How to Be a Genius Through Growth and Challenges

¶ … video "Lead India -- The Tree," a tree is down in the middle of a busy Indian street, filled with rickshaws, buses, cars and motorbikes. The tree is blocking the entire flow of traffic and no one can move. All the Indians are frustrated and some are bickering. What to do? One small boy has an idea: he makes his way past all the vehicles to the blockage.

As he does so, the other motorists notice him but their attention is quickly taken by something else -- the pretty girl, the person sitting next to them, the sudden change in weather. Yes, it begins to downpour all of a sudden -- just as the boy reaches the felled tree. But he is undeterred: he begins to push in the middle of the rain storm. Now he has all the attention of the onlookers. His actions inspire other children to come and help.

Soon there is a line of boys pushing at the tree -- but it is still too heavy. Now the adults realize what needs to be done: they follow the example of the children and now out in the rain everyone is pushing to move the blockage. In an instant, with everyone working together, the tree is moved and everyone is happy. The rain stops falling and the sun is shining and traffic is able to flow once more.

Thus, this video is about leadership and what it takes to be a leader: even a child can do it -- it just depends on vision and drive. The child has the vision and the drive. What he lacks is the ability -- but his vision and drive attract others who share it and soon he has enough support that together they bring the ability that is needed. That is what leadership does: it brings people together so that collectively they can get the job done.

That is essentially Dweck's (2010) point in "Even Geniuses Work Hard." Her underlying thesis is that "challenging work" is a "growth opportunity" that allows one to improve one's knowledge and wisdom (Dweck, 2010, p. 16). Essentially, it is the risk of failure and the desire to learn from failure that helps one to reach genius status. Genius status is not a "fixed position" as Dweck notes, but rather a position that is built up over time, through a series of challenging opportunities.

That is the main idea in the essay: one should not be afraid of failure -- just as the boy in the video is not afraid of failure when he sets out to the move the tree. He is unable to do it on his own but he still looks like a genius in the end because he inspired the mass movement to get it out of the way.

Therefore, genius is synonymous with leadership in a sense, because it involves the process of putting oneself out there at the forefront, attempting to solve the impossible, getting down and dirty in the details and problems of the troubles in order to know them and to figure them out. It is work and it takes effort -- which is another point of Dweck: there is no genius who has not had to sweat for the knowledge that they have.

Moreover, Dweck asserts that the emphasis should be on growth -- not on the attainment of genius level intelligence or on always getting the right answers. What should be measured is how one grows intellectually and work-wise, whether one.