found the correct name when the arrival of the name in your mind is accompanied by the felt sense of its “rightness.”

Excerpts from Is Your Genius at Work?