The secret to success begins with knowing how to cook a hard-boiled egg. Do you know how to do that? Are you sure?

The village idiot could boil a chicken's egg until it's hard, but do you know how to cook one properly. There is quite a difference, you know.

Did you ever eat an egg with the white part rubbery, or with an ugly greenish layer all around the yolk? If so, the cook just didn't know the correct technique.

Here is how to do it. With a pin, prick a small hole in the larger rounded end of the egg, not the somewhat pointed end, to allow pressure to equalize in the egg's air chamber. Lower the egg into a sauce pan of boiling water, which will stop boiling at once due to the temperature change, and immediately reduce the heat to maintain only a simmer (with only a small bubble rising occasionally to the surface) for 14 minutes for an egg that is normal size or 17 for large size. Then drain the water, shake the egg around in the otherwise empty pan to crack the shell several times, and plunge the egg into ice water for 30 minutes.

There are two principles at work. The first is that after you have placed the egg in the boiling water, you must not allow the water to boil thereafter, as that is what toughens the white, drastically. A "boiled" egg must never boil.

The second principle is that sulfur in the egg white moves away from heat. Therefore, while you are cooking the egg, the sulfur travels inward, away from the simmering water and toward the yolk. If left there, a chemical reaction will occur and the ugly green compound will collect around the yolk's surface. It will also cause an unpleasant odor. Later, when you submerge the egg in ice water, the sulfur moves away from the heat of the yolk and back into the cooling egg white, and finally out through the cracks in the shell and into the ice water, where it dissipates. It is very important to cool the egg long enough.

Presto! Now you have what they call a hard-boiled egg, properly cooked, with a noticeably soft and quite palatable white part, a delectable bright-yellow yolk, and a fresh and inviting scent. Maybe you have never had one cooked properly. The reason great-grandma's eggs always turned out perfectly was that she knew how to do it.

Now bear with me as we learn how to do something that is slightly more involved: mince garlic quickly.

Most cooks spend five minutes peeling a garlic bulb, to separate the cloves. Then they spend 10 more minutes tediously peeling half a dozen cloves. Then after they have minced them, they spend five minutes more trying unsuccessfully to scrub the mighty smell of garlic from their hands.

Instead, just lean hard on the garlic bulb with the ball of your hand until the cloves separate. Then place the side of a chef's knife against a single clove and hit the knife's broad surface sharply with your hand, partially smashing the clove. Instantly the peeling is separated. Continue with the other cloves, mince them, and then soap up your hands. Now merely slide your fingers around on the surface of a stainless steel sink for 10 seconds (it must be stainless steel).

Shazam! With no scrubbing, the strong odor of garlic on your hands is magically gone. And you've minced the garlic in only 10 percent of the time, saving 18 minutes.

Now continue to bear with me as we learn how to do something that will put the fear of a small god in almost anyone: tame an Amazon parrot.

Adult Amazon parrots are about 12 inches long and predominately green, with splotches of one or several other colors. There are Blue-fronted Amazons, and Mexican Double-headed Amazons, and Lilac Amazons, and Yellow-naped Amazons, and dozens of other kinds.

Some Amazons are born in captivity and hand-fed, which usually ensures that they will be docile and loving pets. Most, though, having been captured young in the wild, remain wild.

Any adult Amazon parrot that is untamed does not want to be tamed, and he knows how to communicate that. When approached too closely, he will ruffle his feathers, beat his wings furiously, and screech continually at decibels that will shut down transmissions between Houston and the orbiting space station. But that's just his courteous warning. Just try to place one human hand on his little bird body and he will immediately bite, severely gouging and slashing any of your unprotected body parts that he can reach with his sharp and powerful beak.

I'll never forget the first time I saw a person try to remove a wild Amazon from a cage. It was in a pet shop in Santa Monica, California. As the proprietor reached into the cage, the parrot's screeching was sufficient to peel paint from the walls.

Five seconds later, I glimpsed the proprietor dashing past me toward the rest room to stop the prolific flow of blood from her hands, leaving the customer who had just purchased the feathered reptile to seek his own medical attention. He had obviously been standing too close at the time, because as he turned toward me I saw heavy streams of blood flowing down his face from two significant holes in the sides of his nose.

Customers shrieked and scrambled, still protecting their ears from what had been a deafening racket, as the satisfied and now quiet parrot nonchalantly preened itself upon its perch ... and as I engraved in my mind the notation of one more thing that I must never do.

Shortly thereafter, however, I bought my first Amazon parrot, and then another, and still another .... Many people have caged Amazons that remain wild throughout the owners' lives, because none of their attempts to tame the parrots ever work. Twenty years later, you reach; he screeches and bites; you bleed again.

Here is the secret of taming any Amazon parrot in only a few minutes.

Any untamed adult Amazon will invariably appear to be hateful and vicious whenever one attempts to handle it. But if the truth be known, the only reason any parrot ever bites is because it is afraid. Case closed!

First, you ensure that the parrot's flight feathers have been trimmed by a veterinarian or by some other expert avian enthusiast who is certain of the proper procedure. It is painless to the parrot when done correctly.

Then you take a wooden dowel, like a piece of broom handle about two feet long, and abruptly push the side of it against the parrot's lower breast to make it step up onto it.

With one hand you then slowly carry the stick with the parrot on it into a small bathroom that has a soft rug or towels on the floor, in the unlikely event that the flightless parrot should jump off, and close the door. Then as you speak softly and continuously to the parrot, you slowly raise your free hand to the other end of the stick, so that you are holding it at both ends with the parrot in the middle.

While still speaking continuously and softly to both distract his attention and keep him calm, and with no sudden movements whatsoever, you very slowly begin inching each hand along the stick closer to the parrot. After about five minutes, both of your hands should be about two inches from his feet. Then as you continue moving both hands slightly closer, gradually tilt the stick to cause him to shift his position. He will then suddenly step up onto your higher hand.

He will not bite. Why? Because you did not grab him; rather, he chose to step up onto your hand, and he will accept responsibility for having done so. Parrots accept responsibility for their actions more easily than most human beings (which tells us something about modern society).

Having stepped onto your hand, the parrot will then immediately cock his head to the side as he looks down at your hand and is struck with the startling realization that he is standing on it, and is safe. You will actually see him look quite surprised. At that instant, release the stick from your hand that the parrot is standing on, lower it away from him, and hold it down at your side.

Then freeze! Don't move! Don't rush the moment. Just continue talking softly to him, while you allow him time to complete his cognition and comprehend the astonishing situation.

Keep talking to him for another couple of minutes, and then slowly open the door and gently carry him on your hand throughout the house. After about 10 minutes of that, raise your hand to your shoulder and he will step up on it, perched peacefully beside your face.

There is no need to be afraid, because he no longer is.

Abracadabra! In well less than 30 minutes, you have tamed a very wild Amazon parrot, thereby doubling its commercial value.

Taming an Amazon parrot quickly works as well as that exact method is followed. I've done it numerous times for various friends, for free. Someday, however, some intelligent individual who wants to make about a thousand dollars an hour, and have fun doing it, will study my technique to the letter and use it.

Now you may wonder where I am going with all this. Well, I am leading you toward a cognition that is far more valuable. In fact, it is so basic that it is one of the most priceless pieces of wisdom that you will ever know -- if you use it.

Can you blow up a balloon, bounce a ball, or open an umbrella? Can you open a can of stewed tomatoes, clean a window, or make a sandwich? You probably can. But can you start a log fire, understand a road map, or fix a flat tire?

Could you do something particularly adventurous, that almost no one knows how to do, such as ... oh, I don't know ... tame a wild Amazon parrot? Well, if you know the relatively simple technology for doing each of those things, they are all as easy as mincing garlic.

So is learning to find wild morel mushrooms. Or, oil painting a landscape. Or, playing a piano. Each has its own technology, too -- an extremely workable, effective, and efficient way to get the job done.

Definition of technology: the practical application of knowledge resulting in a particular capability. (In other words, it is the way to attain an ability.)

It is often said (please pardon the expression) that there is more than one way to skin a cat. That's true, but there is one way that gets the job done better than all the others, and that specific way is the technology. All the other suggested ways are just less effective, less workable, techniques.

It doesn't matter what you want to do. I'm telling you from beyond the top of the IQ scale that there is an exact technology for accomplishing it.

There is a technology for being anything that you want to be. And for doing anything that you want to do. And for having anything that you want to have. Regardless of whether or not the technology to accomplish something is known at this time by mankind, it does exist in this universe. There is an extremely workable and effective way for you to attain any result that you desire.

Every dream is as possible as you know the technology. That isn't wishful thinking. It happens to be the way that this particular universe was set up.

I am certain that the person who wrote the following words many years ago had stumbled onto far more wisdom than he realized:

No star is ever lost [that] you once have seen;

You always may be what you might have been.

 

When it comes to studying the technology of something, people make four primary mistakes. First, one often errs by skipping over a small, but necessary, part of the technology. For example, if one didn't understand what a "chef's knife" was -- and continued studying about mincing garlic without ever clarifying that term -- he would have missed that tiny piece of the technology. Then, because he had a gap in his knowledge of the technology, he might continually have trouble thereafter, trying to peel and mince garlic with a paring knife.

The second primary mistake would be for one to assume that he already knew more than he did about the technology of mincing garlic and, therefore, fail to start studying the subject at its beginning. The result, then, would be similar: Having leaped into the middle of the subject without ever having understood what a garlic bulb is, we might find him erroneously mincing a shallot. Or, even trying to mince the spice called cloves.

The third primary mistake would be for one to never study the technology at all and, therefore, spend far too much time trying to peel and mince garlic the wrong way, and trying in frustration to scrub the persistent odor from his hands.

Perhaps you have never done that, but have you ever tried unsuccessfully to operate some electronic device, or misused a chemical solution, or accidentally shrunk a valuable item of clothing in the laundry ... because you didn't read the instruction book, or failed to follow the manufacturer's directions, or ignored the clothing label?

For years I lived in Malibu, California, near Johnny Carson, the famous television talk-show host. Johnny was also a member of "The Magic Castle," a private club for accomplished magicians and knowledgeable students of the art. Whenever there was an interruption in the electricity in Malibu, which was frequent, every family had to reset the clock on its video cassette recorder (VCR). Because Johnny had never read the instruction manual for his VCR, he invariably had to summon a technician to his home to reset his clock for him. Johnny had the intelligence, but not the technology.

That is the same reason almost any singer, or writer, or aspiring person fails at his or her chosen profession. He thinks that all he has to do is just sing, or write, and fame will soon fall on its knees at his doorstep. He doesn't realize that he needs to study a technology, and so he doesn't. Any professional singer, or writer, who knows how to produce the results knows better.

You always pay a price when you do not know the technology.

The fourth primary mistake would be for one to know the technology, but fail to use it.

Not all the technologies for everything are known by mankind at this time. Some technologies are still in the process of being discovered on this planet, and technologies in many fields, such as physics, astronomy, and medicine contain numerous errors. The technologies of some other specific fields, such as psychiatry, are actually based on false opinions and principles, and are tragically unworkable in the long run.

Nevertheless, just as "The Genius Formula™" lectures in the "Mega Genius^® Lecture Series" are the technology for skyrocketing one's intelligence, there is a specific technology for everything -- even for such things as telepathy, teleportation, and traveling faster than the speed of light -- whether it has been discovered yet on this planet or not. (And I am certain that you would be stunned if you knew some of the technologies that exist in certain circles on Earth today.) Technologies for everything exist somewhere in this universe, and far more are available to you right now than you realize, if you just think intelligently enough.

The only reason for any failure is one's inability or unwillingness to persist in learning the technology and using it. Anytime you are having any trouble with anything, either you don't know, or you are not using, the technology. So, instead of ever saying that you couldn't do something, just say that you didn't care enough to find, learn and use the technology, for that will be the truth.

So, by ferreting out and learning and using the technology, you can effectively and efficiently accomplish whatever you desire ... and you can be, do, or have anything. It's up to you.

That is the real secret to success in any endeavor that you choose, and it is all right there in understanding something as simple as how to hard-boil an egg ... perfectly.

Mega Genius^®

15 February 2004

NOTICE - Although these "Mega Genius^® Intelligence Briefings" originate from beyond the top of the IQ scale, they are not substitutes for "The Mega Genius^® Lectures" -- "The Genius Formula™ Series," " The Uncommon Sense Series," and "The Whole Truth Series," -- which are the fundamentals of wisdom.  To learn how to skyrocket your intelligence in three easy steps with "The Genius Formula™ Series" of six lectures, in mp3 downloadable format, just select the glowing treasure chest below.