Theme 57: Genius

Essere tradizionalista non vuol dire seguire delle imposizioni, significa seguire una cultura. Cultura è evoluzione e quindi si può fare, si può cambiare.

Il vero tradizionalista è un ottimo rivoluzionario.

Does a genius have to be a person?

What would be then the new definition of genius?

Try not to make mistakes twice.

Done is better than perfect. There's probably 100 spelling mistakes in this slideshow.

Rule: Must love puppies.

We open doors and we remove barriers.

We started making all this noise, which is pretty much my only skill in the world.

As long as you work hard and you're not willing to accept no you'll be fine.

Every obstacle that ever came up, I found a new way around it. A way that no one else had ever done before and it was because I had no idea about the way people were meant to do it. I just wanted it.

Every obstacle that ever came up, I found a new way around it.

People like you and I, can see things that other people can't.

Creatives CAN BE the best leaders in the world.

Creativity is nothing without commerce.

My hard work prevailed over all of the people, with all of the skill, and all of the talent in the world.

Connections always win, talent doesn't. That's a fact!

Burn your boats.

It was all about building relationships — and spamming.

In the world of start-ups, it's really important to build a community and a following around the product and service that you're offering.

So I sent about 999,999 emails and I got about 3 yeses

Find out what it is that you’re here to do, and you’ll know what it is because it’s going to be directly connected to service.

I think that genius is something that we share collectively—not individually. And while it’s really important to share the achievements of those around us, it’s equally as important for us to realize the power that we hold as a group.

The greatest movements come from groundswells—not calls to action.

An idea in isolation is a puzzle piece in search of a puzzle. If you take a step backward and look at the bigger picture, that’s when big things happen.

Genius is the process, the connections, the patterns that are invisible to the untrained mind, making them seem like magic.

Genius is when I let myself be so purely me, where I’ve chipped off the rest, where I’ve ripped off the dust and the mounds of hate and doubt that have stacked on me to remember that my spirit and your spirit is made of pure gold.

That’s genius to me...to be exactly who you dreamed to be despite the unrelenting storm of noise around us.

The more one is surrounded by hard working and creative people, the more endurance one gets. Setting goals and challenging each other is the principal food of stamina and persistence.

The art, what we create... it is what tells the story of our world. So we as keepers we have to be very guarded. Because it is our voice. And they cannot silence your voice.

We have to carry the story. We are the artists. We are the ones who put it on canvas. We are the ones who put it in prose. We are the ones that danced our sorrows. We danced our happiness.

Most people know the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

We realized that learning from other kids helps us relate to them.

We found that kids teaching other kids is just as valuable [as adults teaching kids].

When you gather enough data together, you put it in formation. In formation. Information. So data becomes information and information gives you the ability to start creating knowledge from what has been put together. From that knowledge, you then gain intelligence that gives you the ability to act on that knowledge. From that intelligence you get wisdom which gives you the ability to decide if you want to act on that knowledge or not. and so, if you understand the trajectory and path, you understand your path and how it relates to creativity and genius.

I see your genius. Please share your light with the world every day.

Q: What's the next challenge you are looking forward to? A: What am I going to have for lunch.

There's genius ready to be tapped, created, and deployed anywhere at anytime for anything if we take the time to build community. There's no problem we can't solve, no challenge we can't overcome, if we build community.

This is what it’s all about. It’s about allowing yourself to have fun. And have fun with yourself and have fun with your partners. See the possibilities with yourselves and stay together. Because we are all geniuses.

I love that you actually got so involved that you didn’t hear me saying ’stop’.

We never really grow up. The only thing we do is learn to behave in public.

When we feel that it’s hard, it’s because we let our control take over. Control can be a good thing. But not in improv. Control is boring. Control stops our creative minds and stops our imagination.

It’s all about saying ’yes’. This is what we do when we work with improv. It’s about saying yes. And that’s how we can become geniuses.

So, instead of me standing here talking about myself, I would actually like to try this on you now.

A short story about myself. My name is Tobias. I’m a human and I’m an improvisor. Which is pretty much the same.

That it is okay to be expressive, that it is okay to feel good, that it is okay to feel like how you want to be.

Where has your time gone? Has it gone toward finding your grind or finding your genius? Or has your time gone consuming and paying attention to other people’s lives or someone else’s genius.

What do you do when you encounter resistance? My advice is listen to the critics and then defy them, dig deep and make it happen.

Accomplishment and achievement are possible if we dare to try, if we allow ourselves to experience life, if we don't play it safe and succumb to fear.

The ideas you have to fight the hardest for are often the ones you’ll be remembered for.

The best way we can move forward as a culture is to harness the power of people to build community.

Learn how people adapt to the world around them. Bring that into your design practice.

We should all ... understand how each of us is an individual and is unique, but also focus on what is universally important to all of us. That way, we can increase access, reduce friction, create a more emotional connection—in literally whatever you design.

What we design is a byproduct of how we design.

Our greatest asset when we design is human diversity.

After being younger, making some money, and experiencing that and losing it all, the idea of photography when I picked it up again was like... it wasn't about how much money I can make, it was like, if I can get by doing this thing that I love then I act like I'm winning in life.

If you have a day job, keep it. Don't quit your day job, don't jump into it because having that time allows you to nurture and develop your craft to what you want it to be—to not conform to a commercialism for 'is this going to make me money?'

If you have a day job and have this creative outlet, don't rush to milk it. Don't rush to cash in on it. Let it come, let it happen. There's a bigger power in saying no sometimes than saying yes to everything.

I never set out to make photography a career. I never set out to say, 'Ok this is a thing I'm doing, people are telling me I'm pretty good at it... how do I make money with this now?' I never did that because I think it's very important when you do discover that thing you love in life, don't take for it granted.

I think everyone in this room probably has something that they love doing, regardless of anything. It's really a trip when you think about how many people in life do not discover one thing that brings the same kind of feeling that we all get in this room from what we do.

I saw a lot of similarities with photography for myself in a sense that you go outside your house, you bring your camera the same way I bring my skateboard. I interpret the world as I choose to, the way you can through your lens of a camera.

If I focus on what makes me happy that's going to be a ripple effect for everything else in life.

Sometimes you do things based on merits or based on how much money am I gonna make, is this cool, is this gonna be socially acceptable . . . there's a lot of variables, but looking back I was doing this because I was just so happy to be able to walk out of my door and skate everyday.

I believe that human adaptation is a form of genius.

What made me unique was on the outside—my skin color, texture of my hair, my height even at that time. My dad taught me that being unique is like having a special telescope that allows you to see the world in a unique way. The trick is to use that telescope to see what's special in other people as well.

Genius is really a reflection of our own achievement or our will to want to achieve more.