What I learnt from studying alongside super smart people

 I have been remarkably lucky in certain ways. I have had the good fortune of studying and working with some really smart people. I cannot quite say whether any of their smartness rubbed off on me, since I continue to regularly deal with insecurities about not being smart enough J Nevertheless, after a period of time, I began to notice some patterns. Smart people weren’t just born smart and continued to remain that way J

Here, I capture some of the lessons I learnt while observing these species from close quarters J

There are two kinds of super smart people – well – those who are merely smart, and those who go on to become achievers. The first few points cater to the former, while the last few tread into the realm of the latter. 

 1)      Smart people are always leveraging the power of compounding -  The thing about people who know a lot is this – not only have they learnt a lot, since they have ‘practiced’ learning for so long, their learnability is high. So, given a new opportunity, they learn more than their counterparts do. This is the difference between someone who never reads a book after finishing their studies, verses someone who’s constantly upgrading their knowledge.  If these two sets of people return to acquire a higher graduate degree after a gap of several years, guess, who will do better?

 

2)      They are obsessive when necessary – I seek balance almost all the time. My natural tendency is to avoid the extreme in almost every situation.  But here was the key insight that took me several years to figure out – To be truly balanced, we must be occasionally obsessive J Confronted with a tough problem, achievers don’t work 9-5 and then sign off to get back to their life – rather they obsess over it until they finally figure it out.  They also typically have a phase of life that lasts at least 3-5 years where they’ve focused almost entirely on their area of expertise to the exclusion of everything else. These periods of extreme hard work and determination build a certain mental stamina that continues to serve them lifelong.  If bursts of extreme hard work isn’t your style, I don’t blame you – it isn’t mine either – but it is the price the achievers understand and are willing to pay. I am yet to meet any incredible achiever who isn’t willing to work obsessively when the situation calls for it

 

 3)      They are finishers- The extreme obsession leads these folks to finish what they begin. They don’t wait for someone to come along and finish a task that they initially didn’t seem to be able to handle. They don’t try to wiggle their way out a tricky assignment. They get things done, no matter what it takes. This finisher-attitude accomplishes two things – They are seen as reliable and are the go-to people for tougher assignments. Secondly, always finishing things enables them to develop high confidence. After all, they know that they can finish anything they take up.

 

4)      They gravitate towards other smart people – While others in the team may be intimidated by the brilliant and in-your-face inventor, these folks are motivated to learn and don’t mind getting yelled at. They are happy to be assigned to challenging assignments, and are constantly picking others’ brains. Rather than remaining in a team where they clearly are the smartest and can easily stand out, they move to other teams where there are even smarter people they can collaborate with and learn from. Smart people know that when they are the smartest person in the room, they are in the wrong room.

 

 5)      They conquer their anxieties– There are two reasons that people work very hard - Some work hard due to ambitions – they have great dreams that they want to achieve.  Some others who are also very capable, work very hard in order to compensate for their insecurities – such as working hard to justify a high pay, working hard by themselves without seeking help so that they are not seen as incapable, or working extra hard due to their feelings of inadequacy, or working hard because they feel others constantly overestimate them and that they ought to live up to others’ expectations.  The latter category is driven to work hard by their anxieties. They wish to constantly ‘hopefully’ prove their worth, and expectations others have of them. They worry too much about how they are perceived. These people make a leap to the next level, only when they finally figure out how to manage their anxieties and insecurities.

The first 2.5 steps are about book-smarts, and hard work. The last 2.5 are about being willing to deal with difficult emotions – working on challenging assignments that are beyond our current ability, or working with smarter colleagues which can trigger feelings of inadequacy and insecurity. True achievers learn to deal with these feelings and process them in a constructive way.

Learning to deal with difficult emotions is important for another reason – Even if one makes it to very senior positions, if they haven’t learnt to conquer their anxieties, they will forever experience high levels of stress, and their quality of life significantly diminishes. Many highly capable leaders find themselves in positions where they are confronted with feelings of being unequal to the demands of their jobs. Too many such leaders work extremely hard to compensate for their inadequacy, but they truly make a leap in life, and enjoy a better quality of life only when they make peace with their skills and abilities.

This reminds me of an episode. Many years ago, I had the honor of listening to a talk by a world class inventor who had over 200 patents to his name. At the end of the talk, I found a moment in the coffee break when he was all by himself, and having introduced myself, asked him the secret behind his creativity. Without hesitation, he replied that you need to have a lot of self belief in order to actualize your creative potential.

 At that time, I kept wondering why he had answered that way. Why had he not mentioned about constantly keeping oneself abreast of the latest research, or working really hard, or about having a method to get into a state of flow? Why self-belief, of all things?

But when I thought about the areas in my life where I had demonstrated some degree of creativity, I began to recognize the wisdom behind his response.

When we do anything original or creative, we are walking on a terrain of uncertainty. It needs a lot of self belief to constantly put oneself on such a terrain. Or perhaps, even if we don’t start out with high self-belief, by constant confronting the uncertainty and finding that we can handle it, we will eventually develop a high self-belief.

So, then, that is what conquering one’s anxieties amounts to. To developing a high self-belief. Where one feels finally free to unleash their creativity wherever they tread.

Developing a high level of skill represents the start of the path to becoming an achiever. Developing self-belief and conquering our anxieties is perhaps the path to mastery, and is a journey of a lifetime.

 

Work hard. Surround yourself with the best. Believe in yourself.