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YOUR INNER EINSTEIN
LESSONS IN GENIUS FROM A NOTORIOUS HOE-HEAVER
By Tom Terez
From the moment of his birth, things didn't seem right. His head was, well, oddly
shaped and too big for the body. The doctor assured the parents that a few months
of development would even things out. The parents worried for three months straight,
until the doctor's prediction came true.
When it was time for him to start speaking, the words didn't come. The two-year-old
seemed to be forming words and phrases in his mind, but little was said until age
three. Not until age nine did he speak fluently.
Then there were the tantrums. When things didn't go his way, he tended to launch
the nearest liftable object. One time he heaved a garden hoe, hitting his younger
sister in the head. In her adult years, she paid tribute to her brother's temper
by recalling: "His face would turn completely yellow, the tip of his nose snow
white, and he was no longer in control of himself."
His mother loved music and filled their home with her own beautiful piano playing.
She signed up her son for violin lessons, but one day his face turned yellow, his
nose whitened, and he whacked his teacher with the violin. He maintained a lifelong
love of music, but the teacher's goose egg ended any hope of a music career.
In school as well, he gave his teachers headaches. He asked too many questions. He
ignored lessons in anything but his main interests. He stayed away from sports. He
preferred to be alone. One teacher gave him a loud public scolding for a low grade
in Greek -- and predicted that this youngster would grow up to be an utter failure.
At age 15, the school asked him to leave, citing his lack of attention and disrespect
for elders.
These teachers missed his signs of promise, but his family had more faith. At age
five, his father gave him a compass. He spent hours with it, wondering how that needle
could always point in the same direction. It helped that his father was an electrical
engi- neer with his own high-voltage curiosity.
An uncle gave him a model steam engine. It was just a toy, but he studied it with
the intense curiosity of an expert scientist. He spent hours playing with blocks
and once built a house of cards 14 layers high -- defying gravity while confounding
those who said he had a short attention span.
Math seemed to be his thing, so a family friend gave the 12-year-old a geometry book.
He went through it page by page, absorbing all the lessons. Relatives took note and
gave him more books -- about astronomy, gravity, and electricity.
So when he got kicked out of school at age 15, his parents believed it was more of
a school problem than a student problem. He and his father looked for something more
suited for a temper- amental fellow with a sky-high IQ and raging curiosity. They
found a leading institute of technology that would waive the high-school requirement
-- as long as the applicant could pass the school's entrance exam. But true to form,
he prepared for the test by studying his main areas of interest -- and failing French,
biology, and other sections.
He couldn't enroll, but he got a second chance when the professors noticed his record-setting
math scores. Get a high-school diploma and we'll let you in, they said. He returned
a year later with diploma in hand.
At the institute, the teenager got down to business -- sort of. He skipped classes
he didn't like and had to borrow other students' notes. He had a bad habit of flashing
his sharp sarcasm, alienating teachers and fellow students. He aspired to be a math
teacher, and most graduates received a diploma and an entry-level teaching position.
But by school's end, all he got was a diploma and lukewarm wishes for a nice life.
In 1901, at age 22, he took a temporary job teaching math. He loved it and did well,
but the regular teacher returned and reclaimed the position. He went on to become
a private math tutor for two boys, but their father objected to the informal teaching
style. Then it was on to a third job in two years: as a low-level clerk at the patent
office in Berne, Switzerland. Working in a team of 12 people, he reviewed and registered
patent applications. It was the perfect job for a person who had been so captivated
by a compass. Best of all, it gave him a stable income and enough free time to write
his doctoral thesis.
Then it all began to come together: the compass, the toy steam engine, those houses
of cards, all those days staring out the school window thinking about how things
work, all those nights with books on geometry, algebra, and science. "A storm
broke loose in my mind," he later said, describing the year that would turn
him from a nuisance in the eyes of a few into a genius in the eyes of the world.
Historians and scientists have labeled 1905 the "miraculous year," so momentous
were this 26-year-old's discoveries. They were published in three separate papers
in the Annalen der Physik, a highly regarded scientific journal. The author: Albert
Einstein.
One of the papers focused on the photoelectric effect. Under certain conditions,
Einstein showed, light moves as a stream of particles called photons. The discovery
paved the way for inventions like television and lasers -- and helped create the
field of quantum mechanics.
Another paper delved into the motion of minute particles, or so-called Brownian motion.
Einstein demonstrated that this motion occurs when particles collide with atoms or
molecules. His mathematical explanation gave us the first real evidence of atoms.
Then there's the paper on Einstein's special theory of relativity. The speed of an
object depends on the point from which the object in motion is being watched, Einstein
showed. It was radical stuff, overturning Newton's view of fixed measurements of
time and motion. It altered our understanding of space and time, gave us the best-known
equation of all time (E=MC squared), and allowed us to harness nuclear power.
As we mark the 100th anniversary of these miraculous discoveries, the time seems
right to ask a few rarely asked questions:
-- At work, at home, and in the community, are there "troublemakers" who
like to throw hoes and violins? Do we know who they REALLY are, and do we realize
their potential -- or are we too focused on our proverbial goose eggs?
-- Are we tired of so-and-so's failing performance? Well, could it be that they're
simply not into Greek? Would they flourish if given a chance to pursue their deep
interests? Do we even know their deep interests?
-- Are we doing all we can to nurture people's curiosity and learning? Are we giving
the equivalent of compasses, model steam engines, and books?
-- Do our actions show that we have faith in people? Do we respect them for what
they have the potential to become -- or do we focus solely on what they have done
in the past?
-- What about you as an individual? Are you doing everything you can to bring about
your own miraculous year and life? Are you cutting yourself some slack for days gone
bad? Are you editing your inner dialogue so it dwells on what you want to attract
and create in your life?
Einstein himself gave some good advice on how we can all tap our inner genius. He
described it as his Three Rules of Work: 1) Out of clutter find simplicity. 2) From
discord find harmony. 3) In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tom Terez is the founder of InnerBest.com, BetterWorkplaceNow.com,
and TomTerez.com. His talks and workshops are all about helping individuals
and organizations achieve their very best. Click here to send Tom a note.
Copyright 2005 Tom Terez. |
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