The Curse of Brilliance
I recently learned about a new concept — the Curse of Brilliance. When people analyze what makes them productive and successful, they tend to overemphasize what they have found extremely difficult and downplay the importance of what they were naturally good at. That is, I deify what I’ve sweat and bleed for, but devalue what has sort of worked out itself.
It looks like modesty: “Oh, it’s nothing. You can have it for free. I have a ton of ideas like that”. The problem is that without realizing the specifics of your gift, you can’t become a joker or an ace in any field. The accumulation of experience, skills and knowledge will, at best, allow a hard-working six to grow into an executive jack or a controlled king. To be №1, it is not enough to have no weaknesses — one has to be one order of magnitude higher than everyone else in something concrete.
Any natural talents require investment in their faceting. But how to do it, if instead of a Cullinan diamond you see only a trivial mineral? That’s why each of us needs a careful and attentive look from the outside. A child needs a parent, a student needs a mentor, an athlete needs a coach, an entrepreneur needs an advisor or a psychotherapist. Trust in the significant other allows for the “heretical” thought: “Everything I was so desperately searching for, it turns out, has always been in me”.
Sincerely yours,
-Alexander
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As a business therapist, I help tech founders with rapid business transformation. My specialty is accelerating decision-making at the intersection of business and personality.
