Awaken Your Genius summary

Introduction

AWAKEN YOUR GENIUS by Ozan Varul Unlock your innate potential and live an extraordinary life. Many people feel they have lost a part of themselves. It seems as if their unique innate spark has faded over time. Author Ozan Varul argues that we are all geniuses, we are each born into this world as unique individuals.

Yet as we navigate school, work, society and family, we often stop questioning who we are. We also stop asking what we truly want. Instead, we follow a path that becomes increasingly narrow. It is never too late to break free.

In AWAKEN YOUR GENIUS, you will learn how to gently shed old parts of yourself. These are the parts that no longer serve you. You will be reborn into a new version of yourself. Then you can rewrite your story.

We are all geniuses who just need to remember how. Gordon McKenzie, a renowned artist, noticed an interesting trend. He visited schools to talk to kids. When he asked students how many artists were in the room, almost every kid in a first-grade classroom leaped up.

By third grade, that number had dwindled to one-third of the room. By sixth grade, barely one or two raised their hands. We often lose that innate creativity as we grow older. Many factors cause our natural imagination to dry up.

Each one of us is a genius. You are completely unique. You are the one and only byproduct of a very specific set of circumstances. This includes your lineage and environmental factors.

Yet, as we proceed through life, gaining an education in a structured school, and taking on the expectations of parents, friends, and society, we begin to shed that which is unique. Instead, we add layers that obscure our authenticity. We often hide our genius, but it is never too late to reclaim it. To awaken your genius, you will need to undergo an internal journey.

This journey requires reflection. It also involves unloading the baggage of learned thinking and expectations. You must set yourself on a path to awakening. In this summary, you will learn about the five steps to doing this.

Letting Go of What No Longer Suits You

Letting Go of What No Longer Suits You. To awaken your genius, offload that which no longer suits you You may know the late Gillian Lynn as the choreographer of Cats and the Phantom of the Opera. By any measure, she was a success, but when Lynn was little, she was considered a problem child and a bad student. Running out of options, her mother took her to a doctor.

After some observation, the doctor asked her mother to leave the room with him. He left Lynn behind with the music turned on. Through the glass door, they watched the child leap and twirl to the music. The doctor's prescription was clear.

Enroll this child in dance class right away. Like Lynn, many of us are trapped within a system that does not suit us. Most of us are products of traditional educational systems. These are hierarchical environments that encourage memorization and passive absorption.

To awaken your genius, the first step is to relearn. To do that, you have to first unlearn or discard that which no longer suits you. This change is not easy because you are likely attached to your identity. But for something new to come, something old has to go.

Maybe you excelled in biology and volunteered in hospitals. But while applying to medical school, you decided you were no longer excited about the idea of practicing medicine. It might be hard to throw off years of work. It is also hard to shed the identity you claimed as an aspiring doctor.

But remember this, you are not your identity. Your identity is just a story you tell yourself, not your actual self. You may love music and play in a band, but you are not just a musician. You may drive a Mercedes.

But that is what you have, not who you are. Choosing one aspect by which to identify your whole self minimizes your vastness and reality. Become comfortable in the gray area of uncertainty. Entertain and accept contradictory thoughts.

Reject a tribal mentality that dictates you always align your thoughts with a particular group. Treat your attention as the most important commodity you have. Do not give it away cheaply to every alert on your phone. Avoid the demands of the 24-hour news cycle.

Also avoid the siren song of social media. Once you have created the space within, sit still and wait to be reborn.