Oh no, I was born that way [;D

Nah !! You just need roughly 250,000 points !!

I think "genius" is a born trait, but you can certainly train yourself or others to perform almost at that level.

I watched this really interesting programme in the UK about the concept of genius. The programme followed music students etc at specialist schools from being small children to adulthood. It found that to get beyond a certain level of ability, you had to have innate brains/talent, but what separated the workaday ones with brains or talent from those classed as geniuses was PRACTICE. The music students who were all much of a level at starting high school age, were analysed again as adults. Those who were then classed as geniuses or prodigies had simply put in far more hours of diligent application. What the programme posited was that in order to achieve that level of skill, regardless of subject, you had to put in a certain number of hours. I think they reckoned it to be about 10,000 hours. They took this slick idea and applied it to lots of disciplines - from the founders of the major IT companies to scientists and artists. I think that is a bit of a pat idea, just made for tv, but at the same time I think there is a lot in the idea that half of genius is innate ability and half is sheer application and dedication. If you look at prodigies in various subjects, they are often putting in hours and hours of practice day in day out from being very young, when most of us would give up and chose leisure activities instead. I don't doubt the fact that some people are hugely more intelligent than others, or have much more native musical or manual ability - but like our language skills these are nothing if they are not trained. It is the same thing you notice when you check up on your high school classmates to see what they have done as adults. The most intelligent ones or the ones with the most ability have not necessarily been the most successful. The most successful ones have been the ones who applied themselves, had the right mindset and had the ambition.

geniuses are born with the gift and the parents are responsible for seeing the gift and encouraging the child to learn more faster. sometimes the parents are the last ones to find out. the kid just picks up on the data in his/her surroundings. the piano gets investigated and the kids begins playing at three.