The variance is the average of the squares of all the differences from the mean.

Then the standard deviation is the square root of the variance which is
approximately the average difference from the mean.

1 6 7 7 7 6 0 1 0 1 

Their mean is 

The average difference from the mean is 3.04 and the standard deviation is 3,
so we can say that those 10 numbers average differing from their mean by
about 3.  The variance is the square of that or about 9.

Edwin