MAVERICK'S MONDAY MORNING MARKETING MEMO

October 31, 2026

How to Become a Genius

What if you're far more intelligent than you've ever believed? What if your greatest intellectual abilities have been sitting dormant simply because nobody taught you how to develop them?

Most people spend their lives judging their intelligence by how well they performed in school. They remember struggling with mathematics, failing examinations, or being told they weren't particularly bright.

But here's the problem: Academic performance is not a complete measurement of human intelligence.

School rewards particular abilities, including academic reasoning, conscientiousness, and the capacity to follow structured instruction. But human capability extends far beyond the classroom.

Think about an extraordinary professional athlete who cannot swim. Would you conclude that he isn't athletic? Of course not. You're simply measuring his abilities in an environment that doesn't reflect his strengths.

The same principle applies to intelligence.

The Eight Forms of Intelligence: Which One Is Yours?

Psychologist Howard Gardner developed the theory of multiple intelligences, proposing that human abilities extend beyond traditional academic measures.

Although this theory is debated scientifically and these categories are not separate IQ scores, it provides a useful framework for exploring your intellectual strengths.

Here are eight forms of intelligence worth examining:

1. Linguistic Intelligence: The ability to communicate, understand, and manipulate language. Think Ernest Hemingway, Friedrich Nietzsche, and accomplished writers and speakers.
2. Logical-Mathematical Intelligence: The ability to reason analytically, recognize logical relationships, and solve numerical problems. Think Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein.
3. Spatial Intelligence: The ability to visualize objects, interpret spatial relationships, and mentally manipulate complex structures. Think architects, artists, pilots, and surgeons.
4. Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence: The ability to coordinate physical movement with exceptional precision. Think LeBron James and elite athletes whose extraordinary physical skills depend on sophisticated coordination and learning.
5. Musical Intelligence: The ability to recognize and manipulate rhythm, pitch, melody, and musical structure. Think accomplished musicians, composers, and performers.
6. Interpersonal Intelligence: The ability to understand other people, recognize their motivations, communicate effectively, and influence social interactions. Think exceptional salespeople, negotiators, and leaders.
7. Intrapersonal Intelligence: The ability to understand your own emotions, motivations, strengths, and weaknesses. Self-awareness is essential to deliberate personal development.
8. Naturalistic Intelligence: The ability to recognize, classify, and understand patterns in the natural world. Think Charles Darwin and scientists who identify relationships among living organisms and their environments.

Now ask yourself a question:

Which of these abilities comes most naturally to you?

What captures your attention? What do you enjoy learning? What activities make you lose track of time?

Your answers may provide clues about where to concentrate your intellectual development.

I Nearly Failed School. Then I Qualified for Mensa.

I almost flunked out of grade school.

I hated school. I had little interest in standardized examinations, and I certainly wasn't considered an academic superstar. While other students worked through their tests, I was more interested in drawing professional wrestlers.

Some people thought I was an idiot.

Years later, as an adult, I qualified for Mensa, the international high-IQ society.

The experience taught me something important: Your academic history does not determine the limits of your intellectual future.

You may have performed poorly in school. You may have spent decades believing you're not particularly intelligent.

Neither means you've reached your intellectual potential.

And discovering your strengths is only the beginning.

Your Intelligence May Be Out of Shape

Imagine a world-class athlete who stops training.

He spends years sitting on the couch, eating poorly, gaining weight, and abandoning the activities that once made him exceptional.

Eventually, he becomes sluggish. His performance deteriorates.

Does that mean he never possessed athletic ability?

Of course not.

His abilities have simply gone untrained.

Your intellectual skills can suffer from the same neglect.

If you've never deliberately practiced analytical reasoning, communication, musical performance, creative problem-solving, or another cognitive skill, why would you expect to perform at your highest level?

You need to begin exercising those abilities.

Not occasionally. Deliberately and consistently.

Find Someone Who Has Mastered Your Strength

Once you've identified an ability you want to develop, find somebody who already excels at it.

Not necessarily a world-famous genius.

Find someone whose accomplishments represent a realistic next level for you.

Study that person.

What books do they read? What exercises do they practice? Which conferences do they attend? What methods, habits, and systems helped them improve?

If you're a musician, examine how exceptional musicians practice.

If you're a salesperson, study successful negotiators and their communication techniques.

If you're interested in psychology, study the thinkers and practitioners who shaped the discipline.

Stop simply admiring exceptional people. Start examining how they became exceptional.

Then begin applying what you discover.

Use Artificial Intelligence to Train Your Intelligence

One of the most powerful tools available for intellectual development is artificial intelligence.

You can use ChatGPT as a personalized training partner to practice reasoning, communication, creativity, and other skills.

Tell ChatGPT which abilities you want to improve, describe your current experience, and request daily exercises that become progressively more challenging.

For example, as a marketing consultant, I use ChatGPT to simulate business problems.

I'll ask it to act as a CEO, CFO, or CMO and present me with a difficult business scenario.

Then I analyze the underlying motivations, identify the governing principles, examine comparable situations, develop solutions, and practice articulating my recommendations with precision.

It's a deliberate exercise in strategic thinking.

Your exercises will look different depending on your goals.

A musician might practice rhythmic recognition. A writer might develop arguments and improve vocabulary. An aspiring entrepreneur might work through financial and operational problems.

The objective is the same: Use deliberate practice to turn intellectual potential into practical capability.

Build a Memory Palace to Remember What You Learn

One of the techniques I use personally is the memory palace.

A memory palace is a method of organizing information by associating ideas with memorable locations inside an imagined physical environment.

Rather than repeatedly studying information only to forget it, you create structured mental associations that make retrieval easier.

I've used memory palaces to organize and recall concepts across psychology, history, marketing, philosophy, and other disciplines.

Memory techniques won't automatically make you a genius, but they can become powerful tools for retaining and applying knowledge.

When combined with deliberate practice, a strong memory system can help you build an expanding library of useful information.

Watch my companion video on how to memorize what you learn using the memory palace technique.

Measure Your Intellectual Growth

Intellectual development should produce meaningful results.

If you're improving your communication skills, are you becoming more persuasive?

If you're developing analytical reasoning, are you solving increasingly difficult problems?

If you're strengthening your business judgment, are you making better decisions?

Your progress should connect to something you actually want.

Perhaps it's earning more money, building a business, advancing your career, becoming a better musician, or understanding the world more deeply.

Track your practice. Evaluate your performance. Increase the difficulty as your abilities improve.

Intelligence becomes valuable when you put it to work.

Becoming a Genius Starts With Developing What You Already Have

You don't need to spend the rest of your life believing that your intelligence was determined by a classroom experience decades ago.

Identify your strengths. Find extraordinary people worth studying. Practice deliberately. Use modern tools to accelerate your development. Build systems for remembering what you learn.

And most importantly, apply those abilities to your ambitions.

The objective isn't simply to feel smarter.

It's to become more capable, more knowledgeable, and more effective at creating the life you want.

I'm Maverick, your marketing consultant. Watch the full video above, and join me each week as we explore intelligence, psychology, marketing, and personal development.

Happy Halloween!