True Story:

I was a 20-year-old college student 200 miles from home selling door-to-door in rural Indiana.

Lonely, homesick, and missing my girlfriend, I wasn’t doing too well selling Bibles.  And I wasn’t making any money.  

Call Reluctance

Reluctantly, I  knocked on doors, but my heart really wasn’t in it.  I was discouraged.

My next stop was a pretty little clapboard house with a neat white picket fence in front.  After letting myself through the gate, I screwed up courage to knock on the door.

The biggest, dirtiest, hairiest man I ever saw jerked open the door.  He was wearing an undershirt and restraining a growling Doberman.

“Who let you through that gate?” he grunted.

“I let myself in, sir,” I said meekly.

“Well, let yourself out before I sic this dog on you.”

The Trial

Terrified, I must have jumped the fence getting to my car, because I don’t remember opening the gate—or anything—until I was driving down the road.

I was shaken.  Tears filled my eyes as I told myself, “I quit.  I’m not going back to my boarding house to get my things.  I’m driving straight to Nashville and turning in my sales kit.”

As I gave myself this speech, I was nearing the next house about a mile down the highway.  Lots of things were on my mind, not the least of which was that I needed to make some money to pay for college in the fall.

Giving myself a little pep talk,  I made a deal with myself.  I would make one more sales call.  If I didn’t make a sale on THAT call, I would quit.  Go home with my tail between my legs.

The Triumph

Sitting in my car in the driveway for what seemed like a long time, I gathered the nerve to knock on the door.

A farmer in from his fields having lunch opened the door and greeted me cheerfully.

“Good afternoon, sir.  I’m selling Bibles.  You don’t want to buy any do you?” (Have you ever heard a worse opening statement?)

Already I was prepared to head to my car, but he said, “I might.  Do you have any of those big family Bibles?”

Stunned, I could hardly believe my ears.  “Yes sir, I do.”

“Well come in and show me what you have.  I’ve been meaning to buy one for my daughters,” he said.

“How many daughters to you have.”

“Three.”

Family Bibles were the most expensive item I had in my sales kit; I think they sold for $32, if I remember correctly.  A lot of money in 1959.

A Trial Turned Into A Triumph

He bought three family Bibles and three study Bibles.  Paid cash in full, instead of the small deposit we usually requested.

I was rich, but I had a problem.  I had to stay in Indiana and sell for the summer, because I couldn’t lie to myself.  I made a deal with myself.

I had clumsily turned a trial into a triumph.

I didn’t know it at the time, but I had exercised the one thing that will almost always ensure success—persistence.

Never give up.  Persistence pays.

You don’t have to get it right.  You just have to get started. 

Work all day long.  Then make one more attempt.  

All you can do is all you can do, but all you can do is enough.

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Your Brain Is A Super Computer

The natural function of the brain is to learn, to explore, and to expand its own mental powers. We have in our head a vast, substantially-dormant super bio-computer, the human mind, given to us free at birth.

The Nature of Genius

The nature of genius is in all human beings; it is the nurture of that nature that is all-important; this view has been held by many of the great geniuses themselves.

A study of 100 of the greatest geniuses in history proves that all our societal prejudices about genius are wrong.

“Great intelligence is characterized by robust health, greater physical size, advanced social skills and, importantly, a sense of humor,” says Tony Buzan and Raymond Keene, authors of Buzan’s Book of Genius, an exhaustive research and ranking of history’s top 100 geniuses.

Skills of Genius

“The creative genius has all these skills and is, in contradiction to the stereotype, meticulously organized, scrupulously clean, and possessed of an exceptionally powerful memory.”

Buzan says. “Recent studies also, not surprisingly, show that those who engage in physical activity are, across the board, superior in their multiple intelligences.”

The study of geniuses also shows that their intelligence, creativity, productivity, and work rate tended to accelerate with age. Many of their greatest achievements came at the end of a long life.

Longevity is a characteristic of genius.

“The planet Earth,” Buzan asserts, “provides the ultimate intelligence test. It is the individual’s ability to deal with the intricate multiplicity of challenges which the environment provides on a second-by-second basis, that ultimately determines the level of our intelligence and our consequent chances of survival.”

Buzan and Keene researched 100 geniuses which they ranked in their Hall of Fame and many more that did not make the list, and 20 characteristics of genius emerged.

These characteristics recur constantly whether they come from arts, science, religion, business, politics, sports, theatre, or the professions.

20 Qualities of Genius

• Vision
• Desire
• Faith
• Commitment
• Planning
• Persistence
• Learning from mistakes
• Subject knowledge
• Mental literacy
• Imagination
• Positive attitude
• Auto-suggestion
• Intuition
• Mastermind group (real)
• Mastermind group (internal)
• Truth/honesty
• Facing fears/courage
• Creativity/flexibility
• Love of the task
• Energy (physical/sensual/sexual).

I’ll examine each of the characteristics in detail in succeeding blogs as well as profile many of the 100 top geniuses of history.

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