Want to access more genius? If you want to achieve more and solve challenging problems, don’t work harder. Create more mental leverage.
The normal approach a difficult problem is to work hard and to focus on solutions. Learn why this isn’t the best way to get the most out of your mind. Want a mind that performs like a racecar? Shift to the genius gear.
The following metaphor describes the secret to high performance. Higher performance creates higher income. If you want to be a better leader, speaker, or writer, then you need to read this:
A Low Gear
All cars have gears. I drive a car with an automatic transmission, so I tend to forget all about the workings of the gears in my car. I am so used to my car changing gears for me, but knowing how a car works can actually help me better use my mind. This is because the gears in a car work a lot like the differnent levels of thinking in your mind.
Think of a car with a manual transmission. When the car is in a low gear, it can build up speed, but it can’t drive fast. To work optimally, the car needs to shift to a higher gear to speed up. At higher gears, the belt moves the same speed or even more slowly, but the car goes faster. The size of the bigger gear provides more leverage.
We all have had the experience of spinning our wheels. No matter how much effort we throw at a project, it doesn’t seem to go anywhere. Then we work even harder, pushing ourselves more and more only to come up with nothing to show for all our effort.
Similarly, when a car gets stuck in a low gear, you can press on the gas pedal all you want. While the rotations per minute shoot through the roof, the car doesn’t actually go anywhere in a hurry. The top speed is 5 to 10 miles an hour. The pedal is to the metal and the engine burns hot, but the car moves along like a snail.
Gear Head
Minds work a lot like this. A mind that is racing around is like a car stuck in a low gear. It might feel like we are making a ton of progress. Even though we work furiously, we don’t actually get much done. We tend to overcomplicate tasks and complete work that isn’t as important.
A car can drive faster when it shifts to a higher gear. Our mind works better when it is engaged in the right way. We can go faster without pressing as hard on the gas pedal. If we engage the mind at a higher gear, effort goes much further.
Read about an example of how low gear and high gear thinking try to solve a problem in the previous post The Mystery of the Aching Neck.
Effort is like a gas pedal. Clarity is like a gear shifter. In a manual car, they operate differently and separate from each other. We press the gas pedal with our foot and manipulate the gear shifter with our hand. We press the gas pedal with increasing pressure, and we slide the shifter to a new gear.
We can get into trouble when we think the gear shifter works like the gas pedal. While the gas pedal operates through more pressure, gear shifter operates worse with extra pressure. The more pressure we place on the shifter, the more we damage the transmission.
Our minds are the same. More pressure does not help our minds work better. Yet, when something doesn’t work, we tend to crank on our mental gear shifter and put the pedal to the metal at the same time. We attempt solve problems with more effort and pushing. Mentally, the more pressure we put on ourselves, the lower the mental gear we operate from. This causes burnout, frustration, and poor decision making.
Mental Gears
In reality, minds don’t have gears, but let’s pretend they do:
In a car, gears 1-3 are better suited for in town travel and short trips. Your intellect is your mental gears 1-3. The intellect is great for low level problems and decisions.
Let’s say we only have access to mental gears 1, 2, and 3. All is fine if a problem comes along that is easier to solve. Something like deciding what to have for lunch or what color shirt to wear. But when a higher level problem comes along, the lower gear thinking can’t help us.
You need higher gears to travel farther. Gears 4-6 are best suited for road trips and highway travel. In your mind, higher level problems need higher levels of thinking.
Higher level problems truly matter. How can I find more clients? How can I have a better relationship with my spouse? In a car, gears 4-6 can take you across the country. In your mind, genius level of thinking is needed to find answers to the important questions.
We lost a client and need to get revenue up. A team member is sick with a looming project deadline. A family member has a health crisis. The typical approach is to slam on the gas and throw on the afterburners. This seems like the best thing to do, but if we are in the low gear, we won’t get very far.
Are you trying to solve higher order problems with low quality thinking?
The pressure, stress, and mental contraction can even cause us to shift down to an even lower gear. Then, it becomes difficult just to choose what to have for lunch. Even the most basic decisions start to take on an impossible quality. Every setback becomes the end of the world. If we try to use our minds in this way, we create a downward spiral of confusion, stress, and frustration.
If you don’t have a manual car, think of a bike. You can pedal all day long on a low gear and not go very fast. Switch to a high gear to go faster and further. The chain turns around more slowly at higher gears, and the mind moves more slowly at higher gears as well. There is more peace, ease, and relaxation.
State of Mind
This is why we get our best ideas in the shower or on vacation. The mind is in a relaxed state. A relaxed mind solves higher order problems with creativity and ingenuity. The ideas don’t come from the act of showering or going on a vacation. Our genius comes from the relaxed state of mind that we are in at the time. This is good news. This state of mind is portable. The gearbox goes with us.
Higher gears are accessible at all times, but the shifter doesn’t work the same way as the gas pedal. The shifter is more intuitive and responsive than the gas pedal. It works by letting go of pressure. Relaxing and releasing.
You simply can’t change the gears by forcing them. If you do, you will grind your gears. In fact, to change gears in a manual car, you have to first disengage the clutch before shifting. Take your foot off the clutch of your mind. This engages an intuitive intelligence that we all have. All eureka moments, breakthroughs, and realizations come from this higher order of thinking. They don’t come from mulling over the problem, over-analyzing, or memory. Everyone has access to this intelligence, but it is most active when we relax our minds. We can’t hear the quiet voice of genius over the busy, loud thoughts of a contracted mind.
Your Personal Dashboard
The mind doesn’t like to be stuck in a low gear and then revved up. This the source of stress. Stress, overwhelm, and burnout are all signs you are using your mind in overdrive from a low gear. Feelings are your personal dashboard, showing you when you have downshifted without realizing it. At this point, it doesn’t matter how hard you push on the gas pedal, you will hardly move. You burn gallons of mental gas for little result.
When this happens, notice it by feeling it in the body. Feel the tension. Let it be a reminder to take your foot off the gas. Release the pressure you put on yourself and question if the problem is as big of a deal as it currently looks to be. Pressure comes from the way you think in the moment. The good news is that thinking changes continually. Sometimes, there is nothing to “do” except to wait until the higher gears come back online.
Your Racecar
Each one of us has a mind that operates as smooth as a racecar. It is an incredible intelligence that beats our hearts, digests our food, and heals our cuts. This is before we learn any book knowlege.
Our genius doesn’t come from our intellect. It was there before our intellect was even developed. This is why children are such creative problem solvers. They don’t let overthinking, pressure, and judgement get in the way of self expression. The same intelligence that gives us life can fuel our endeavors.
Book learning can’t help you find genius. It can only be found through a deeper understanding of how your mind works. Just reading this article can spark your insight based wisdom, but it comes from within you.
What if you have more under the hood than you think? Your high octane genius mind might be underutilized. Are you on the racetrack only going 15 miles an hour? If you want your mind to perform like a racecar, then relax into a higher gear.
Lower levels of thinking can get you going, but it is a higher intelligence, your creative genius, that gets you where you really want to go.
This approach doesn’t only apply to problem solving. There are so many activities that require a higher gear for best performance. When you want to go further, get a feel for engaging a higher level of thinking. Athletics, writing, speaking, leadership, artistic endeavors, and business development. A genius level of mind enhances all these and more.
Writer’s block is nothing more than trying to write from first gear. When an athlete “chokes” at the end of a game, they expereince a downshift in their thinking. Conflict in the workplace and in relationships happens when both parties operate from a low gear.
If we approach life with this understanding, stress, frustration, and stuckness are no longer barriers to success. They become guides that give you feedback on how you are using your mind.
Engaging a Higher Gear
If you are in a low gear, it isn’t a problem to solve. Don’t make big decisions, have important conversations, or attempt to force yourself out of it. Bring acceptance, patience, and grace. Thankfully, your gears will change throughout the day. They are in constant flux.
Your level of feeling is always an accurate guide to what gear you are currently in. If you feel content, clear, and relaxed, you are in a high gear. When you feel moody, frustrated, pressured, or overwhelmed, it means you are in a low gear. You can simply wait until you are in a higher gear and then take off! That is the time to press on the gas, to make the big decisions and have the important conversations.
If you think this will take forever, it will. Frustration about what mental gear you are in keeps you stuck and can even downshift you. Judgment makes clear thinking difficult.
Allow yourself to be in a low gear and make adjustments for it. Relax the way you are using your mind and let go of effortful forcing. The higher gears will come back before you know it.
Effort as Fuel
This doesn’t mean effort doesn’t have its place. It’s just that not all effort has the same effect. Many people work like effort is the only variable. Sometimes a little effort goes a long way. Other times all the effort in the world doesn’t seem to make you budge. It’s the same effort, the only difference is what gear you are in.
Effort is still a necessary part of the equation. The car has a gas pedal as well as a shifter. You need both to go somewhere. Combine the smooth operation shifter with the right use of the gas pedal. Combine a natural use of creative genius with well timed effort and you will go further than you ever dreamed possible.
The great part is that when you are at a higher level, work doesn’t even feel like effort. When it feels effortful, you are in a low gear.
Quality Control
This article was inspired in part by George Pransky’s idea of thoughts per minute. He equates the rotations per minute of a car to thoughts per minute in our minds. When we have more thoughts in a minute, we will burn out more quickly. Michael Neill expresses this idea beautifully in this video.
Many pride their ability to think swiftly, but it is a slower mind that produces higher gear thoughts. Instead of revving ourselves up, we want to open ourselves to a higher quality of thinking.
Just as all effort isn’t created equal, all thought isn’t created equal. Although all thoughts are trying to serve you in some way, most of our thoughts aren’t all that helpful. In fact, most of them lead us in the wrong direction. It doesn’t matter how fast or how much we can think if none of thoughts are of any use. Judgemental, insecure, and fearful thoughts don’t serve you even if they seem true. Don’t give any energy to low gear thinking.
The Scottish Mystic, Sydney Banks, said, “Every one of us has a mental waste basket and we would be a lot healther if we learned to use it.”
When we can feel the pressure and stress of a low gear, it is time to question the quality of our thinking. We can dismiss low quality thoughts, but we have to know that they are not worth our attention.
Low gear thoughts will try to convince you that they are better than they are. Minds lie. Don’t fall victim to your own mental imperceptions. Feeling is foolproof. How your thoughts feel is always 100% accurate to the quality of the thought. If a thought feels bad, it isn’t true.
When you use your feeling as your quality control, you will have access to more genius.
Limitless Genius
This car analogy is only a metaphor. The way your mind really works is you can’t shift yourself up. You don’t have the ability to move yourself to a higher gear, but you don’t have to. Genius level thinking is your set point, your default. You only only have the ability to down shift by creating mental contraction. You don’t mean to pressure yourself out of the natural high gear state. Most of the time, you don’t realize you have downshifted.
Everyone does this. I limit myself all the time. There is nothing wrong with you if you find yourself in a low gear. The system is working perfectly; the stress and pressure tell you when you use your mind in an unhelpful way.
Notice when you pull yourself away from your own genius. This can be the first and only step. If you truly see how you limit yourself, you won’t do it. Simple as that, but you have to see it in a deeper, non-intellectual way. There is no amount or type of thinking that can help you to relax into your genius. However, you can get a feel for using your mind at a high gear, and this feeling can guide you back into it.
Higher and higher gears are available to you. You don’t even have to shift up. Stop downshifting.
Realize that infinite levels of genius are available to you.
Resources
My name is Rich Life and this is a Realization Reading. I invite you to take part in a transformative conversation.
Much of my writing is based around the 3 Principles understanding of Sydney Banks, and enlightened Scottish mystic. Learn more about him here. The 3 Principles of Mind, Consciousness, and Thought he discovered helps us to understand the nature of our experience.
Those who explore this understanding find that their lives transform. Read more articles if you would like a richer experience of life. If you would like to connect, let me reach out to you or sign up for my mailing list and get Insights in your Inbox.
If you liked this article, read this article that discusses the idea in a slightly different way.
Please help me reach more people with the message that the core of who you are is peace, love, and connection. Share this article with someone you care about.
Your vibrant life is a single thought away.
Leave a Reply