Cape Town - Imagine a world where everyone is a genius. While many think genius is the preserve of very few exceptional people, South African author and life coach Graeme Butchart claims we all have this ability.
His thinking is based on a Harvard University study led by Professor Howard Gardner, which aimed to establish intelligence levels in young students.
The findings showed that until the age of four, almost all children were at genius level. They were tested in the spectrums of multiple frames of intelligence, special, kinaesthetic, musical, interpersonal, mathematical, intrapersonal, and linguistic abilities.
The study found that by the age of 20, the percentage of genius dropped to 10 percent. In those older than 20, it dropped even further to two percent.
Butchart, pictured, believes the genius never disappears. Instead, it’s drowned out by years of conditioning and habit.
He says genius is “lost” in the years we are being schooled.
While he believes in education, he thinks it is the linear way we are taught in schools that drowns our genius.
“We are taught to apply linearity to everything. Even when children are not at school, parents set out a linear schedule…
Humans are not logical, we’re organic. We’re entirely spontaneous and creative… But our default position has become linearity,” he says.
Butchart says we’ve become programmed in such a way that 60 to 70 percent of our daily thinking and actions are done unconsciously. A prime example is driving or even walking to a particular place; once the destination is reached, the person can’t consciously recall the journey.
“Humans have infinite potential, but we’re using our muscle brain instead of our creative brain,” says Butchart.
These are all consequences of linear thinking. Butchart believes education systems overlook the development of intuitive creativity and genius in the curriculum. He says future problems will be solved through innovative thinking.
It is this creative genius and innovation that has been buried beneath the burden of routine and habit. Butchard says it’s not lost forever, and can be accessed any time with a change in behavioural and thinking patterns.
His aim is to help people regain their intuitive genius, enabling them to think again with the open mind of childhood and to find new solutions for their problems.
Butchart, who spent 20 years as a creative director in the advertising industry and as a lecturer, has recently created and launched The Genius Programme, which he spent five years researching and testing.
It is a step-by-step process to help everyone understand what is stifling their ability to think differently and creatively, and provides practical tools to change that.
The programme comes in the form of a workbook, available in book stores, and as an e-book.
The back of the book is blank. “This is not my book. It’s your book, and your story.
“The end is empty because it’s your new beginning,” says Butchart. – Cape Argus