How to Become Smarter?

I seldom receive any SMS (short messages via mobile phone), so I was positively surprised to get an SMS from a friend asking: “How can I become smarter?”

This is a really good question and my immediate reaction was: “Read a lot, talk often to smarter people and take on challenging assignments.” After responded the SMS, I thought it might helpful to find some examples.

Read a lot books. My daughter Sophia is very smart. I believe that the key reason for her smartness was that she read a lot books during the early years. She could finish reading a book within one a two days. And she already read thousands of books.

Talk to smart people. I knew some self improvement trainers often interviewed hundreds of top people to get insights how those people are successful. Afterwards they become star trainers, because they unconsciously apply the methods they learned from the interview for their daily work and life.

Take on challenging assignment. There are people who were not particularly smart from their scores at the school or at the university. But they are keen to be successful in their professional life. So they create their own business or apply for challenge jobs. Since the job is so demanding, they have to work enormous amount of time, meet and resolve unbelievable problems. Afterwards, they are able to respond sharply and quickly to any challenges.

Smartness is less a question of genes, but a question of deliberate practice.