James Arthur Ray on Finding Your Genius and Building a Business Around It
Erik asked James about his background in the corporate world, since a lot of people in the program don't spend much time on business or success principles, and wondered what he had taken away from his years there.
James said his focus is almost entirely on entrepreneurs, and he made no secret of how highly he rates them. His view is that entrepreneurs are the ones who change the world. A bold claim, he admitted, but the research he leans on suggests that entrepreneurs tend to chase what they actually love. He pointed to Mark Cuban, who advises people to find something they love and build a business out of it: you might get rich, and if you don't, you're still spending your days on the thing you care about. Steve Jobs said much the same.
That idea slots directly into what James studies, which he calls ultimate human performance. Look at Mozart, look at Jobs, look at anyone who gets near the ceiling of what they're capable of, and the pattern repeats. They start by locating their natural talents, the particular gifts Howard Gardner's work at Harvard describes, and then they pour energy into those gifts until they're living a life that fits them. Some of those people happen to become wealthy through business.
Is wealth guaranteed? No, James said. Life hands out very few outside guarantees. But there is one guarantee available from the inside: do this and you'll be living a life that means something to you, you'll feel fulfilled, and you'll be genuinely absorbed in your work.
He tied that back to why any of this matters. A recent Gallup poll found that 71 percent of people surveyed said they hate their jobs. Not engaged, not fulfilled, not inspired by any of it. That's close to three quarters of everyone. James called the number staggering.
So his reason for doing the work, as he put it to Erik, is to help the people he coaches and mentors uncover their own innate abilities, develop them all the way, and construct a business around the thing they love. Which, he said, means starting at the very beginning.
He apologized for the length of his answer, then doubled back to the beginning anyway. Most of us, he argued, get trained to chase the paycheck or move toward wherever the jobs happen to be. He thinks that's backwards, and that it's exactly the route that lands you in the 71 percent. His prescription: figure out what you love and what your particular genius is first, then work out how to earn a living around that life rather than cramming the life into the job. Live your life while you earn your living. Most people, he said, never get it in that order.
Erik thanked him and asked the obvious follow-up: how does a person actually go about doing that? He noted that people can turn to mentors and coaches, and that James runs a very specific kind of coaching.