The Native Genius of Jane Goodall: A Map to Living Our Truth

As women today, we’re hungry to live the truth of who we are at work—and even insisting on it—but how to do that often feels uncharted.

Jane Goodall, PhD, DBE

Jane Goodall, PhD, DBE

What’s so remarkable about Dr. Jane Goodall (Emerging Women Live 2015 keynote speaker) is that she not only pioneered science, but she also opens our eyes to how to work from our most authentic self—all starting in the 1950’s.

She didn’t have the “right education.” She didn’t “plan it all out” or follow rules for making it. Rather, she made her preeminent scientific contributions by living the deep truth of who she is. All these years later, her path is still one of the most inspiring I’ve seen. In my work to help individuals and teams combine success and fulfillment, Jane’s life serves as a kind of archetypal map that guides us into authentic territory that’s available to all of us. 

Jane’s Early Insistent Actions

At the age of 23, this untrained, captivating blonde Brit was invited to Africa and met a renowned scientist. These facts on their own imply she simply landed in the quintessential right time and place. However, it was actually the momentum of what I call her Insistent Actions that led to her success.

As a little girl, Jane consistently repeated a set of actions, which she honed into valuable skills. Imagine Jane when she was 5 years old, sitting in a chicken coop. Hiding in straw, she was determined to know, “Where does the egg come out?” She waited unobtrusively for hours until she found out.

She also catalogued, drew, and wrote about animals. In countless personal letters, she wove together intricate descriptions of animals she watched. All these actions were unprompted by people or obligations. At 13, she wrote to her friend, “I am home today as I have a cold, and I am practising drawing birds from real life. I am determined to get good at drawing them.”

Like a fish swimming or a rose blooming, these Insistent Actions were native in her. She couldn’t not do them.

She brought to life something inside her—in the words of an E.E. Cummings poem—“which is natural, which is infinite, and which is yes.” We see what is natural, infinite, and yes in 13-year-old Jane as she’s lying on her bed with the sniffles—pencil and notebook in hand, determined to get good at drawing animals.

Dr. Jane Goodall in Gombe National Park

Dr. Jane Goodall in Gombe National Park

From Insistent Actions to Prodigious Impact

When Jane met her mentor, paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey, his life’s dream was to reveal the mysteries of human evolution. At a time when the typical methods for studying animals were killing them and examining the remains, his vision to observe chimps in their natural habitat was cutting-edge. He knew he needed a keen observer, and Jane’s Insistent Actions—practiced thousands of times over two decades—had shaped her into one. Soon after meeting her, he recognized her observational prowess and said she had “record eyes.”

Despite no formal training, her Insistent Actions developed into her Native Genius—which is something we all have. Native Genius is the intersection of what we love doing and what we’re good at. It expresses itself in a collection of Insistent Actions we do, that we may not notice we do. When we focus, practice, and train those actions, they have the potential to grow into something powerful and useful like Jane’s “record eyes.”

Jane’s life shows us how we can grow our Native Genius from moment-to-moment, starting where we are, regardless of our life circumstances.

Jane called her time studying the chimps “paradise.” That’s because she hit her Native Genius jackpot. She started using her Insistent Actions like never before, in a focused and deliberate way. All of the Gombe Stream Chimp Reserve became her “chicken coop.” Her patient, reverent observing was one of the key actions that made her so successful when living among the chimpanzees. In her first year there, she had already made four pioneering discoveries. The advancements in science were exponential.

Young researcher Jane Goodall with baby chimpanzee Flint at Gombe Stream Reasearch Center in Tanzania.

Young researcher Jane Goodall with baby chimpanzee Flint at Gombe Stream Reasearch Center in Tanzania.

Trusting Your Insistent Actions

Most of us don’t follow our Insistent Actions with Jane’s kind of devotion, because the uncertainty can be excruciating. We want to know the destination before we begin. We don’t sense our own eyes lighting up when we do them. Even if we do sense the joy, we need to know, “Where will this go?”

The answer we often get from inside is “nowhere,” or worse: “somewhere bad”—for example, a life without love or money. Fear gets in the driver’s seat and we subtly turn away from the spark of YES in favor of something seemingly more productive, more marketable, or more certain. Jane followed the spark of yes without knowing the destination. We can too.

We may be afraid to ask ourselves what our Insistent Actions are. Like the hero in a story, we fear we’ll get all the way to the treasure chest, only to pause, open it, and find it empty. As much as I’ve partnered with people to uncover their Native Genius, I’ve never found the treasure chest empty. Ever.

I’ve also never found it full of useless junk. We always find a collection of Insistent Actions, as unique as a fingerprint. The Insistent Actions almost always have underused energy and creativity behind them. Remember, what made Jane’s “nothing” of watching animals turn into a “something” was her natural, infinite, yes that animated it. We all have that.

No matter what our life circumstances, each of us can spend 15-minutes a week doing an Insistent Action we adore.

We can trust that it will grow and coalesce. Jane shows us the extent to which Insistent Actions are, by their very nature, generative. They generate results, learning, and trying again. Jane shows us that we can risk devotion to our Native Genius without knowing exactly how to make it into something. The Insistent Actions themselves are a map we can trust that unfolds with each step. Following them will pull us forward into the territory of our Native Genius, our thriving, and our most wondrous contributions.

Kristen Wheeler is the creator of the Native Genius® Method which helps people and teams be in the sweet spot of big results and personal fulfillment.

She has consulted for more than two decades with companies about the intersection of human thriving and organizational performance—from multi-national companies with 80,000 employees to small nonprofits with 100 employees. She’s been a speaker and audience favorite at TEDxBoulder and Emerging Women Live. At Emerging Women Live in 2015 she will speak on Vision and Native Genius with Vanessa Loder.

Juicy Bites This Week: Overcoming our Fears

This week we learn:

  • Wisdom from pioneer science woman Maria Mitchell
  • Why it’s important to take credit for your work
  • The top 100 websites for women
  • Why startup failure is not the end of the world

At the end of this post, we encourage you to join us for a conversation. In one word (or more) tell us:

What does it take to overcome our fears?

1. Pioneering 19th-Century Astronomer Maria Mitchell on Education and Women in Science via Brain Pickings

Maria Mitchell was the first woman to work as a professional astronomer. She became professor of astronomy and the only woman on the faculty at Vassar College in 1865. A trailblazer woman in science, a fighter for equal pay and equality in education, she also co-founded the American Association for the Advancement of Women and became the first woman elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

From Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters and Journals (public library; free download) — emerges a portrait of a fascinating, fearless woman.

Check out this diary entry from 1874:

“For women there are, undoubtedly, great difficulties in the path, but so much the more to overcome. First, no woman should say, ‘I am but a woman!’ But a woman! What more can you ask to be?

Born a woman — born with the average brain of humanity — born with more than the average heart — if you are mortal, what higher destiny could you have? No matter where you are nor what you are, you are a power — your influence is incalculable; personal influence is always underrated by the person. We are all centers of spheres — we see the portions of the sphere above us, and we see how little we affect it. We forget the part of the sphere around and before us — it extends just as far every way.”

She also encouraged the freedom of thought:

“Women, more than men, are bound by tradition and authority. What the father, the brother, the doctor, and the minister have said has been received undoubtingly. Until women throw off this reverence for authority they will not develop. When they do this, when they come to truth through their investigations, when doubt leads them to discovery, the truth which they get will be theirs, and their minds will work on and on unfettered.”

Continue reading…

2. What are we all so afraid of? via The Telegraph

A new blog, ifuwerentafraid.tumblr.com shows the impact fear can have on women’s lives. The blog is hosted by Lean In, the campaign run by Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook and the author of Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead.

Anna Maxted, a bestselling author based in North London, England – no stranger to crippling anxiety – wonders what she’d do if she weren’t afraid.

“You gaze at this parade of women on If U Weren’t Afraid and suddenly understand that your fears are ordinary, honest. And yet, how sad to see those discarded dreams.”

Continue reading…

3. Why You Need To Brag More (And How To Do It) via Forbes Woman

A May 2013 study published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin found that women who work with men are far less likely to take credit for their work than those who collaborate with other women. Instead of  truly accepting their accomplishments , women give away the credit, talking about the great team they had, the collaborative efforts involved, etc. Familiar right? Instead of saying thank you, women are unnecessarily modest.

“A 2012 report from management consulting firm Accenture called “The Next Generation of Working Women” found that women are less likely to speak up than men, less likely to proactively manage their own careers, and less likely to ask for a raise. According to an NPR report that aired last year, the last fact can mean anywhere from $1 million to $1.5 million in lost earnings over a woman’s lifetime. Owning up to your accomplishments isn’t about arrogance; it’s about equality.” ~ Peggy Drexler

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4. The 100 Best Websites For Women, 2013 via Forbes Woman

The fourth annual list of FORBES 100 Best Websites for Women is a formidable resource.  We are curious which one is your favorite? Leave your suggestion in the comment box below.

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5. Why you should ignore startup failure stats via VentureBeat

Melania Brescia Photography
Melania Brescia Photography

Running a startup that eventually fails can be a valuable experience, writes Eran Laniado, managing director of BMN.

Eran explains:

“[…] not attempting to pursue one’s dream may be very frustrating. Moreover, those who never try will never fail. Those who never fail find it difficult to cope with challenging situations outside of their comfort zone when these eventually arise. A failure today may teach a person to cope more successfully with similar situations in the future.”

Continue reading…

This week’s Juicy Bites question for you, dear emerging women is:

Let’s start a conversation. We would love to hear from you! Leave a comment below.