This quote famously credited to Albert Einstein explains almost everything you will read in this post:

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

We are all curious by nature. Unfortunately, many educational institutions make it challenging to nurture our curiosities as we grow up. “The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education”. Einstein said.

Society and educational systems take us on a different path as we grow up. The desire to understand the world and its complexities can only be nurtured if you make deliberate time for it, i.e. if your present life career allows it.

The demands of life and living make it nearly impossible for so many people to hone their curiosities. “All kids are born geniuses, but are crushed by society”. Michio Kaku once said.

Einstein was almost caught up in the higher education system. He used to question authorities. “Unthinking respect for authority,” he said, “is the greatest enemy of truth.”

He never got a recommendation for a job from his professors after university. So he worked as a patent clerk from 1902 to 1909.

Einstein managed to pursue his intellectual curiosities whilst working six days a week. He made time to develop his scientific ideas and wrote four revolutionary papers that transformed human understanding of light, matter, time and space.

Almost every human mind is capable of critical, creative and innovative thinking. Given the right environment and time, you can improve on existing ideas or create new ones.

People who hone the human desire to understand the complexities of life and the world are more likely to find, discover or create something unique. Theres is no universal standard, law, principle or rule for becoming a genius.

Beyond I.Q., talent or prodigy

Genius is a developmental process. It has less to do with your I. Q. “People who boast about their I.Q. are losers.” Stephen Hawking said.

Your abilities are not carved in genetic stone. They are honed based on expectations from your parents, the people closest to you, and the ideas you are exposed to from childhood.

“Like a jukebox, the individual has the potential to play a number of different developmental tunes. The particular developmental tune it does play is selected by [the environment] in which the individual is growing up,” says Patrick Bateson, a biologist at Cambridge University.

High achievers in almost every field master principles, learning practices and methods that have been improved over time to become geniuses.

Given the right determination and curiosities, anyone can master a skill. Of course, it’s not easy, but it’s not impossible. Anyone can aspire to be great.

“Intelligence represents a set of competencies in development,” said Robert Sternberg from Tufts University in the U.S. in 2005, after many decades of study.

Genius starts with curiosity. You can only hone something that takes years, sometimes decades, to master if you are insanely curious about digging deeper or discovering better ways to improve.

According to research, people who take less than ten years to achieve mastery are more likely to become geniuses.

Mozart was incredibly passionate about music. It took him almost 20 years to compose his first masterpiece. “You know that I immerse myself in music, so to speak — that I think about it all day long — that I like experimenting — studying — reflecting,” Mozart once said.

Da Vinci was insanely curious about almost everything. He was a polymath. Thomas Edison was obsessed with light bulbs.

Charles Darwin spent all his life exploring the origin of living things. Einstein questioned almost everything about time, mass, light and space.

People who end up as geniuses find the missing piece everyone ignores. They connect ideas better in record time. Vladimir Nabokov was right when he said, “Genius is finding the invisible link between things.”

Your abilities are not carved in genetic stone

Every human brain represents potential. Many people stop at what the educational system offers. They don’t push themselves far enough to discover what they are capable of doing. They settle. Or the many issues of life get the better of them.

Others can’t push past what the system expects of them. They learn to get grades and stop when it’s not required. They don’t follow their curiosities. “Genius is the recovery of childhood at will.” Arthur Rimbaud said.

Not everyone is wired to think in the same way. Many great artists don’t think analytically or think in equations. It doesn’t make them less of a genius.

Einstein was one of the few scientists who had high-level abstract thinking skills and rich imagination. He used thought experiments to discover his world-changing ideas. He could also easily translate his ideas into equations.

Geniuses have different skill sets. Picasso was a genius, but he was not a scientific thinker. Beethoven left school at age 11 to help with family income. He never learned how to multiply.

Anyone can be as smart as Einstein, Virginia Wolf, Charles Darwin or Marie Curie, given the right environment, determination and sustained interest in what they care deeply about.

The right mixture of nature, environmental factors and focus can turn anyone into a genius over time.

You can achieve your greatness if you want it bad enough and can commit a reasonable amount of time, sometimes a decade, to pursuing or creating the one thing you deeply care about.

Brian Tracy was right, “An average person with average talents and ambition and average education, can outstrip the most brilliant genius in our society if that person has clear, focused goals.”

A genius is anyone curious enough to find better answers, new discoveries, unconventional connections or an entirely new way of getting something done. It could be you.

This article first appeared on Medium.