Comment by davidbessis

Indeed, it does involve redefining genius as a "state", or "flow", or "trajectory".

When I say it's not primarily genetic, many people wrongly assume there's an entirely explainable and replicable way of accessing this state. There isn't.

The 20,000 hours rule is a bit misleading, because who gets to invest 20,000 hours into something? How do you create this drive, this trajectory? You must have a good hope that it'll yield something worth the effort.

This is why the injunction to "work harder" so often misses the mark.

However, even if only a tiny fraction of the population will end up becoming a "genius", it's very important to debunk the myth, because the real story has valuable lessons for everyone: it gives concrete and pragmatic indications on what one should be on lookout for.

It's not fully teachable up to genius level, but the directionality is teachable and extremely valuable.