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The Genius and the Impostor
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Published on Aug 25, 2026 | 7 Hours 40 Minutes
“Challenges everything we think we know about intelligence, talent, and potential.”—David Perlmutter
An empowering, neuroscience-backed look into what we get wrong about human intelligence and how to liberate the genius within
Extraordinary minds are built from ordinary brains. Every feat of human brilliance, every breakthrough, every celebrated work of genius was produced by the same basic machinery you were born with. The brain that wrote Hamlet, discovered relativity, and the one reading this sentence were powered by the same underlying architecture.
The Genius and the Impostor rewrites the story of human intelligence and potential. Drawing on decades of neuroscience and neurology research along with his own clinical case files, neurologist Josh Turknett reveals two competing forces inside every human brain. One is the source of your extraordinary capabilities. The other has spent your whole life trying to convince you they don’t exist.
The science shows that we have tragically underestimated the potential of every human brain. It shows that intelligence isn’t born, but built through learning, and it never stops. And it shows that the story we’ve been telling about human potential is not only wrong, but the very thing standing in the way of unlocking it.
An empowering, neuroscience-backed look into what we get wrong about human intelligence and how to liberate the genius within
Extraordinary minds are built from ordinary brains. Every feat of human brilliance, every breakthrough, every celebrated work of genius was produced by the same basic machinery you were born with. The brain that wrote Hamlet, discovered relativity, and the one reading this sentence were powered by the same underlying architecture.
The Genius and the Impostor rewrites the story of human intelligence and potential. Drawing on decades of neuroscience and neurology research along with his own clinical case files, neurologist Josh Turknett reveals two competing forces inside every human brain. One is the source of your extraordinary capabilities. The other has spent your whole life trying to convince you they don’t exist.
The science shows that we have tragically underestimated the potential of every human brain. It shows that intelligence isn’t born, but built through learning, and it never stops. And it shows that the story we’ve been telling about human potential is not only wrong, but the very thing standing in the way of unlocking it.
Author
Josh Turknett
Josh Turknett, MD, is a board-certified neurologist and the founder of the Institute for Performance Neurology, where he works at the intersection of neuroscience, learning, and human potential. He is also an award-winning musician who has spent decades exploring how the brain builds expertise from the inside out. He is the author of Anyone Can Play Music, the host of the Performance Neurology podcast, and a sought-after speaker on learning, expertise, and cognitive performance. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia, where he can be found picking banjos, swinging tennis rackets, or thwarting impostors wherever they lurk.
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