I've been pretty smart. If I apply myself, I can usually puzzle out most problems. When I was younger, I would rely on my intelligence to get away with less work. As I have matured, I have discovered something interesting. As with most attributes, intelligence has diminishing returns. If you look at IQ scores as a measure of analytic intelligence, an IQ score of 100 means you are exactly average. If you are lucky enough to be smart enough to score a 115 on an IQ test, that means you are smarter than 84% of the adult population. A score of 130 makes you smarter than 97% of the population.
Being smart is useful, going from 100 to 115 can help you compete in the marketplace and make wise decisions in how you run your home. Going from 140 to 155 moves you just a smidge in the land of the already intelligent, but doesn't do much to help you in the day to day struggle of life.
This has helped me to understand a few new things about the challenges in my new job. It is highly technical, and so it requires that I am smart. But it really only requires that I am smart enough. Past a certain baseline for grasping the technical details, additional intelligence doesn't buy me much.
What helps me move past the boundaries of mere intelligence? Work. One man I admire told me his motto is: "I'm smart enough, and I'll outwork you." If you take smart enough and couple it to an indefatigable will, you can move pretty large hills. If you couple smart enough with work ethic and underpin the pair with faith, mountains find a new home.
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"Every time a football player goes to ply his trade he's got to play from the ground up - from the soles of his feet right up to his head. Every inch of him has to play. Some guys play with their heads. That's O.K. You've got to be smart to be number one in any business. But more importantly, you've got to play with your heart, with every fiber of your body. If you're lucky enough to find a guy with a lot of head and a lot of heart, he's never going to come off the field second."
ReplyDelete-Vince Lombardi