10 Surprising Places To Find Your Hidden Genius And Improve Your IQ
Some places are closer than you think.
dimaberlinphotos | Canva ‘Genius’ is not reserved for a special few. Those we call geniuses found something that worked and dove into that thing deeper than most.
There’s a genius living in you right now. You just need to dig your hidden genius out and improve your IQ.
Here are 10 places to find your hidden genius and improve your IQ:
1. Childhood passions
Remember what sparked your attention when you couldn’t stop snot dribbling out your nose. I loved to draw pictures. Drawing pictures was my career in my twenties.
Action: Spend 20 minutes today noting all the things you loved doing as a child.
How can you bring more of that into your adult life?
Research published by the Society of Behavioral Medicine suggests that reconnecting with childhood passions can have many benefits, including developing inner motivation, improving life skills, and tapping into your imagination.
2. Tasks that repeatedly infuriate you
Our strongest emotional reactions often point to places that give us a ton of energy. For example, I want to throw a stinking tantrum when I see talented people throwing their lives away. So, I enjoy my work as a coach.
Action: List three things that make you angrier than most. Then ask, ‘How is my anger pointing to my passion?’
A study by Texas A&M University revealed that anger, directed at the task at hand or an individual's satisfaction with their performance, motivates people to act. By channeling a single negative feeling — anger — to produce a satisfying outcome, an individual could experience fewer negative feelings overall.
3. Childhood struggles
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This is a big one. Struggles, especially those we’ve found hard to forget, often point to things we care for deeply. I struggled a lot with speaking up in class.
I wanted to connect with people, but I screwed it up out of fear. My great passion today is helping people better communicate through writing.
Action: Journal for at least ten minutes on your greatest childhood struggles. How might they point to a secret superpower in you?
4. Recurring daydreams
Hey Lucy! It’s okay to stare out the window. What if your daydreams didn’t indicate a juvenile mind but a hungry one?
Action: keep a daydream journal for a week. Look for patterns in your fantasies, and find a way to make it a reality.
Psychological research by the National Library of Medicine indicates that daydreaming can lead to discovering your passion by facilitating creativity and enabling the exploration of different possibilities, providing a mental space to experiment with potential interests and identify what excites you. This is especially true when daydreams involve fantastical scenarios or meaningful personal themes.
5. Effortless skills
There may be things you do that come naturally to you that you downplay as normal. But seen from the perspective of Nosy Nancy, they’re pretty incredible.
Action: What are those things, and how can you weave more of that magic into your week?
In 2023 research by the National Library of Medicine, the concept of "effortless skills" is linked to the idea of "flow," a state where individuals can perform complex tasks with ease and high focus, seemingly without conscious effort, due to a high level of skill and deep engagement in the activity.
Considered the primary psychological model for effortless performance, flow is characterized by complete absorption in an activity, a sense of control, and a distortion of time perception, leading to optimal performance without feeling strained.
6. Unique life experiences
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I went on my first solo trip to Iceland when I was nineteen. I got rained on for nine days straight and ate a puffin. That trip sparked in me a love for freedom and adventure that informs most of my life decisions.
Action: What are some cool experiences you’ve had that molded you into a unique human others would want to learn from?
Psychological research published by the Journal of Personality indicates that unique life experiences, positive or negative, can significantly change a person by shaping their perspectives, beliefs, and behaviors, often through neuroplasticity, where the brain adapts and rewires itself in response to new experiences.
These changes can manifest in various ways, including increased resilience, altered coping mechanisms, and shifts in personality traits depending on how an individual processes and integrates the experience.
7. Can’t-stop-blabbering topics
You know what it’s like. You’re with a good friend or your mother, and you get this warm feeling rise up in your chest.
It’s not this morning’s bacon and eggs. It’s that lovely rush of excitement that appears when you land on a topic that fascinates the pants off you.
Action: How can your blabber topics direct you towards what you must focus more on?
8. Recurring praise
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Take notice, and you’ll see cool people praising you for the same handful of things. Maybe you’re a good listener or a wizard at dad jokes. Don’t just brush them off. Note them down. People are describing your genius when they tell you.
Action: Create a praise list. When someone praises you, take the compliment and figure out why it’s significant to you.
Psychological research published in 2022 by Education Psychology: An International Journal of Experimental Educational Psychology indicates that when delivered appropriately, recurrent praise can positively impact self-esteem and motivation.
Excessive or insincere praise can have adverse effects, with studies showing that praising effort and process over inherent ability is generally more beneficial for long-term development and resilience in the face of challenges. Essentially, the "quality" of praise matters more than the quantity.
9. Cherished possessions
I don’t own much, but what I do highlights what matters to me most. I still buy paperback books, for example, even though the last thing I need as a nomad is to be weighed down by heavy Robert Greene tomes.
Action: After humans and animals, what do you run back to get when your house is on fire (share in the comments)?
Psychological research on cherished possessions reveals that people often form strong emotional attachments to objects that hold significant memories, representing essential life events, relationships, or parts of their identity, essentially acting as an extension of their "self" and providing a sense of continuity over time, particularly in situations of change or transition.
This phenomenon is often referred to as the "extended self" concept, according to a 2020 study published by the Journal of Emotion, Space, and Society.
10. Your bookshelf
When people come to me to grow their personal brand, I tell them we need to figure out their ‘zone of mastery.’ This is the area you can develop most rapidly that creates value the world needs most from you. One of the first places we look is their bookshelf.
For me, it’s human behavior, performance, and communication.
Psychological research around your bookshelf suggests that the books you choose to display and how you organize them can reveal a significant amount about your personality, interests, values, and even aspirations, essentially acting as a window into your self-image and mental landscape.
An article by the British Psychological Society explains that factors like genre grouping, prominent placement of specific titles, and overall organization style offer insights into your cognitive processes and priorities.
Alex Mathers is a writer and coach who helps you build a money-making personal brand with your knowledge and skills while staying mentally resilient.