Our society has always been filled
with brilliant people. However, most of
those talented people and their innovations will never be known by the public. Why?
They were too smart to work with others.
And one person can’t do it all.
Furthermore, when they train and develop themselves, they
do it in
isolation. And they exude a “take on the
world alone” mentality.
Why many people have not been able to
maximize books and workshops
These brilliant people attend workshops,
read books and experiment with new ideas on their own. While they may benefit from engaging others
in friendly discourse, they can sometimes have the mindset that no one
understands them. Or no one can keep up
with them. While this strategy allows
them to pontificate their smartness, it stunts their growth.
The problem with the ‘going italone’ approach with books and seminars is that you will not have theopportunity to practice, so your retention of the material will be 20% or less. Why? When you return home or to work there may be
no one with whom you can discuss your new discoveries. The people in your environment may have no
way of relating to the journey you are taking personally or
professionally. For them, your
development may appear to be a foreign language. Therefore, they have no idea how to support
you. It will be difficult for others in
your life to be your partner to practice new and empowering techniques, thought
processes and philosophies; practice of new ideas can lead to greater retention
and effective application of the new information.
Objectively speaking, reading books
and attending educational workshop are great ways to expand your
knowledge. When you are able to
continuously discuss those new ideas with others, it allows you to discover
ideas you may have never considered. In
some cases, simply discussing topics with others can stimulate new thinking for
you. This can especially happen when you
are speaking with people who don’t see eye to eye with you. Those people will force you to articulate
your ideas with greater clarity. They
may even force you to express your ideas from new perspectives. Yet, this isn’t common practice for
many.
With that said, if you’re a
brilliant lone wolf, engage people.
Share your most intimate ideas with others and quietly listen to their
feedback, especially if you don’t like what they have to say. Before you disagree with them, ask
questions.
In addition to engaging
conversations, invite friends or colleagues to join you at workshops. Or suggest a great book you are reading. That way they become a support structure to
reinforce and practice what you’ve learned.
From another perspective, on the
surface, it could appear difficult to work with a smart lone wolf. To make matters worse, they sometimes do not
allow others to contribute to them. In
other words, they may not be the best listeners. They can sometimes be dismissive towards
others.
While the lone wolf is smart, his or
her individual knowledge is limited. One
person does not know everything. When
you combine two or more people, the new combinations of knowledge can be
incalculable.
Nevertheless, if you do choose to
hire a brilliant lone wolf, they can be an asset to your team, department or
enterprise. Leverage their point of
view. Engage them and allow them time to
think through your questions. Also,
provide them with opportunities to lead meetings or new initiatives. If you send them to a workshop alone, ask
them to present their experience and lessons to the team. Lastly, if you engage them in healthy
discourse, question some of their perspectives.
That will force them to clearly articulate the brilliant ideas that may
be trapped in their mind. Otherwise,
that brilliant lone wolf will become a forgotten name in history.
What
do you think? I would love to hear your feedback. And I’m open to ideas. Or if
you want to write me about a specific topic, let me know.
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