Three Success Lessons from Albert Einstein

When he was a young boy, his parents thought he might be intellectually disabled cause he could not speak a word till the age of 4. Later in life, this boy dropped out of school at the age of 15. He failed his first entrance exam to pursue higher education. His first job was working as a clerk in a patent office. And that’s also where he discovered the theory of relativity. He went on to become the most influential physicist of the 20th Century. I find the life story of Albert Einstein one of the most fascinating and inspiring stories of all time.

In this article 2 of the series learning from legends, I will discuss three of my favorite lessons from the life of one of the greatest scientists and philosophers to have ever walked on our planet.

Lesson number 1. Be Curious

Einstein once said “I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious”

I want you to take some time if needed, stop reading, and think when was the last time you asked a question why? Some examples could be Why do we blink our eyes? Why every apple product is launched on a Tuesday? Why do we get old? The power of why is the power of curiosity.

Children are learning machines. 90% of us learn more in the first 7 years of our life than in the rest of the years combined. Research shows that an average four-year-old asks 300 questions a day. But the same child when gets to the high school age usually loses their inquisitive mind and the only type of question they ask is, “Can I use the bathroom?”. We are born curious but as we grow up, we are told to follow instructions and rules without asking questions, so much so that we develop this as a norm. We accept the rules created by society without questioning them.

We live in times where machines are far smarter than us in most aspects. But there is one massive advantage that makes us superior to them and that is our ability to ask better questions. All great inventions, from the phone on which you may be listening to this podcast, to the internet connection on which this is streaming, started with a question.

So, we have established the importance of curiosity but how can we make it a lifestyle. I believe change happens inside out, so in order to reinstate our lost curiosity, we must adopt behaviors that support curiosity. There are 4 key behaviors of naturally curious people

1.      They see situations without judgment. They do not rush to label something as right or wrong way, just because that’s the way it has always been labeled. Instead, they approach every situation with a curious mind.

2.      They ask a lot of questions.

3.      They are fully present. Engaged and thinking. Not living a life on autopilot, but a life on discovery.

4.      They are willing to be wrong.

Research suggests that a 4-year-old asks 300 questions a day but how many do you? So, my challenge for you is that accept nothing in life because someone said so. Be bold and ask the question why?

Lesson number 2. Make Mistakes

According to Einstein “A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.”

This does not mean that you should deliberately make mistakes. What this means is most people make mistakes when they start something new. In fact, humans have always learned from their own or other’s mistakes. Every master was once a disaster and every expert was once a beginner.

If I gave you 3 balls and asked you to learn to juggle them in 3 months. Do you think it’s an achievable goal? Yes, most people can learn to juggle in 3 months. But what if I introduced a condition that you have to learn to juggle in 3 months but without ever dropping a ball. Can you still do it? No. No one can. Cause you will be so scared of dropping the ball that you may never begin. The only way to guarantee your failure is to never start because of the fear of failure. You can never win if you never begin.

Lesson number 3. No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.

Before I explain my understanding of this lesson, let me first tell you what I mean when I talk about Consciousness. Consciousness is your awareness. Anything that ever exists only exists because you are aware of it.

Often, we feel stuck in life because we have not changed our perspective or in other words, we have not changed our level of awareness. Has it ever happened that you were driving a car with handbrakes on? Trying to put down, only to wonder why your car is not picking up the speed. Then as soon as you shift your awareness you realize that it’s because your hand brakes are on. This is a small problem and so requires just a tiny shift in awareness. But what happens when we deal with bigger problems of life is that we get so much emotionally consumed in these problems that we move down to a lower level of awareness. At this lower level even if the solution is right in front of our eyes, we would not be able to see it as we are not aware of it.

So, if something in your life is not working even after several attempts, chances are that it is not a reality problem, it is an awareness problem. Raise your awareness to erase your problems.

Finally, I will end this article with another of my favorite quotes attributed to Einstein.

Everybody is a Genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb trees, it will live its whole life thinking that it's stupid.

This blog is posted by Anurag Rai. Anurag is a Life and Performance coach and founder of Superhuman In You. He is also a successful entrepreneur and a certified Meditation and NLP practitioner.