Secrets of the Masters 1717
CHAPTER
CHAPTER
3
Secrets of the Masters
Complexity
I get the facts, I study them patiently, I apply imagination.
—Bernard BaruchLike Michael Jordan, who shoots and dribbles with either hand,
these investment masters can go both ways. Similarly, Leonardo da
Vinci is rumored to have been able to write with both hands simul-
taneously. Most of us, alas, can only do one at a time. The signifi-
cance of this fact, as it relates to the eight traits, should not be
underestimated. It helps explain why there are so few masters. They
are masters precisely because they have the capacity to excel at
both extremes. In a study on creative genius done by Professor M.
Csikszentmihalyi at the University of Chicago, he found that this
capacity to cover both extremes explains much of what we under-
stand to be genius:If I had to express in one word what makes [geniuses’] person-
alities different from others, it would be complexity. By this I
mean that they show tendencies of thought and action that in
most people are segregated. They contain contradictory ex-
tremes—instead of being an “individual,” each of them is a
“multitude.” Like the color white that includes all the hues in the03 ware 17 1/19/01, 1:00 PM