Contrary to popular belief, Genius isn't about intellect as much as most people believe.
Even though they rate genius based on IQ, there are some very smart people who are not geniuses and some very dumb people who are.
The reason for this is that Genius is actually more about how the brain / mind works than how smart someone actually is.
The brain can be trained to focus on intelligence and thus allow the Genius to become exceptionally smart.
However, the brain can also be applied (or not applied) to many other things and thus lead to many, many other outcomes (besides intelligence).
Don't confuse all of this with people being called a "Musical Genius" or other such thing.
In many ways that's a label people use to try and make the person "more than".
That isn't to say they are not a Genius, only that the word "Genius" is being used in an arbitrary fashion without regard for what it actually is.
This is very important because Genius is about how the brain works and not what you do with it.
That distinction is essential because Genius is something you're born with and can't be created later on.
It's like natural hair color - you can alter it to make people think it's something different, but the reality is set by your genetics.
The reason people want to be called or seen as a "Genius" will be another topic of discussion for another time (it's too in-depth to discuss now).
To understand Genius you first need something to compare it to that you can wrap your head around.
To do that the best place to go is to look at the world of computers (don't worry if you don't know much about them).
A Genius would be the best and brightest computer on the market - the one with the biggest hard drives, most memory, and fastest processor.
The average person would be just that, the average computer on the market.
Both use the same components to do the same things.
The only difference is that the Genius computer can do more things at one time, do them faster, and store more information.
The key to remember in this example is that they both do the exact same thing.
The only difference is that the Genius can do more things at once and do everything faster.
Sometimes that can be a major advantage, but other times it can be a major disadvantage.
Take for example using a basic word processing program (i.
e.
text editor).
If you were to only use the word processor on the Genius computer and nothing else, then all of the amazing resources are wasted.
It would actually make little difference which computer everything was done on.
In order to get the most out of the Genius computer, it needs to be doing more complex tasks that use all of its resources fully.
That is one of the hardest things about actually being a Genius.
If you don't have something to focus your mind to, it will find many other things to focus on that can make you feel scattered and lost.
As an example of that, I myself love to write.
The problem I have is that I could write about three hundred different topics at any one time.
It can become very difficult at times for me to focus my mind to write about only one topic.
Even if I can do that it can be even more difficult to condense what I want to write into a manageable chunk of information.
This topic alone I could have written ten times bigger in less time than it took to write this version.
That's because here I have to focus very hard to keep it short and to the point.
My mind wants to give you every last scrap of info on the subject all at once.
From all of this remember that "Genius" isn't about intellect as much as it is about how the mind works.
If a genius can focus on learning they will become very smart in whatever fields they study / learn.
If the genius has nothing to focus on they can become overly scattered and unfocused in life.
Something many people can take to be undisciplined, lazy, or whatever else.
However, when you want to do fifty thousand things at the same time - which one do you pick to focus on? That's the way the genius mind really works.
Just understand that it isn't about daydreaming or wishing for something else.
The genius mind isn't focused on just the "good stuff", it focuses on EVERYTHING and ANYTHING (usually all at the same time).
Thankfully the brain of the genius was designed to do that, otherwise it would literally drive them insane.
As a side note: before you decide that you want to be a "Genius" you may want to understand what you're actually asking for.
Be happy with who you are instead of trying to be something you're not.
Life will be a whole lot better that way.