How to Be a Genius

The single most impactful thing you can do to boost your intelligence is learn how to effectively self-soothe

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When I was about seven years old I was diagnosed with a sensory processing disorder. At the time, such disorders were classified as learning disabilities. The way learning disabilities are diagnosed is by administrating an IQ test and an achievement test that focuses on skills like reading, writing and math. If there’s a big difference between the two scores, you have a learning disability. In my case my IQ was above average for my age, but my skills were below average for my grade level. No one at my school knew what to do with those results. Did I belong in the gifted program or in the resource room? One school board member remarked to my mother that my high IQ and learning disability would just cancel each other out over time, so what was the issue? My mom’s response was the stuff of legend.

I spent much of my formal education dealing with everyone else’s reaction to my ability to exceed expectations. I was a kid with the words “learning disabled” on my record who also appeared to be blazingly smart. It was a cognitive dissonance that most of the adults in my life didn’t know how to handle. I must be a liar. Something must be wrong with the diagnostic test that labelled me as disabled. Perhaps I had…