Being too smart to succeed.
What?! Too smart to succeed? What a crazy thing to suggest.
However this is something I’ve been pondering for a long time as I am a) entrepreneurial b) smart and c) often discussing things with colleagues and friends who are also smart.
What I hear a lot is
“That will never work because.....”
I see it on here too. And I’m probably guilty of it myself, although I have trained myself over time to recognise it.
What I’m getting at is hearing an idea, and then (because you’re smart) immediately analysing and identifying all of the possible ways it could fail, and then not starting.
So in future, whenever you fall into that trap, think of all the businesses that could have failed for a million different reasons, but didn’t.
Then think that maybe that next crazy idea you have you should just go for. And DO NOT listen to people who will be happy to list all of the reasons why you shouldn’t start your next project.
As a thought experiment have a think about a currently successful business and imagine you took that idea to your friends or even just took it to your own internal QA. What is the business and what are the reasons that you could have told yourself it probably wouldn’t work?
almost /r/iamverysmart material
I was thinking the same thing.
"Being too smart to succeed" is dangerously close to "Being too arrogant to succeed" imo.
No @Primer isn't talking about intelligence in an arrogant way. In fact, I would substitute the word "imaginative" for "intelligent". It makes his point better.
We all know people who are slow and solid and dependable. They don't think either quickly or deeply and that can sometimes be a virtue.
In war, those blessed with the most imagination tend to suffer from mental breakdown more than those who lack such imagination. The ones who lack imagination also tend to focus on the positive when they go into action because "it will never happen to me". Of course all soldiers acknowledge that bad things can happen but those who lack imagination are not paralysed through fear.
Some of what we would call the bravest soldiers run into danger and accomplish great things because it simply would not occur to them not to do so. David Stirling, the founder of the Special Armed Services (SAS), the model for similar organisations all round the world, was a borderline psychopath. He simply spoke a different ermotional language to most of us and he drew around him similar social misfits.
People who are imaginative can end up paralysed with fear as they scan all the possible outcomes of their actions. There may well be a hundred ways to succeed but there are a thousand ways to fail.
Less imaginative people don't think this way. If they want to open a litle café in town, they will find out what they need to do and then methodically set about doing it. There may well be the occasional worry along the way (premises, local Government taxes, regulations, certification or whatever) but each issue is seen as something to be dealt with as and when it arises.
The imaginative person sees all of these problems all at once and, like a rabbit caught in the headlights, can be rooted to the spot by them.
There is an old saying: The brave man dies only once; the coward dies a thousand times.
What it means, of course, is that the brave man (or "unimaginative soldier") dies when he is cut down; the coward (or "imaginative soldier") foresees his death many, many times before he is finally dealt the fatal blow that finishes him off.
As in war, so in business. The imaginative person may well see the opportunities more quickly and more often than the less imaginative person but that same imagination which is a virtue when it comes to idea generation can often be a curse when it comes to idea execution.
I think that is what Mick was getting at - and he's right.
@thomasm1964 Damn, well said! Very insightful comment. =)
Thanks man. I’m pretty horrified by the negative response to someone having a positive self image.
“I am smart” == “I am not smart”
“I am smart” == “I am arrogant”
“I am smart” == “rookie mistake”
What a terrible society we live in when someone can’t hold themselves in a positive light without it being taken so negatively.
I think I’m done with IH.
Someone said “Being smart is just one of the things you need to succeed” - I never said it wasn’t the only thing you needed.
Someone else said “you can’t charge more for being smart” - I mean what the hell?! Where did I say you could?!
Intelligence is the elitism that dare not speak its name. We suffer from it in the UK just as much as they do in the US.
If I were a black athlete, like Usain Bolt, no-one would have a problem describing me as being a physically perfect specimen and a member of a tiny elite of people who can run 100m in an astonishingly short period of time.
The same applies to swimming, football (American and 'proper' varieties), hockey and any other competitive, physical field.
We have no problem identifying people as being more or less athletic; more or less physically fit; more or less handsome or more or less beautiful.
When it comes to intelligence, however, it is a different story. Comparisons are too closely tied up with issues of race, culture and mental development. Supremacists used to point to the alleged differences in intelligence levels between races to "prove" that some people were / are "better" than other people.
That history is too close and personal for many people to say "yes, of course different people have different levels of intelligence but that doesn't say anything about their moral or cultural worth".
So now we have the ludicrous and intellectually bankrupt position where we pretend that every member of every race and culture has exactly the same level of intelligence as every other member of every other race or culture. It isn't true; it has never been true; it never will be true.
And, before anyone jumps on me for racism, the catch-all shut-down of the 20th. and 21st. centuries, there are plenty of black and Asian people who are a damn sight smarter than millions of white people - but that doesn't make every black or Asian person smarter than white people and that doesn't make all white people dumb. People are smarter or slower as individuals and it is a shame we cannot be more honest about that.
And Usain Bolt - retired or not - is still going to beat me in a 100m race even if we blindfold him, make him run backwards, tie up his best leg and give him a 20 second time penalty. He just is. Hell, he would probably have enough spare time to boil a kettle, make me a cup of tea and hand it to me as I crossed the finish line!
At some point in the future, when all races are more comfortable with each other than they often are now, we will see this nonsense for what it is. In the meantime, we see people like Tony Blair a few years back pushing for 50% of UK youngsters to go to University. Of course such a plan was doomed to failure. If Universities are not providing an intellectually demanding education, they are not Universities. Not everyone is academic and not everyone will do well at University - so we should not be pressing for artificial targets. One of three things will happen: either people will drop out of University because the studies are too demanding or the degrees will become academically worthless or there will be some mix of the two.
I am pleased to see that, this year, UK Universities are scrabbling to fill their place as more and more young people have worked out what should have been blindingly obvious to their "elders and betters" all along.
It says much for how corrupt our institutions of higher level education have become that I have been reading stories over the last few days about offers being made to students who have only obtained Cs and Ds in their A levels.
You weren't wrong in what you said but don't under-estimate the power of decades of drip-feeding of anti-elitist ideas throughout the education system.
Incidentally, the comments re. your post weren't all negative. @from_30_to_greatness agreed with the thrust of your argument. I think @louisswiss may have taken what you meant the wrong way - which is very unusual for him. He is always worth reading but might not quite have grasped the point you were making here.
Also, one of the things I have learned from working with people of different nationalities over the years is that you cannot assume they will interpret your meaning in the same way as another countryman. I understood immediately what you meant - but I am a fellow Brit and have an idea of how you approach things.
Confusion when communicating across nationalities is always a risk. It works both ways: I sometimes have to explain myself to others when I think I have made my point perfectly clearly ... but then see I am using phrases or ways of thinking which don't necessarily translate well. Similarly, I get the wrong end of the stick when other people express themselves in ways which make perfect sense to them and to a fellow national but which don't come across to me the way they meant.
Churchill once said that America and the UK were two great nations separated by a common language ... and that was before the internet was invented!
Very well constructed!
Hopefully mine's a fun read as well...
Born Asian, I was taught to be the best. We praised elitism while socially we were adopting western values to devalue it. Pretty sure as a student, we all had to write essays saying we want to grow up like Bill Gates, Thomas Edison, or Einstein... At the same time, school-for-the-gifted were just renamed to school-for-the-special-needs. Then, I moved to Canada and seems everyone hates the rich-and-famous for some reason.
Growing up, I was hated by most of my classmates. To give you a perspective, I am the Sheldon Cooper from TBBT: arrogant prick that is a know-it-all. I got exactly what I deserved, no one liked me. I didn't care since I was only interested in knowledge and information. I discovered internet, irc and 2600/other hacker groups. It's amazing because I am now having intelligent conversation with people regardless of gender, race, or age who were focused with deep thoughts. I lived a double life, top student in the nation and hacker by night. It was the good time.
Then reality hits, graduated and have to deal with drudgery of the normal Monday life. I hid my intelligence, dressed like a metrosexual and I was surrounded by socialite and supermodels. Hang out with rich people living on inheritance money. They enjoyed my company because I didn't care for their looks or money, and I offered tons of useful information. In reality, I wasn't happy at all. Just a shell.
I focused on work. Climbed corporate ladder. Over time, I finally recognized intelligence doesn't mean success. Better late than never.
Now I am a dad and an indie hacker. ;)
This needs more upvotes
I was born in Hong Kong and lived there for a few years in my late teens. Hong Kong, at that time, also valued education in the same way you describe.
I also lived in Cyprus and my Dad lives in the northern side now. Parents there still value and respect education.
Over the years, I have always been struck by the sacrifices both the parents and children in very poor countries will make in the name of education. You hear of African children walking miles to school and "hot-shoeing" - one child wears the shoes for the morning shift and his brother wears them for the afternoon or evening shift.
I've read tales of Indian children who have nothing but who still go to school under a flyover bridge and I can remember the Malaysian child who studied in McDonalds because that was the only source of light that he had.
Only in rich, comfortable countries is it fashionable to sneer at the intelligentsia. Elsewhere, they know the value of an education and the benefits that brings in terms of knowledge and the ability to think for oneself.
This comment has been voted down. Click to show.
It hasn't been removed — a couple people just downvoted it. But anyone who wants to see it can still see it by clicking it. Generally I don't reverse votes unless they're clearly abusive, e.g. people downvoting other comments because they want to make their comments rise to the top.
Anyway, having a comment downvoted is no big deal, so don't worry about it. It's guaranteed to happen to pretty much everyone at some point. If I had to guess, people reacted negatively to the "I think I’m done with IH" threat, but it's impossible to say.
Why would you appeal, if you are done with IH?
There is a whole lot of poor reading going on here today.
I said
I think I’m done. THINK.
I didn’t say i WAS done.
Similarly, never once did I say that I am too smart to succeed. Again people reading what they want to read.
Holy shit this was meant to be a positive post about not overthinking things and not listening to naysayers.
Also the entire principle of what I was getting at is a known thing, it’s not even like I made it up. Ever heard of analysis paralysis?
Mick, relax a bit, alright? This was just a joke. Distance yourself a bit from all of this.
First - if the majority of people read it wrong, are they wrong, or your way of presenting was bad?
Second - seriously man, if you think that the quoted comments were negative, then you have nothing to look for in the business world. Either you grow a thicker skin, or you will end up running businesses to the ground. I cannot see negative comments here. If someone does not agree with it, it does not equal to being negative. Instead of making it clear, improving your piece, based on the feedback you've got, you took all personal.
And lastly - you are no angel yourself. Some of your comments are on par with what you quoted as "negative" ones. I have seen your activity for a few weeks now. Not trying to attack you, but if you took an offense on this thread, then possibly you want something, you are not giving back?
And one thing that really puzzles me... Why @thomasm1964 is talking for you and explaining you (not the first time). Are you brothers? Or like best friends? I don't understand what's going on here.
I can answer the last part of your post easily enough.
No, we're not brothers. I don't know Mick from Adam. He lives about 150 miles from me across the scottish border. However, I do understand what he was getting at and I was trying to explain it in different terms. In fact, I've just seen another comment from @Primer trying to explain himself again.
I know what he meant in his original comment. I also know that it has been mis-read. American English and British English can be very different. Generally speaking, Americans can be much more literal minded than Brits. As someone who has worked for two American multi-nationals over the years, I found that my American colleagues had to learn how to "read" me - because we use language very differently.
I think Mick has slightly taken offence where none was intended. Having said that, however, it was obvious that the point he was trying to make had not been understood. My role in this thread has been trying to explain what Mick was getting at.
As for my second post, what I said is true. Intelligence is belittled in a way that physical prowess is not, as the comments showed. I didn't find them either negative or offensive but I could understand Mick's frustration that the point he was trying to make was either missed or ignored completely. Free world: people don't have to respond the way an OP might wish. It was a little sad, though, that only one person engaged with Mick in the way he was expecting.
I have "defended" Mick before - except that I would call it "supporting his views". I don't agree with everything that Mick thinks. It would be weird if I did. However, when I do agree with someone - Mick or anyone else - why wouldn't I endorse their views? I'm quick enough to point out when I disagree with people so the opposite should also pertain.
Fair enough, I have been living in Ireland for 7 years, and I do not feel that vibe. I also think it would be better if Mick could say those things himself though, how he is supposed to communicate with difficult customers/users? Anyways, I was just curious, thanks Thomas.
I read it the way you meant it. Sometimes we're too smart for our own good and it's a trap we need to slow down and be weary of. It's good advice.
I agree with your point, however I think there a many more factors at play in the situation you bring up, imagination being one of them although not the most important one.
I would say that protective instinct, ability to focus and control your thoughts has a much greater impact for example.
But that is a discussion for another forum 🤠
Agreed. I was focussing on the narrow point made originally by @Primer . I wasn't trying to broaden the subject to cover every aspect of what is needed for success.
I once told my daughter that I am smart. She drew a beautiful trophy and the saying "Smart, according to your own opinion". I've never made that rookie mistake again. :)
It's funny because it's true. Thinking Fast and Slow points out that this is indeed the case because we are wired to believe the most coherent story we can piece together. Naturally smart people are better at weaving together more coherent stories whether they're right or wrong. Intelligence can be a trap.
The trick is to get out of your head and talk to customers about the problem and ways to solve it.
Sure, don't listen to people. But absolutely do listen to potential customers. And learn how to interpret their feedback properly. After all, there's no incentive for them to not having you solve their problem...
You don't get to charge more for being smart.
Someone once told me "If you're a pessimist, you'll be right. If you're an optimist, you'll be rich".
I've always had a knack for identifying the risks and potential for failure in any endeavor, particularly when it is my own. I think that to some extent, adopting a disposition of blind optimism is beneficial if you're still able to switch over to rational thinking here and there.
I think about this often, because I'm regularly approached with startup ideas and asked to comment on them.
What I've arrived at is the following conclusion: When anyone (including yourself) spots a flaw in your startup idea, don't think of it as a reason why it won't work. Rather, think of it as a challenge that will need to be overcome in order to get the idea to work.
For example, Indie Hackers had to overcome a chicken-and-egg problem where people wouldn't be willing to share their stories to a site with no audience, but the site couldn't build an audience unless some people had shared their stories. That's not a reason why the idea would never work. It's just a challenge I had to get around.
To all but the most experienced, the biggest obstacles that lie between you and success are not obvious. Plenty of founders spend time working on the wrong things (e.g. designing their logo) and ignoring the crucial things (e.g. getting their product in front of the right people in a consistent, repeatable way). Therefore, being able to correctly identify challenges is a huge advantage, not a disadvantage.
But that's only true if you see yourself as finding challenges, not as finding reasons to quit.
P.S. I don't think people are really reading your post and responding to the specifics. Rather, they're responding to the to the title. Which is partially their fault for not reading, yes, but also a good lesson for you to remember how people read in the internet and craft your titles carefully.
A smart person should be smart enough to recognise his/her own biases. Therefore you can never be "too smart" for anything.
I believe the real issue here is "thinking you are more smart than you actually is regarding that particular problem/business/industry"
Finding possible problems is easy, it is not a privilege of "smart people". What is hard is to find solutions. For that you have to be real smart and/or real hardworking (ideally both).
This post is right to an extent. Over-analyzing doesn't mean you are "smart", just that you tend to over-analyze stuff....dumb people do that too.
Being smart, in this case, means that you are aware that you over-analyze and you take the best path forward, without letting it block your actions.
If you are smart you are aware that are too many variables that you can't control and everything is just probability which changes up and down with each action you take.
This is a really interesting concept.
I think plenty of entrepreneurs or people who start a business are really smart, and so they hang on to the part of the business they're the best at.
Technical folks do all the technical work because nobody can do it better than them.
Designers do all the design work because nobody can do it better than them.
Business folks to all the BD because nobody can do it better than them.
But usually that's just not true. Smart people feel like they want to do what they're good at because it will get them the best outcome. That may be true, but it comes at the price of spending all their time on execution instead of leadership or management.
I started a technical company and was fortunate enough to not be a technical person. I think this gave me the distinct advantage of delegating this early which has lead to a ton of success.
Where I've not been so successful? Delegating marketing which is where I'm strong, so it's a two-edged sword.
So agreed! Smart people can fail at startups not literally because they're "too smart" but because they don't take the counter-intuitive step of delegating even the things they're good at to find more time to move the business forward.
Just my two cents!
P.S. Of course there may be times, especially at the start of a business, where a founder is executing. But they should (in most cases) try to bring in a team to handle operational work.
Wow this post has been taken so negatively. I’m very surprised, I haven’t seen this kind of response on IH so far in my time here.
Interesting.
Probably because most people who say 'I am smart' aren't really too smart (Throwback to Trump saying 'I am, like, really smart'/'a stable genius')
Describing yourself as too smart to succeed can be taken wrongly.
He never claimed being smart, on its own, would cause failure. He described an attribute smart people tend to have - over thinking, and why having that attribute can cause failure. Not sure why everyone is seeing this in a wrong light.
Nothing wrong with being intullectually honest about something that tends to effect smart people...
Agreed!
Smart is just one of many other factors that you need to succeed...
Wish I could remember the link. It was a great article about using "Unless we..." to get past most obstacles.
I used to play a game with myself when bad things would happen I would say "That's perfect because..." and then I had to invent a reason. Great exercise in mental gymnastics.
That's great mental programming.
The article was cool because the guy worked with a couple that said his goal was impossible but as he talked with them and said "unless" then they we able to come up with was around it
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect
The answer to this is testing. Come up with an idea, refine it, test it, review the results, improve it or abandon it. Business is just a series of experiments, most of which fail. Measure results and make decisions based on facts rather than opinion and speculation.
I think it takes a lot of courage to lay out such a claim on a public forum rather than during a session at your local shrink. This courage can be interpreted as arrogance, but in fact it’s probably a desperate attempt to find among the IH community some peers which will identify with this recognized symptom and share their experience.
The simplistic way of dealing with this claim (read: intelligence = arrogance), doesn’t really help or provide insight.
Here is an other scenario which happens when you’re too “knowledgeable”. You’ve got an idea. An idea is generally something straight forward: product A will do X.
And because you know lots of stuff about lots of stuff, you will start to add lots of layers of complexity which turn your bright and simple idea into something that is fragilized by the small details and complexity. And then, you manage to convince yourself that there are tooo many barriers on the way to success and you stop.
Knowing yiur pattern should tell you one thing: have someone with you who can extract from your idea the core concept so you don’t loose yourself, and revisit the idea a couple of times to see if it’s a viable business, plan a MVP and go with it.
Better fail trying than contemplating the “what if” wall.
Why the controversy?
Because of the word smart.
Smart is an interesting term. It's not measured against nothing or against potential or against the sum of your choices.
It's measured against others on a small playing field where you've carefully marked out the boundaries, asked some peers to come and play, then you've scored everyone through your words. Maybe you think you're the only winner or that all the players on your field are but the people who weren't invited or don't know the rules, they're not smart, supposedly.
One observation, people are being really technically focused these days and do not have the time to be a well rounded person to succeed. Imagine you invented something, but you don't know how to sell it...