I’ve heard several definitions of genius. The usual one concerns high IQs and the ability to multiply nine-digit numbers in your head, play piano concerti without practicing, speaking colloquial Fortran… that sort of thing. Another comes courtesy of a friend of mine who observed that geniuses are what we call those who are highly intelligent, driven, creative, but not motivated by money. Assuming they don’t fall of the edge of the world (figuratively) they become what we call “geniuses”.

But now there is another twist. All that stuff you’ve heard about IQ? Genius being born, not made? Wrong. Genius is made, not born.

Recent research is now guiding us to the conclusion that what produces genius is not some titanic gift of intellectual horsepower, but a set of factors that turns “ordinary” people into artists, scholars, scientists, or musicians of international renown. The good news is that many more people can do this than was previously believed. The bad news is it will probably take you about ten years.

What we call “genius” appears to be what you get when you combine roughly 1 percent inspiration, 29 percent good instruction, encouragement and mentoring, and about 70 percent relentless, hard work. Do this with passion and competent instruction and guidance for about a decade, and you can reasonably expect to be among the best in the world at whatever it is you’re doing.

This new information comes from an article by David Dobbs, “How to be a genius” in the 15 September 2006 edition of New Scientist magazine. You can read the article on line here: http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/mg19125691.300-how-to-be-a-genius.html

It’s worth reading, particularly the bits about the intellectual tools that geniuses of all stripes develop to make themselves more effective.

Now I happen to think this is a wonderful thing; ten years may seem like forever when you’re young, but considering how long people live, one might argue that this gives enough time to develop world class levels of competence in a couple of fields at least. The article does state that an above-average IQ does appear to be necessary, but the “genius” level numbers above 130 don’t seem to mean jack for predicting greatness. Quoting from the article:

“This was shown in a study of adult graduates of New York City’s Hunter College Elementary School, where an admission criterion was an IQ of at least 130 (achieved by a little over 1 per cent of the general population) and the mean IQ was 157 – “genius” territory by any scaling of IQ scores, and a level reached by perhaps 1 in 5000 people. Though the Hunter graduates were successful and reasonably content with their lives, they had not reached the heights of accomplishment, either individually or as a group, that their IQs might have suggested.”

I actually find this whole article to be very encouraging. Perhaps “genius” could be more prevalent among us than we assume. The flip side to this is that potential genius is probably being wasted to a greater degree than has generally been realized.

But the article raises another interesting question. If it takes an average of ten years of really hard work to attain world class status (assuming you can; no amount of practice will get you to the NBA if you’re 5′ 1″), what will five years get you? Three years? Two? How good do you have to be in order to make a noteworthy contribution? The whole point of guerrilla scholarship is that ordinary people can make significant contributions in many intellectual and artistic fields. Most of the progress in any such field, I daresay, is made by the non-world class figures.

Should you be content with mere expertise, or strive for true genius? It may turn out to be an option you didn’t knew you had.