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Dumb Mistakes Smart People Make That Cause Them to Fail
And how to stop making them
Some smart people suffer a strange form of torture.
Their brain works well and processes information quickly, but their intellect doesn’t translate to the things that make you successful:
- Smart decision making — Which is in an entirely different universe than being smart
- Emotional regulation — Smart people often have a horrible time regulating their emotions (I’ll explain in a bit)
- Humility — Smart people tend to suffer because of their ego in various ways
Having high intellect doesn’t guarantee success at all. Think of this analogy. Intellect is like a cup. Some people have a larger cup than others. You fill your cup with effort. Some people have big empty cups while others have smaller cups filled to the brim.
On top of that, intelligence isn’t a rigid label. All of us have different capacities for different things. People who identify with their intellect run into a bunch of problems because they use a narrow lens to see the world.
In the end, there’s only one kind of intelligence that matters. If you can get what you want in life, you’re truly smart. If not, time to reevaluate what the word means to you.
