Recipe of a making a Genius
“Geniuses are born, not created.” You may have heard that one somewhere. Francis Galton, a prominent nineteenth-century scientist, said these words.
Extraordinary people in their particular fields have always had this mythical, somewhat supernatural aura that they were born geniuses. The childhood stories of their talent shone through them for as long as the parents or relatives remember. That may be true in many cases, but what If I told you that it is possible to mold someone into a genius.
“Geniuses are made, not born.” Now that’s a 180 degrees turn from Mr. Francis.
You might’ve heard of Laszlo Polgar, a person so vehement of the belief that he could create geniuses with the proper training and approach that he did and not one but 3. He had three daughters, Susan, Sophia, and Judit Polgar.
He wanted them to become chess players, so he built training regimes and homeschooled them. He had worked about every minute detail, and the environment at home rewarded every little chess achievement. The sisters, Susan born in 1969, Sophia born 1975, Judit born 1976, played against each other, and they rose rapidly. Each next sibling showed more promise than the previous one. Susan became the first female Chess Grandmaster by achieving all the three GM norms. Though Sophia showed more potential than Susan, she decided to call it quits after becoming an International Master(IM), a league lower than her elder sister, the GM. However, Judit Polgar was the one who became such a legendary player that she smashed the world record of being the youngest Grandmaster at the time, a record held by Bobby Fischer, the most renowned American Chess Player ever among the greatest of all time.
She was the first and the only woman Chess Player to date to go past the rating barrier of 2700 and be ranked in the top 10 in the open category rating list (alongside the men)
“Our parents decided that their children’s lives and careers would be a living example, that would prove that any healthy child — if taught early and intensively — can be brought up to be exceptionally successful in any field.”
~ Judit Polgar
The other example is in a more mainstream sport than chess. Richard Williams, no? Serena and Venus Williams. There you go. Richard Williams was no less of a visionary than Laszlo Polgar.
He planned everything to ensure that his two daughters could be the greats of Women’s Tennis. It was not that his daughters were extraordinary; Richard made them exceptional with the intensive training, proper guidance, and motivation. I don’t have to tell you how dominant the Williams sisters were in their careers. You can read that all over the internet.
I want to tell you that the above two prominent examples should be good enough for you to believe that work ethic, honesty, and dedication are enough for people to be genuinely good at whatever they want to do.
Add the early beginning of these, and you will have yourself a genius or someone very close to it. Take that, Francis Galton.
Coincidentally these examples are all women… sorry, not sorry!
