<p>There are a number of factors that come into play with genius. First you have to have skill (be it mental or physical) at an extremely high level. Some of that is likely a talent that you are born wiht and some is going to come after practice, practice, practice. This will give an extremely high skill level, but that alone is not ‘genius’.
In addition, for genius, I think that you have to be able to take that skil and turn it and apply it in new and unique ways, look at Hawking, Einstein, Motzart, Michael Jordan (hey, I think his fallaway jumper is genius). It’s more than just skill, it’s inspiration. I think that it is what athletes talk about with being “in the zone”. There are times when you get an inspiration and things just start to click and suddenly you have created something really fantastic. I think that just about everyone has had small bits of time when that has happened, but true geniuses are able to do it on a regular basis. I know that the few times that I have experienced it, I got done with what I was working on and looked back and thought “now how the heck did I manage to come up with that?”</p>