Last week a friend of mine asked me this question: “Are you a genius?”
I answered: “Yes, sometimes”. What is your answer?
Subsequently he informed me that in 1968, Dr. George Land was contracted by NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) to develop a test to find the most creative scientists among its employees in order for NASA to allocate them to critical missions. The test was designed to find creative geniuses who were able to come up with creative solutions to any problem they might face. He had found that the percentage of such people among adults is 2%.
One could understand the power of these creative geniuses on humanity’s evolution.
Einstein once wrote: “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution.” The question that comes to mind is why these lucky 2 people among every 100 of us? Is it genetic or is it learned? Nature or nurture? Do you think these 2% creative geniuses were born that way or worked hard to become that?
To answer this question, Dr. Land administered the test to 1,600 children between the ages of 4 to 5. What he found was shocking! The percentage of children who tested at the genius level of creativity was 98%!
Dr. Land decided to follow these children every five years, again the results were shocking. By the age of 10 the percentage dropped by 68 points to 30%. By the age of 15 it was 12%, and for the million people tested with an average age of 31 it was 2%.
So, what about the other 98%? Well, the potential and the choice are always there!