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00:01:04 Abraham Lincoln was perhaps not a genius in the conventional sense

00:01:21 Doris Kearns Goodwin has written Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln.

00:07:49 Unconventional Genius

00:11:41 The Power of Mindset

http://bit.ly/GeniusHollins

• Lincoln’s genius traits included intellectual honesty, morality, non-conventionality, and soft skills such as empathy and communication.

• Lincoln had little formal education and had an ordinary background, but was someone who possessed all the skills we associate with genius. He was most talented, perhaps, at working with the genius of others.

• After he was elected president, Lincoln surprised everyone by appointing his “team of rivals” consisting of the men he had beaten in the election, and who often disagreed with him. But with this team, he was able to achieve the enormous accomplishments he is still known for today.

• Like Darwin, Lincoln understood that success and learning come from challenge and the courage to consider alternate and conflicting viewpoints. Lincoln’s cabinet also allowed him to make use of people’s diverse talents.

• Lincoln was also, unlike many in this book, a master at soft skills such as empathy, communication, and the ability to tap into a strong moral code of ethics to power his goals.

• The five genius traits already covered are enhanced and transmitted more effectively when combined with these soft skills, as Lincoln demonstrates. Under his leadership, the Civil War ended with emancipation and the end of slavery, as well as a new and unified national spirit that defined the democratic principles of the country going forward.

• To be like Lincoln, we need to know how to ask for help, to work with others, to engage our critics and competition strategically, and to take even our enemies as our best teachers.

• Lincoln also teaches us the power of connecting not only with our own moral compass, but with other people via their values and principles, to become better communicators and more effective leaders.

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Hello, listeners. Welcome back to The Science of Self, where you learn to improve your life from the inside out. Today is June 22, and here's your schedule for today. Based on today's holidays, celebrations and memorials, we're going to take a moment to prevent our pet from choking and then enjoy a windrush. Not sure how to do that. The lunch menu today is quite delicious. We're going to start off with an appetizer of onion rings. It's going to be accompanied by a drink of Le Monchella and for dessert, a chocolatey Claire.

Today's episode comes from Peter Holland's book think like a Genius. In this last episode from this book, we take a look at Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln was perhaps not a genius in the conventional sense, but his cleverness lay in his ability to work with what he had and to use diplomacy to make an impact. Lincoln was particularly admired for his habit of surrounding himself with people who actively disagreed with him. Doris Kearns Goodwin has written a book exploring this genius approach of the famed former President team of Rivals the Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. The concepts that Goodwin outlines, however, are classic ones, and many others have understood the value of surrounding yourself with good people and not just people who like and agree with you. It's essentially the same principle that Edison understood. We learn not by endless successes, but by failure and challenge.

When elected to presidency, Lincoln assembled a rather surprising cabinet the three men that he had beaten. These were rivals in the sense that they had competed fiercely with him and were former political opponents who didn't share all his positions. But rather than letting his ego get the best of him and attempt to hide his competitors and critics out of sight, lincoln did the opposite and deliberately sought to make use of their talents in government. In other words, the fact that they disagreed and were rivals didn't mean they couldn't be on a team and work toward the same goal, something perhaps unthinkable in the highly divisive modern American political landscape. Lincoln's reasons were many. The first is that people who are actively competing with you and coming close to besting you, are going to be good, capable people. Though they're competitors, they have valuable skills and talents, and Lincoln could see their strength even if it wasn't his own. Many geniuses toil away alone on their own paths, perhaps fighting off competition.

But for Lincoln, his genius lay in the fact that he could recognize the intelligence in others and use that to his advantage, and indeed, the advantage of the country he led. Keep your enemies close. How many CEOs achieve their rank and then immediately work to get rid of all the people on their team they don't like? Why do they do this? Simple. They only want to hear what they already know, and they want a group of yes men to agree that their idea is best. They want people who won't challenge them, and if they're a little flattering, all the better. But a person who never engages with different views, disagreement, or challenge makes the same mistake as the person who cannot tolerate the first version of their invention failing.

It's not success that builds us up and makes us stronger, but rather challenge. We're not good leaders simply because we've found a group of people who will blindly follow us. Rather, we develop real vision and strength when we can hold firm in our positions because we have properly considered the other views. The physicists, mathematicians and philosophers we've already discussed in this book may have been brilliant in a few areas, but many of them had disastrous personal lives, bad marriages, rocky relationships with friends and colleagues, or were irresponsible with money. Isaac Newton was a virgin all his life, and Adam Smith, famed economist, had his mother as a lifelong caregiver. All of this is to say that even genius has blind spots and weaknesses. It's a strength to see the strength in others and work with it. A great CEO realizes that they need all kinds of people on their team with all different skills, including those that they themselves lack.

A good leader understands that great things come from lively debate and negotiation, rather than simply having everyone agree all the time. A leader is just one person, but if they can synthesize the valid perspectives of everyone, they can rise against their own personal weaknesses, biases, and ego. And if they make sure that their team includes those who will challenge them, so much the better, as this is the only way to let go of poor assumptions or ideas that aren't working anymore. Lincoln's strategy worked extremely well for him. Though his political authority dissolved somewhat after his death, lincoln's legacy continued on. His accomplishments are enormous. Under his leadership, the union was defended and preserved, the principles of democracy were upheld and strengthened, and the practice of slavery was brought to an end. It's certain that Lincoln would not have been able to achieve all this in his term without his team of rivals, who in the end, were not rivals at all, but allies and teachers.

Lincoln was a leader and visionary whose lasting achievement was one of unifying the nation under its highest principles and values. Lincoln understood that a nation that was united was strong, and they could be united even as they differed and even as they disagreed. The way he assembled his cabinet reflects the structure he envisioned for the entire country. Democracy, respect for others and a unified goal toward one shared good were the guiding principles. Indeed, it's this spirit of democracy that fueled emancipation. We can see Lincoln's commitment to working with his rivals as a form of practiced intellectual honesty. Keeping your enemies close can be a way to keep yourself sharp, to make sure you're never getting lazy or egotistical or making inaccurate assumptions on the other hand, Lincoln could be said to have followed something like Darwin's golden rule when he genuinely considered alternative perspectives and entertained views other than his own. The idea is always that truth and cohesion are the highest good.

And to this end, Lincoln was always willing to place his own biases, his own pride, and his own assumptions. Second, this approach requires humility, honesty, and intellectual agility. It's a mark of strength to change your mind and update your view when faced with compelling evidence to do so. If Lincoln hadn't possessed this genius trait, he would have never been the near mythical and universally adored leader he is today, but simply another politician who was, in the end, mainly serving his own limited interests. Unconventional Genius we seldom group accomplished political leaders in the same category as great thinkers like Einstein or Socrates, but perhaps we should. Lincoln possessed many of the traits we've identified as key to a genius's success. Endless patience, an iron will, shrewd political tactics, a sound economic mind, determination in the face of adversity, and perfect timing were all mandatory for the enormous tasks Lincoln undertook. Hard work and discipline were undoubtedly required in buckets.

Lincoln was also a polymath of a sort, and despite having very little formal education, he had a wide range of varied interests, including science, literature, world history, geography, astronomy, poetry, music, and even a little sewing. He's also the only president to hold a patent. Lincoln held many different job titles over the course of his life, including farmer, ferryboat crew, postmaster, store clerk, and lawyer, not to mention president. Of course. Now you're probably thinking that being a president is great and all, but what could a man like Lincoln teach more ordinary folks? Even if you never find yourself in a position of leadership at work, for example, and you never have what you'd call rivals or competitors like Edison and Tesla were, doesn't mean you can't practice the same principles of intellectual honesty. One great way to do this is to work with and take advantage of the skills of others. So many of us want to be right, to be the winners, and to dominate over our tasks as though they were dragons to be slayed.

But the truth is that none of us is perfect, none of us has total control, and none of us is solely in charge. When we work with others, we can pool our resources, combine strengths, and become better. When we work in isolation, we risk our focus becoming too narrow and ineffective. So true genius might be the intelligence to ask for help from just the right person at the right time. It might be the humility required to acknowledge who is more skilled than you and finding a way to take advantage of that skill for the greater good. A little more of this attitude might have spared Edison from disregarding Tesla's ideas about AC current. As with Darwin's golden rule, seek out opinions that counter your own. If you're criticized, listen genuinely to it and take it on board.

Picture a new business owner who receives a poor review online from one of their very first clients. They're devastated, and their first instinct is to argue and assume that that person is attacking them. They could find a way to hide the review, or they could engage with the reviewer and genuinely ask for their opinion, for how to improve humbly. Making changes, listening to feedback, and even soliciting the advice of critics can have the opposite effect. Many devoted fans of a company started out as disgruntled customers, but later were so impressed with how the owner managed their complaint that they became their biggest advocates. Was Lincoln? Nonconventional. We can see that he led his nation to make extraordinary advances and unified the national spirit.

Perhaps compared to the others in this book, Lincoln was non conventional, but able to bring people around to his point of view, to win hearts and minds, to make rousing speeches, and to inspire people to see his vision. The Power of Mindset we'll round off this book with the consideration of a genius trait that isn't on our original list. Nevertheless, this trait is one that allows all the others to come together beautifully and enables any person to make the best of the genius traits they already possess. Descartes was blisteringly intelligent, socrates was ruthless, einstein engaged in the hard sciences, and Tesla and Edison were shrewd businessmen. But where Lincoln shines is in a separate skill set altogether the so called soft skills. Lincoln had style. He was a brilliant speaker, a smart strategist, and knew how to work people. Yes, he possessed an inquiring mind self discipline and the courage to be non conventional, but it was his attitude that allowed him to really share all these traits with the world.

Firstly, Lincoln was a phenomenal communicator. In fact, his storytelling prowess was legendary, and he was widely known to be able to talk with anyone about anything. His focus wasn't on conveying facts correctly or demonstrating superiority. Rather, he aimed to connect with his audience, whoever they were, using language to appeal to their higher natures. Lincoln also inspired a certain respect because he was honest and forthright. People sensed his humility and responded to it, feeling as though they were listened to in his presence. You don't need to look far to find examples of people who are intelligent, skilled and technically right, but who nevertheless annoy, insult or alienate people around them because they're unwilling to meet them halfway. In this sense, the five genius traits we mentioned are almost useless if they're possessed by a person who is unable to relate meaningfully with others and share those gifts.

Lincoln possessed empathy and the ability to creatively imagine another person's world, addressing them most directly by appealing to their values and perspectives. This makes for good debate that really goes somewhere. Reportedly, Lincoln always responded calmly and respectfully, even when addressed by rude or angry politicians and was sympathetic to all parties involved even as the Civil War raged on. Soft skills are not merely something nice to have or a kind of optional extra when compared to the harder skills of life. Consider again the five traits we've covered in this book insatiable curiosity hard work and discipline intellectual honesty having a wide range of interests non conventionality perhaps you've already noticed something interesting nowhere on this list is extreme intelligence. In fact, these traits could also be called attitudes or mindsets, and consist of behaviors that we can consciously develop in ourselves, whether we consider ourselves truly gifted intellectually or not. Thus, a person with moderate intelligence. But all the soft skills, including a great mindset and work ethic, will always perform better than someone with all the natural talent in the world who nevertheless wastes and is unable to share and communicate that talent.

In the beginning of this book, we thought about what it really means to be a genius and conjured up the image of the effortless, slightly arrogant smarty pants who's always right. But could it be that what makes a real genius is actually all the other stuff? Granted, being smart helps, but perhaps it doesn't get you very far unless it's also accompanied by good habits and the right attitude. Lincoln's talent for empathy and communication didn't make him a pushover. He was still an excellent critical thinker. He could see issues from many sides and entertain all sorts of opposing political positions thinking out of the box precisely because he was so good at understanding everything that was in the box. This is an attitude that takes self confidence and a strong moral code. He was resilient and never gave up trying to achieve his dreams, even though he failed the first few times he ran for the House of Representatives.

It took a full 26 years after that for him to achieve the office of President, and he worked hard throughout that time. We cannot imagine anyone having that kind of stamina and dedication unless they had the attitude of resilience. This bears repeating. It's not a question of raw talent or being good enough, but a matter of attitude. The secret ingredient. Humanity. One of Lincoln's greatest and most lasting achievements was his famous Gettysburg Address, a speech which still resonates through history with those familiar first lines recalling the Declaration of Independence four score and seven years ago. The speech was surprisingly short, at just ten minutes long, but it was honest, direct and potent.

Spectators reported being awed at the speech, delivered plainly and powerfully, and some reports say that the crowd was hushed into a stunned silence. Afterwards, Lincoln was not only able to perceive and reach for a better vision of the world, he was able to powerfully communicate this to others so they could share in this vision with him. He spoke as a leader, without self aggrandizing and without complicated speech. Here we see the powerful roots of Lincoln's attitude, his moral convictions. Here was a man who could summon up self discipline, hard work and resilience, because he knew deep down that he was fighting for something genuinely worthy. And isn't this the defining feature of all great people? In the end, Lincoln was a simple boy, born in a log cabin in Kentucky and received no more than a year and a half of formal education. Yet he became the president of the country, and more than that, one of the country's greatest presidents of all time.

Surely there was a lot more to his success than simply being smart. Lincoln achieved success because of a combination of natural ability, hard work, perseverance, and a deep conviction for pursuing not just fact, but truth. And that wraps today's episode from Peter Holland's book think like a Genius. In just a second, we'll cover the takeaways from today's episode, but first, I'd like to thank a listener in Germany, Alexander, for his questions recently regarding the podcast. Remember, if you have any questions or comments, you can send them to podcast at newtonmg. Here's the highlights from today's episode. Lincoln's genius traits included intellectual honesty, morality, non conventionality, and soft skills such as empathy and communication. Lincoln had little formal education and had an ordinary background, but was someone who possessed all the skills we associate with genius.

He was most talented, perhaps, at working with the genius of others. After he was elected president, lincoln surprised everyone by appointing his team of rivals, consisting of the men he had beaten in the election and who often disagreed with him. But with this team, he was able to achieve the enormous accomplishments he's still known for today. Like Darwin, Lincoln understood that success and learning come from challenge and the courage to consider alternate and conflicting viewpoints. Lincoln's cabinet also allowed him to make use of people's diverse talents. Lincoln was also, unlike many in this book, a master at soft skills such as empathy, communication, and the ability to tap into a strong moral code of ethics to power his goals. The five genius traits already covered are enhanced and transmitted more effectively when combined with these soft skills, as Lincoln demonstrates. Under his leadership, the Civil War ended with emancipation and the end of slavery, as well as a new and unified national spirit that defined the democratic principles of the country.

Posted stamp. Today we close with a quote from Frida Kahlo feet what do I need you for when I have wings to fly?