What better time than the present to resolve to become a genius—or at least a little smarter than you are now? All you need to know is how to reach your potential. Here are seven tips proven to work!
You may already possess traits that distinguished some of history’s most famous thinkers. See ways to train your brain to be smarter.
1. Think in Moving Pictures
“Genius … means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way.” –William James (1842–1910)
Visualization is a kind of mental movie. In their mind’s eye, geniuses see concepts as theater rather than as still photography. Albert Einstein (1879–1955) reportedly said, “My particular ability does not lie in mathematical calculation, but rather in visualizing effects, possibilities, and consequences.”
2. Combine the New With the Old
“We are all geniuses up to the age of ten.” –Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
By using a familiar concept or thing to describe an unfamiliar object or idea, deep thinkers have found that they can break out of a stale perspective. To help formulate his theory of relativity, Einstein imagined himself riding on a beam of light while holding a mirror in front of himself or standing on a platform while a train passed by.
3. Find Similarities
“True genius resides in the capacity for evaluation of uncertain, hazardous, and conflicting information.” –Winston Churchill (1874–1965)
The ability to make juxtapositions has inspired great intellects to see things that remain hidden to others—an outcome commonly known as the “Aha!” moment. Legend has it that Leonardo da Vinci drew a connection between a stone hitting water and the sound of a bell, which may have led him to conclude that sound travels like waves.
4. Trust Your Hunches
“I’m not a genius. I’m just a tremendous bundle of experience.” –R. Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983)
Geniuses commonly know without being able to say how they know. Claude Bernard (1813–78), the founder of modern physiology, once argued that everything purposeful in scientific thinking begins with feeling.
5. Don’t Give Up!
“Genius is nothing but a great aptitude for patience.” –Georges-Louis Leclerc, Count de Buffon (1707–88)
Einstein was once asked what the difference was between him and the average person. He reportedly said that if you asked the average person to find a needle in the haystack, the person would stop when he found a needle, but that he, on the other hand, would comb through the entire haystack looking for all possible needles. Some sources also quote him as saying, “It’s not that I’m smart, it’s just that I stay with the problems longer.”
Have perseverance and stick with it!
6. Just Do It—Again and Again
“Genius is an infinite love of taking pains.” –Sir James Matthew Barrie (1860–1937)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–91) wrote more than 600 pieces of music, and Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) for a time produced a cantata every week. By some accounts, Thomas Edison (1847–1931) gave himself and his assistants patent quotas. (His personal U.S. patent tally was 1,093, a record which has yet to be beaten.) Einstein published more than 300 scientific papers.
7. Break the Rules
“Rules and models destroy genius and art.” –William Hazlitt (1778–1830)
Problems stump the average person because he or she gets stuck in a “rule rut.” That’s when ingrained patterns of thinking—erroneous assumptions, half-truths, personal experiences, misplaced generalities—are mistaken for truths and all conflicting ideas are ignored. The great new ideas are often just outside of the prevailing thought.
IQ Info
The first widely useful test for measuring intelligence was the “IQ” (intelligence quotient) test, which was first administered (under a slightly different name) in the early 1900s by Alfred Binet and a colleague to students in France.
Intelligence testing was only one part of Binet’s work as he also wrote about child development, personality, memory, creativity, and many other topics. His methods are still used today in a variation called the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales.
Binet’s initial scoring system was later revised, but essentially a student achieving at his or her age group was determined to have an IQ of 100.
A 140 (or above) IQ does not mean that a person is a genius. It’s simply an indication of how well one performs on mental tests compared to others in the same age group. This way, the IQ of the average adult can be 100, just like the IQ of the average child can be 100. The current scoring method for all IQ tests is the “deviation IQ.” For instance, someone whose score was one standard deviation above the mean and who thus outperformed roughly 85% of his or her contemporaries would have an IQ of 115, and so on.
No reputable testing source uses an IQ number to classify someone as a “genius.” The myth probably originated in the 1920s when Stanford University professor Lewis Terman, developer of the Stanford-Binet IQ test, used students with IQs above 140 in his research.
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