How important it intelligence?

[MartinV]

Thats all wrong... why should i believe these stats anyway?

Well, because they're not random points pulled out of someone's a$$ on a forum. It's certainly valid to look at their study and dispute the research, but that's a bit different than just randomly saying "That's all wrong!"

Intelligence is needed in order to have a good "smart" strategy

Is it really? Maybe you just need enough to copy a successful strategy? or to listen to the advice of someone who's smarter or more experienced? Sure, you need a certain amount of intelligence to put on your pants in the morning, but as I mentioned above, once you reach a certain minimum amount of intelligence, more doesn't necessarily make you more successful.

The phrase "outsmart the next guy" was created for a reason otherwise it would be "outwork the next guy"

Maybe people like that phrase because "outsmarting" someone sounds a lot easier than outworking them? I can (in theory at least) outsmart someone in a single moment of inspiration, but if I want to outwork them, then I might actually have to wake up early and get off the couch!

EXAMPLE:
Johnny is a successfully guy with a decent IQ, he makes $750k per year.
Now Johnny is cloned except he is twice as smart, he comprehends twice as fast, he learns new concepts twice as fast.

Who is going to make more?

If there were a magic smart pill, I'm sure we'd all take it. However, if you cloned them from birth, the answer might not be so clear cut. Assuming that the relatively dumber guy is still average, the smarter guy probably doesn't have to work as hard to be successful in school and probably ends up with a worse work ethic than the other.

I know that personally, my lack of work ethic in my earlier years has probably delayed my overall success by a decade or more. If I could magically trade a few IQ points to have my current work ethic back then, I'd happily do it.

Consider it another way: What if your magic smart pill would make you as smart as you want, but you'd sleep one year for each IQ point you gained. Would you still take it? Would you trade the next 10 years for 10 more IQ points? If not, what would that ratio have to be before you would make the trade? How much is intelligence really worth to you?

 

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[MartinV]

Here are a few relevant points:

For people with a max education of a bachelor's degree, each point higher on the Wordsum test causes a $1,200 decrease in income.


Having an IQ in the highest bucket (WORDSUM=10) results in a $2,500 lower income than just having an average IQ


a one point increase in IQ test scores is related to an income increase of $346 per year. But at most, that same one-point increase in IQ leads to "a net worth increase of at most $83, but probably zero.


And when it comes to financial distress, smarts are no help at all. People with 140 IQ scores (a score of 100 is average) missed payments and maxed-out their credit cards more often than their lower IQ counterparts. They went bankrupt at a rate, 14.1%, close to the rate of people with an IQ of 80, 15.2%

 

[futhey]

I know a lot of dangerously-intelligent people choose to get a nice, safe job out of fear. They're intelligent enough to see how incredibly scary the real world is. Ignorance is bliss...

These people define success in security, not fat wallets full of Benjamins.

I went into a program for "Gifted" students after scoring high on an IQ test. Incredibly intelligent bunch, but none of them are rich. Plenty of lawyers and doctoral candidates though...

 

[Brander]

dangerously-intelligent people choose to get a nice, safe job out of fear.

So intelligence shrinks your gonads?

 

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[wade1mil]

These people define success in security, not fat wallets full of Benjamins.

There's nothing secure about a job. I nearly tripled the sales of an insurance brokerage in six months, the company was bought out, reorganized, cut the managers salary from $6k/mo to minimum wage plus (a pathetic) commission which "forced" us to quit, and replaced us with minimum wage slap sticks. When I left, I had 7 sales people plus myself. Last thing I heard was they have three minimum wage sales people, desperately looking to hire a manager (with competitive pay), and sales are 1/4 of what they were when I left.

If I learned anything from that experience, it is that when it comes to being an employee, it doesn't matter that you've done good for the company in the past, if they want to change things, you're expendable. Don't think for a minute your "buddy" won't throw you under the bus in order to save his own a$$ either

 

[Likwid24]

I know some a few highly intelligent people, two are very very close to me. You can ask them any question and in the snap of a finger they'll have an extremely detailed answer for you. The one thing they all have in common - I am way more successful than all of them, make more money and have a much better social life then them.

I'm not an idiot (lol) but I don't consider myself to be super intelligent either. They seem to be too intelligent for their own good. Their people skills aren't as good. I think that their intelligence is the main cause of that. Everyone hates a know-it-all (We call them IKE - I Know Everything). Most people I know tend to avoid these type of people because they are always correcting you, sometimes even when your right.

I think intelligence is still very important, but even more important is social skills. The ability to get on the same level with everyone you meet, whether intelligent or a space brain. The ability to get people to like you and want to do business with you. The ability to get the best people to work for you and enjoy working for you. Henry Ford and Andrew Carnegie, two of the most successful people in history, did exactly that. They didn't know much about their business. They knew what people wanted and they hired the best person in every position to work for them.

A Perfect example of this is when Henry Ford was involved in a lawsuit and a lawyer asked him a question that he did not know the answer to. His reply:

"If I should really WANT to answer the foolish question you have just asked, or any of the other questions you have been asking me, let me remind you that I have a row of electric push-buttons on my desk, and by pushing the right button, I can summon to my aid men who can answer ANY question I desire to ask concerning the business to which I am devoting most of my efforts. Now, will you kindly tell me, WHY I should clutter up my mind with general knowledge, for the purpose of being able to answer questions, when I have men around me who can supply any knowledge I require?"

 

[theBiz]

Ok this debate can go on forever...

If there were a magic smart pill, I'm sure we'd all take it. However, if you cloned them from birth, the answer might not be so clear cut. Assuming that the relatively dumber guy is still average, the smarter guy probably doesn't have to work as hard to be successful in school and probably ends up with a worse work ethic than the other.

All of these debates are valid, i think rather than comparing two different people/different variable it would be best to use yourself and make your current self smarter, without changing anything else. All i am saying is this....

If you were smarter and kept everything about yourself the same, would you be more successful? Personally i say yes, so i think you have your answer, it is not NEEDED per say BUT obviously it matters, and is an important trait.

 

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[Brander]

If you were smarter and kept everything about yourself the same, would you be more successful?

I am 100% sure I (and anyone else) would be much worse off in the general environment. Street smarts and general ruthlessness is another matter...

 

[futhey]

I'm not saying I endorse it. Hell no. But I understand it.

A lot of intelligent people buy into their own deceitful rationalizations.

I think the takeaway for this should be that "I'm not a genius" is NO rationale for avoiding entrepreneurship...

 

[wade1mil]

I can only speak for my own experience, but sometimes I find that I'm too smart for my own good, and bias toward plotting and speculation instead of simply executing and seeing what happens. I would gladly trade some IQ points for better execution -- I think I would work a lot harder if I knew I wasn't so intelligent... it makes me kind of lazy, and it's hard to get out of that trap.

I also have a lot of really intelligent friends and colleagues. Many of them have severe social problems, and we've talked about what we think causes that. The general consensus is that with the intelligence comes a higher level of awareness and sensitivity, and that it makes it really uncomfortable to have to deal with people who can't see it / don't get it. A good position? Who can say, the human experience can only be subjective, and inside this box the grass sometimes appears to be greener on the other side.

I want to be clear that I'm not trying to be on a high horse or toot my own horn here. My conclusion is that you'll feel a lot better and have more success if you work with what you have rather than worrying about deficiencies and envying others.

I'd be interested in hearing more, because that pretty much describes the way I behave. The plotting, speculating, awareness, etc. Assuming one is highly intelligent and sometimes doesn't act in their best interests, wouldn't it make sense that they could use their intelligence to overcome these self destructing thoughts?

 

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