Are You A Genius?

It may be up to you to become one.

On his blog, Daniel Pink, author of “Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us” (read my review here), recently mentioned an article on geniuses by Scientific American Mind.

He considers that your motivation is as important as your abilities in becoming a genius. In support of this assertion, Pink cites a great sentence from Arthur Schopenhauer highlighted by Scientific American Mind: “Talent hits a target no one else can hit; genius hits a target no one else can see”.

Arthur Schopenhauer – (CC) Christiaan Tonnis

As a matter of fact, the quality of a genius lies in their ability to get out of their comfort zone – which is made of their prejudices and the experience of mankind – to consider unexplored problems.

The good news is that we can all develop this skill if we want to. The bad news is that developing this skill is not sufficient to actually be a genius. To be a genius, we have to solve those problems.