Piotr Wozniak's Genius Checklist

Being well below the level of geinus (intentional), I've recently had two consecutive weeks of heavily emotionally stressful events (almost exactly 12 months after another incredibly emotionally stressful event), and so on the very first item "Eliminate Stress", I can wholeheartedly agree.

I'm a relatively high-functioning individual (dulled by some kind of poor discipline adult version of self-diagnosed ADHD notwithstanding), but during not just the heights of these emotionally stressful events but also a fairly long tail following them, I'm downgraded to warm-body chair-filler. I couldn't remember shit, I couldn't concentrate in meetings, I'd sit and stare and just exist. Useless but for some automaton-level processes.

It became obvious to me the requirements of high-function are an incredibly stable emotional base, which, for those of us that mostly can achieve it, is quite the rare thing in humans overall and for which we should be thankful.

I eschew human drama wherever possible, and I'm productive for it. But it's a gift to be able to have the ability or choice to do so.

So, yes, eliminate stress, I'd say it's a pre-requisite for the rest of the list (in my experience).

not sure how i feel about using this as the definition of genius. Feels more like how to become your "best self". Otherwise i like these perscriptions, but i do see contradictions like how some great inventions were under a lot of pressure and therefore stress (see: manhattan project?). On the other hand, i believe Einstein was known for enjoying calm, peace and excess sleep so that checks out

In case you’re unfamiliar with Woźniak’s work:

Piotr A. Woźniak (Polish pronunciation: [pjɔtr ˈvɔʑɲak]; born 1962) is a Polish researcher best known for his work on SuperMemo, a learning system based on spaced repetition.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piotr_Wo%C5%BAniak_(researcher...

This has absolutely nothing to do with being a genius but isn't terrible advice if you want to maximise the likelihood of reaching your potential.