The 24 Characteristics that Geniuses have in Common

Goals and Purposes

To be driven, it is important to ensure that the goal you are driving towards is actually your goal, not someone else’s. Attempting to accomplish someone else’s goal instead of yours can actually impede your drive, and you become demoralised. 

For example, a university student could have the goal to obtain a first on their degree. However, they are not very motivated. Perhaps, they are doing a business degree. Upon closer inspection and discussion with the student, it turns out that really the goal of the student was to become an engineer, and doing a business degree is not really his goal. Perhaps due to inadequate marks for an engineering degree, they could only do a business degree. That might have set the student on the path of a wrong goal. There are infinite scenarios since no one is the same, and goals and purposes are a very personal matter.

The Admin Scale tool is a very simple tool developed by L. Ron Hubbard in the early 70s to help a person, a group, a company etc. accomplish their goal. I have used this tool regularly for the past 20 years. While a mum-at-home home-schooling, while being engineering student at university, when looking for a job, and when in a job, etc. The Admin Scale tool works in any situation where you want to achieve a particular result and goal. I even use it when getting myself ready for a job interview!

You can do the free online “Targets and Goals” course which describes the Admin Scale technique, with exercises, as well as additional articles concerned with strategic planning and how to accomplish your goals. You can also visit my Admin Scale tool page.

Target and Goals free online course overview here.

Toxic Personalities

Another potential reason for lack of drive could lie in being connected or surrounded by an anti-social personality, or toxic personality, who openly or covertly puts you down, knocks your enthusiasm, needle you with subtle digs or remarks, etc. It can be very subtle, or very obvious. 

This excellent 30 minutes presentation describes the principles of the social personality and anti-social personality with tips on how to recognise them. This presentation is highly recommended. Whatch it here. 

You can also do the free online course The Cause of Suppression which contains several essays on social and anti-social personalities and how to deal with situations you might encounter in life when coming up against an anti-social personality. 

The Cause of Suppression online course overview here. 

Overwork and Burn-out

Overwork and overload at work can definitely drive a person to burn out rather than encourage more drive to achieve their objectives. However, are there ways to handle work that could actually help you to efficiently deal with overwork or high workloads without burn out, and still keeping you driven? Yes, there are.

A compelling visual presentation based on L. Ron Hubbard’s book, The Problems of Work: Scientology Applied to the Workaday World, details the landmark discoveries, including the principles and laws which apply to every endeavour and every problem of work. With 70 percent of our time spent at work, difficulties on the job can impact every facet of our lives. Contained in this film is not only technology to bring stability to the workplace, but the groundbreaking processes to return joy itself to all of life.

Watch the Problems of Work presentation here. 

Do the free online Problems of Work course here. 

Courage is the ability to face danger or pain and put aside the thought of being afraid.

A few years ago, I took an aviation consulting job in the Middle East with an English company. It was meant to be for a few months only with specific work to achieve. 

I found the local people wonderful, and the culture very interesting. As I like to talk to people and listen to their stories, I was indeed very interested in the job and the local culture. 

Unfortunately, it very quickly transpired that a couple of individuals in the English company who were my bosses and managed the company were in fact extremely racist, continuously making disparaging comments about the company’s clients (very wealthy Arab clients) behind their back. So when those couple of individuals talked to the clients, it was all polite and nice airs. But as soon as the clients would leave, or when they were out of earshot, the critical comments came in thick and fast – comments which I can’t write here. 

Very quickly, I felt extremely uncomfortable because this situation was not OK, and I found these bosses to be hypocritical. I tried to raise it with a colleague to find out how to report it. But no one in the company dared do anything about it. They were too afraid for their jobs. I was very stuck. By the third week, a significant incident took place in a meeting with extreme racism, which at this point, I contested and demanded that the racism stop. I took a gamble as I knew that either they would stop, or my contract would be ended. But in myself, the right thing to do was to stand up to that bullying and keep to my own truth and integrity.

As I thought would happen, my contract was immediately terminated and within 48 hours I was flying back to the UK. Although I had lost a contract, I felt I had done the right thing by my Arab clients and my clients were grateful that I stook up to them, and went on to review their business relationship with the company.

Interestingly enough, within a couple of weeks of returning to the UK, I had my next contract. I always find that if you stick to your own truths and personal integrity and do not compromise with your reality, with what you see with your own eyes, you will in the end.

There are three essays by L. Ron Hubbard which I have known and applied for close to 40 years now and they have always worked for me to help me keep on what is right for me.

Essay on Personal Integrity – Watch it here in film format. 

Honor. Truth. Nobility. In this decisive essay L. Ron Hubbard goes beyond the obvious to explain the true meaning of integrity, revealing that, “What is true for you is what you have observed yourself.” Mr. Hubbard explains why having the courage and confidence to observe and believe in your personal truth is so important to your own integrity.

Essay on the Social Personality and Anti-Social Personality – 

In a time of growing divisiveness, combating the world’s haters, bigots and liars, starts with identifying them. This film presents L. Ron Hubbard’s resounding treatise on the destructive nature of the Anti-Social Personality and the critical importance of the Social Personality in safeguarding society—and how to distinguish the characteristics of each.

Watch this essay on film here.

Free online course on recognising toxic or anti-social personalities here.

The Code of Honour (written in 1954)

By L. Ron Hubbard

(from the Life Improvement Course: Personal Values & Integrity Course)

1. Never desert a comrade in need, in danger or in trouble.
2. Never withdraw allegiance once granted.
3. Never desert a group to which you owe your support.
4. Never disparage yourself or minimize your strength or power.
5. Never need praise, approval or sympathy.
6. Never compromise your own reality.
7. Never permit your affinity to be alloyed.
8. Do not give or receive communication unless you yourself desire it.
9. Your self-determinism and your honour are more important than your immediate life.
10. Your integrity to yourself is more important than your body.
11. Never regret yesterday. Life is in you today and you make your tomorrow.
12. Never fear to hurt another in a just cause.
13. Don’t desire to be liked or admired.
14. Be your own adviser, keep your own counsel and select your own decisions.
15. Be true to your own goals.

Key words:

honour: a sense of what is right or proper; nobility of mind.

disparage: to say something/someone is of less value or importance than what it actually is; belittle.

integrity: the condition of being free from corruption; uprightness in words and deeds.

personal integrity: is knowing what you know. What you know is what you know., and to have the courage to know and say what you have observed. And that is integrity.

keep one’s own counsel: to keep one’s opinions, intentions, or plans secret.

“No man is happy without a goal, and no man can be happy without faith 

in his own ability to reach that goal.” 

L. Ron Hubbard from the book, “Science of Survival”, 1951.

This powerful quote lays out in no uncertain terms the importance of goals in life and living. As a mentor for young students and graduate engineers, I focus on their goals and help them to establish their goals with certainty. Many people are drifting in life due to lack of goals for themselves. 

Firstly, understanding the principles of life, how life is a game, how the game works etc. will help anyone start to examine their goals in more detail. You will achieve this understanding through the book “Scientology: The Fundamentals of Thought” which has also been produced as a book-on-film, free.

In this groundbreaking book-on-film, Scientology: The Fundamentals of Thought, the focus is on the tools of life – the basic processes and principles that define the primary architecture of how life works. Discover all life has to offer by achieving a complete understanding of the mind and spirit. Recognize what motivates your actions and the actions of others, with the ultimate goal of unblocking the barriers of the extraordinary potential you have locked inside yourself. Watch it here. 

Then do the free online course here to help you get the most out of it. 

The next good tool which I use to continually work on improving my level of happiness and happy work/life balance to achieve my goals, is the acclaimed common sense guide to better living that inspired a worldwide movement “The Way to Happiness” by L.Ron Hubbard, written in the 1980s and translated in over 100 languages.

The entire book-on-film is available free, and it is a pleasure to watch. You can also follow by reading the chapters available online, or even do the free online course. There is so much practical information in this booklet, that it would not be possible for me to write them here as I would only be repeating the book.

Watch The Way to Happiness book-on-film here. 

Follow each chapter on The Way to Happiness Foundation website here.

Do the free online The Way to Happiness course here. 

There is so much knowledge available. The trick is to be able to differentiate between data and knowledge that is true and workable and knowledge that may not be so workable or true. How to select and examine the correct data, how to improve critical thinking, how to improve your ability to study and learn. These are all considerations to keep in mind in improving our ability to absorb and use knowledge.

I highly recommend an introduction to the Technology of Study, a study system that I have used for close to 40 years and which I use in all my engineering jobs, as well as an educator and mentor. It is an extremely simple but powerful method and certainly worth examining to discover if you can use it to your benefit or the benefit of others.

Free online Technology of Study introductory course here. 

As already discussed in the Devotion to Goals trait, I would also recommend “The Way to Happiness” book-on-film, and course, based on the acclaimed common sense guide to better living that inspired a worldwide movement “The Way to Happiness” by L.Ron Hubbard, written in the 1980s and translated in over 100 languages.

This little book contains practical solutions to the fields of study, education and building up competence. It goes over how to examine knowledge for your own use and to help others.

Watch The Way to Happiness book-on-film here. 

Follow each chapter on The Way to Happiness Foundation website here. 

Do the free online The Way to Happiness course here. 

And lastly, develop increased and improved critical thinking ability by studying and practicing the tools discussed in the free online course on Investigations which takes up the subject of logic, a very important subject in philosophy, and how to put key principles of logic in application. 

This course contains breakthroughs in the field of logic to help you develop the skills to figure out the true sources of problems, situations, and whether information you are receiving is accurate or illogic. 

Free online Investigation course here. 

Honesty, ethics, morals, and all such related topics have been the focus of philosophers for thousands of years. 

In a current world where morality has taken a deep dive and fraud, criminality, deception and dishonesty has become the norm, it can be incredibly challenging to exist and honestly succeed and reach our goals. 

Yet it can be done. We can achieve our goals and have success in life by remaining honest, with good work and professional ethics and by doing the right thing. It seems unbelievable because we see so much dishonesty winning, but in the long run, for real health of mind, honesty is the winner.

Having studied the philosophical essays of L. Ron Hubbard on ethics, honesty and morals, I have found that it is much easier for me to take responsibility when I have made an error at work or in life, and admit that I made that mistake, and take responsibility to fix it. I actually find it much easier to live like this than to try to point the finger at others for my own failings. There is something far more honourable, in my opinion, to be able to take responsibility for my own actions, and refrain from the need to blame others. Why blame? 

My view now is that had I been on the ball and observant, and had spotted the issues earlier, I could have done something about it. And if I didn’t and got my comeuppance, then this would only indicate that there is room for me to improve in my skills and abilities to confront and deal with situations in a more effective way. So there is always room for introspection and improvement, and see where one can learn from mistakes. 

I recommend the following excellent resources to develop a new or renewed viewpoint and way of working with regards to one’s own personal ethical behaviour, honesty and morality.

Essay on Personal Integrity – Watch it here in film format  

Honor. Truth. Nobility. In this decisive essay L. Ron Hubbard goes beyond the obvious to explain the true meaning of integrity, revealing that, “What is true for you is what you have observed yourself.” Mr. Hubbard explains why having the courage and confidence to observe and believe in your personal truth is so important to your own integrity.

Integrity and Honesty free online course here. 

Ethics and the Conditions free online course here.

The Way to Happiness book on common sense guide to better living, translated in over 100 languages and available on book-on-film, online and with a free online course.

Watch The Way to Happiness book-on-film here. 

Follow each chapter on The Way to Happiness Foundation website here. 

Do the free online The Way to Happiness course here. 

I believe that optimism is something that a person can keep creating, day in day out. You can’t become optimistic by just sitting there and waiting for something which will happen. It has to come from you.

I use the data on the Emotional Tone Scale to help me work towards an emotional tone which will keep me positive, as well as enabling me to spot individuals whose emotional tone may drag me down too much and suck my energy, like a vampire personality.

It is important to also consider who is around you who could drag you down, as well as recognising that it is necessary for each one of us to boost other people so that they are doing well.

I recommend that all the resources I listed in the first 5 traits above will actually give you a huge amount of practical knowledge to put into practice and which will give you results. The more we believe that we can reach our goals, the more we can feel that positive energy and enthusiasm coming through. And that is definitely necessary for optimism.

To add to the resources already mentioned in the first 5 traits, here is the free online course on the Emotional Tone Scale, which is intensely practical in helping you dealing with various emotional situations.

Free online Emotional Tone Scale course here. 

I think many of us have experienced at least once in our life making a judgement on someone or something and then discovering we were wrong, and sometimes very embarrassingly so! 

Conversely, there will have been times when we made the correct judgement, but somehow we went against it.

I have certainly experienced both many times, and I am always working on improving my ability to judge things with clarity. It is easier said than done.

I have found that Hubbard’s essays on logic and the methods of investigating information and situations to determine their validity has proved very fruitful to me, and it has certainly improved my ability to judge more accurately, especially in the type of work which I do in engineering and manufacturing. When problems occur in equipment and machinery, it is necessary to be able to find the real cause of the problem in order to solve it. 

Of course, this does not just apply to machinery. It applies to any people, organisation and situations where things are not going as they should be or things "don't make sense" or "could be better" or where we find our judgement to be muddled and confused. 

As already mentioned in the Knowledge trait above, I recommend studying through the free online Investigation course which offers a concise but practical summary of Hubbard’s essays on logic, with plenty of examples and exercises. This will definitely help with critical thinking.

Investigation free online course here. 

Predicting Human Behaviour

So far as human behaviour is concerned, it is very useful to understand how to predict human behaviour and emotional conditions so as to be able to deal with the situation at hand when you are facing it and make the right judgement insofar as possible.

An excellent resource on predicting human behaviour is The Emotional Tone Scale free online course here. 

Recognising different types of personalities

As for identifying toxic personalities or people who do not have your best interests at heart, watching the presentation on the Social and Antisocial personality based on Hubbard’s essay on this topic, may prove to be quite the eye-opener. It will help you in your judgement of situations.

Anti-Social and Social Personality presentation here. 

In a time of growing divisiveness, combating the world’s haters, bigots and liars, starts with identifying them. This film presents L. Ron Hubbard’s resounding treatise on the destructive nature of the Anti-Social Personality and the critical importance of the Social Personality in safeguarding society—and how to distinguish the characteristics of each.

The Cause of Suppression (social and anti-social personality) free online course here. 

Personal Integrity and What is True for You

As mentioned earlier in other traits, personal integrity is king when dealing with situations. What is true for you is what you have observed. Very often, we see a situation or we have a gut feeling about a situation, and we believe that what we are judging is correct, but perhaps other factors such as other people influence our final decisions or observations. Then we compromise with our own reality, later discovering that we were right after all and we should have stuck to our guns. This has happened to me many times in life. I have found that understanding what is personal integrity, and working at expanding and developing one’s personal integrity has really helped me in judging situations and people better and more accurately. It has helped me to remain "at cause" over a situation, rather than the victim or "effect" of it.

I recommend this excellent Essay on Personal Integrity produced in film format here. 

Honor. Truth. Nobility. In this decisive essay L. Ron Hubbard goes beyond the obvious to explain the true meaning of integrity, revealing that, “What is true for you is what you have observed yourself.” Mr. Hubbard explains why having the courage and confidence to observe and believe in your personal truth is so important to your own integrity.

I have always found L. Ron Hubbard’s essay on Personal Integrity to be uplifting, providing a fundamental encouragement and boost to what I try to accomplish.

According to the Emotional Tone Scale, Enthusiasm is at Tone 4.0, very high on the scale. At that level of emotional tone, it is much easier to get things done and cooperate with other people, to boost other people, to encourage other people, and to have them also help you. Real enthusiasm is a win-win situation.

But what is the meaning of enthusiasm?

It is a feeling of energetic interest in a particular subject or activity and an eagerness to be involved in it (Collins Dictionary). 

The word ‘enthusiasm’ comes from the Greek enthousiasmos, from enthousiazein ‘be inspired or possessed by a god’ (based on theos ‘god’).

What a wonderful word etymology! Fancy that, ‘inspired or possessed by a god’. The Greeks had the right idea.

Being highly interested in a subject is contagious! You can become so enthusiastic about something that your positive energy just passes on to other people, and it encourages other people too.

I would recommend taking the free online course on the Emotional Tone Scale, followed by the wonderful book-on-film “The Way to Happiness” which is packed with practical information on actions you can take to lift yourself, your environment and people around you. It also gives very good advice on what to do when you are doing very well but as a result attract people who do not like your success and who may try to take you down. 

You can also do the free online The Way to Happiness course, and go through the other courses and presentations on toxic personalities and how to spot them in your environment so that you are not effect of them. I also recommend all previous courses and video presentations listed in the traits 1-7 above.

The Emotional Tone Scale free online course here. 

The Way to Happiness book on common sense guide to better living, translated in over 100 languages and available on book-on-film, online and with a free online course.

Watch The Way to Happiness book-on-film here. 

Follow each chapter on The Way to Happiness Foundation website here. 

Do The Way to Happiness free online course here. 

Recognising different types of personalities

As for identifying toxic personalities or people who do not have your best interest, watching the presentation on the Social and Antisocial personality based on Hubbard’s essay on this topic, may prove to be quite the eye-opener. It will help you in your judgement of situations.

Anti-Social and Social Personality presentation here. 

In a time of growing divisiveness, combating the world’s haters, bigots and liars, starts with identifying them. This film presents L. Ron Hubbard’s resounding treatise on the destructive nature of the Anti-Social Personality and the critical importance of the Social Personality in safeguarding society—and how to distinguish the characteristics of each.

The Cause of Suppression (social and anti-social personality) free online course here. 

When I was 33 years old, I decided to attend university and undertake an aircraft maintenance engineering degree. I had no school qualifications or certificate as I had been homeschooled.

Some colleagues at the supermarket where I worked were unconvinced, while others wished me success. Some were commenting on the student loan and being in debt at the end the degree with perhaps not finding a job, and that sort of thing. Some questioned how I could jump from a supermarket job at my age and go into an engineering career.

I took the view that it was a challenge that I was prepared to take for myself and I would do it without paying attention to other people’s opinions. Some opinions which came my way were even on the line of “Are there jobs for women in aircraft engineering?” Therefore, I never worried about what other people thought. I decided to make my own path and get on with it. 

I have never looked back. I graduated with a first-class degree at 37, and within a few weeks of graduating, just before my 38th birthday, I was offered a place at the Ministry of Defence on an engineering graduate scheme in aviation.  Since then, I have had dozens of opportunities working in commercial and military aviation, shipbuilding, and many years of great joy helping out other graduates and younger students develop their confidence to attain their goals in their chosen career.

As already covered in earlier traits above, where I suggest exciting resources to study and watch, you can discover what each of these resources has to offer, and then determine for yourself how you are going to take chances. 

If you can build up your confidence in what you can achieve (see the resources for the Courage trait) and understand what the game of life is all about (see all other resources so far) I am confident that you will be able to develop a fantastic willingness to take chances.

Think about it: even going through all the resources I am recommending here is a willingness to take a chance. Many people may consider that “self-improvement” or “philosophical topics” or “other philosophies” are not good, are not helpful, are stupid, and so on and so forth. But actually, it takes courage and a willingness to take chances to look for solutions in life; to look for something that might work and actually try it out for yourself and discover for yourself by your own experience whether or not it works. 

That’s personal integrity.

I once again recommend this excellent essay on Personal Integrity which you can watch here. 

Honor. Truth. Nobility. In this decisive essay L. Ron Hubbard goes beyond the obvious to explain the true meaning of integrity, revealing that, “What is true for you is what you have observed yourself.” Mr. Hubbard explains why having the courage and confidence to observe and believe in your personal truth is so important to your own integrity.

This section is currently being updated with recommended resources and will be updated by end of November 2024!

This section is currently being updated with recommended resources and will be updated by end of November 2024!

This section is currently being updated with recommended resources and will be updated by end of November 2024!

This section is currently being updated with recommended resources and will be updated by end of November 2024!

This section is currently being updated with recommended resources and will be updated by end of November 2024!

This section is currently being updated with recommended resources and will be updated by end of November 2024!

This section is currently being updated with recommended resources and will be updated by end of November 2024!

This section is currently being updated with recommended resources and will be updated by end of November 2024!

This section is currently being updated with recommended resources and will be updated by end of November 2024!

This section is currently being updated with recommended resources and will be updated by end of November 2024!

This section is currently being updated with recommended resources and will be updated by end of November 2024!

This section is currently being updated with recommended resources and will be updated by end of November 2024!

This section is currently being updated with recommended resources and will be updated by end of November 2024!

This section is currently being updated with recommended resources and will be updated by end of November 2024!

This section is currently being updated with recommended resources and will be updated by end of November 2024!