David Shenk

Talent is not a thing; it’s a process.

In any competitive arena, the single best way to inspire better performance is to be surrounded by the fiercest possible competitors and a culture of extreme excellence. Success begets success.

Contrary to what we’ve been taught, genes do not determine physical and character traits on their own. Rather, they interact with the environment in a dynamic, ongoing process that produces and continually refines an individual.

Intelligence is not an innate aptitude, hardwired at conception or in the womb, but a collection of developing skills driven by the interaction between genes and environment. No one is born with a predetermined amount of intelligence. Intelligence (and IQ scores) can be improved. Few adults come close to their true intellectual potential.

Genetic differences do exist. But those differences aren’t straightjackets holding us in place; they are bungee cords waiting to be stretched and stretched.

Recall the resonant words of Nietzsche: ‘All great artists and thinkers [are] great workers, indefatigable not only in inventing, but also in rejecting, sifting, transforming, ordering.’ His observation was dead-on, and timeless.

The genius in all of us is that we can all rise together.

‘It’s not that I’m so smart,’ Albert Einstein once said. ‘It’s just that I stay with problems longer.’ Einstein’s simple statement is a clarion call for all who seek greatness, for themselves or their children. In the end, persistence is the difference between mediocrity and enormous success.

Everything shapes us and everything can be shaped by us. The genius in all of us is our built-in ability to improve ourselves and our world.