There’s not always a perfect correlation, but in general young people who have challenged themselves academically are better able to perform the analysis necessary to make good decisions at a time in their lives when a lot of foundational choices are being made. They are more likely to make sure they have done their research and have gotten all the necessary facts. Perhaps they learned that skill because Mr. Jones the honors social studies teacher would tear down any of their unsupported arguments in class discussion, or they’d fail the AP test if their FRQ or DBQ responses didn’t live up to the requirements of the rubric.
I say that because what surprises me about some seemingly intelligent people is that they are inept at simple research tasks, like googling, which would have spared them the troubles in which they now find themselves. Also, they seem not to have learned to automatically store away random tidbits of information for future reference. If the information doesn’t seem relevant to them in the moment, it goes in one ear and out the other. I’m not sure, but maybe the habit of tucking away facts comes from taking classes which require the student to process a lot of information, so these kids just learn to do so without a conscious decision. For this reason, one student may know more about a topic than a peer who actually has a need to be informed about it. I saw this in a discussion between one of my kids and a classmate regarding the requirements to be a social worker. My S had zero interest in that or any related field, yet was more informed than his classmate who professed to want to become a social worker. And in cases like this, the first student won’t even know how it is they know what they do. Somehow they just picked up the information. Intelligence plays a role in this I’m sure, but I think academic habits contribute to developing information processing skillls.
Plenty of smart people also don’t bother trying to retain info not immediately pertinent. Who was in the Super Bowl this past year? I remember that, but I couldn’t tell you who was in it last year, who won, whatever. There’s plenty of info I don’t bother to retain. Who was the valedictorian of my kid’s high school? Beats me, couldn’t tell you whether it was a he or a she. That’s in contrast to other posters who remember all sorts of details about other kids in their kid’s classes, including grades, SATs, their ECs, where they applied/got in/went, etc.
There’s a stereotype of absent-minded professor for a reason. Some people are just the kind you mention - they soak up info like a sponge. My best friend is like that. But it’s not necessarily “smarts,” it’s just how she’s constructed.
Money doesn’t buy happiness, but it helps. “Success” is a personal opinion and a personal choice. Some of my classmates got off the academic/business track for family reasons. Others made the opposite choice.
Sure, lots of people make stupid decisions now and then. But it is the pattern of consistently avoiding too many stupid decisions that generally leads to success.
As noted above, the definition of success is important. Do you not consider the absent-minded professor to be a success? Just because he fails to water a plant, or return a library book timely?
Part of being successful involves putting yourself in a position to best utilize your talents, and to minimize or overcome your own shortcomings
And @Pizzagirl, I think you are a success even if you are not a New England Patriots fan, or if you have forgotten perhaps the worst play call in Super Bowl history, the Seattle Seahawks throwing an interception at the 1 yard line.
Most people that start out in a middle class or upper working class family will be successful in that they will find a decent job, a spouse, have kids, buy a house, and retire. That will be true no matter which path they chose to get there. The ones that don’t finish college may end up owning a business or becmoes a tradesperson (a good electrician does very well). The ones not posting on facebook may the ones that don’t make it due to substance abuse, bad choices, not able to hold down a job etc.
But if you dig deeper you probably will seen material differences, not in success and happiness, but in material wealth. The Wall St. guy or partner in an accounting firm is more likely to have a beach house and take vacations to Europe than the teacher. Some may stay in a middle/working class town while others may move “up” to a more affluent community.
I have a group of friend I have known since our kids were babies and now they are in their mid-20s. All are successful and live in the same two towns. We all started out in small “starter homes” and all but one have moved up. All have raised good kids that finished college and most are completely self-sufficient. Yet the doctor and the lawyer have beach homes, while the teacher and business person do not. Is one family more successful than the other? Yes, in that the wealthier families could easily afford to be full pay private for college and don’t worry about funding their retirement. But all are doing better than most and are reasonably successful.
That is very different than a kid that grew up very poor in a impoverished area. Very few will be able to overcome the lousy schools and economic pressure and move up to a better life. Which is really unfortunate, IMHO.
Perhaps there’s some notable difference between the kinds of people we refer to as intelligent. I’d classify it into two groups of people based on my experience:
Those with strong domain knowledge, obtained from aptitude, hard work, or both. These kind of people are able to do great things, and strong domain knowledge is honestly something most people can probably achieve, but it does mean that you could be remarkably intelligent in one capacity, while being remarkably stupid in seemingly elementary capacities such as in finding information on Google. I’d say that most “child geniuses” could fall into this category, where they are praised for developing a singular yet highly complex skill, but they are not necessarily remarkable in other ways.
A quality I've seen referred to as "general intelligence" or "elemental talent." The ability to learn new things, the ability to discern what is important and what isn't in life, the ability to know your own limits, and the ability to become good at skills that you need to. This is probably the kind of intelligence that makes people successful at life in general. It probably has a positive but not remarkably high correlation with being seen as "super smart" but I think it has a lot to do with establishing oneself in life.
“Part of being successful involves putting yourself in a position to best utilize your talents, and to minimize or overcome your own shortcomings”
True. That might also describe the person who knows he isn’t an academic superstar, but he’s good at sales, or he is good at construction, or whatever.
" @Pizzagirl, I think you are a success even if you are not a New England Patriots fan, or if you have forgotten perhaps the worst play call in Super Bowl history, the Seattle Seahawks throwing an interception at the 1 yard line."
Why thank you and I will trust you on the Seahawks things. They’re from Seattle, right?
I wonder if part of the definition of being successful is having the self-awareness to define success on your own terms and not on others’ terms.
Success is mostly if person’s life is improved in his own eyes. It may not look like that to others though. The stupid decision as judged by outsider might as well be the way person achieves the personal goal, whatever it is. If we constantly taking in the advice from everybody else around us, then there is a good chance for us to fail in our personal goals. It happened to me tons of times. Looking back at all of these instances, some are from very long time ago, all I can do is to pat myself on a back and say, “Good for you, you endure all the pressure, you stood all own ground even when it took several years to achieve and all while being criticized over and over” Based on that, I tell the same to my kids. Stand your ground, tell yourself that when somebody point out that as “a smart person, you make stupid decision”, just ignore, dare to think differently, think that "as “a smart person, you know what you are doing” and at the end it will work out. And what if it does not? First, the smart person plays in his head various scenarios of “if-then-else” to ensure the success. And if it still did not work as intended, then use it as a great learning experience.
This has pretty much been my experience as well. I grew up in a mountain tourist town in California and most of my HS peers were average/slightly above average students, concerned more with skiing/snowboarding and partying. A few ended up staying in town, but many went on to your typical state colleges and decent private colleges. With the exception of a small handful of them, they are doing quite well. One guy took over his dad’s successful pizza place in my home town, and is now married with kids, and owns a nice home. Another went to UCSD and just recently became an orthopedic surgeon in San Diego (not too shabby). Others are engineers (me), designers, and in various other fields making a good living. Most of us are in the middle/upper-middle income brackets.
Funny thing is, very few of my classmates were involved in the college rat race. The first time I ever observed this phenomenon was when I started an account here on CC. I was a bit shocked at first to see how obsessed some kids/parents are with getting into certain schools. I just couldn’t relate to this. Where I grew up, you either went to college, or you didn’t. There wasn’t this hierarchy of prestige/exclusivity.
“Where I grew up, you either went to college, or you didn’t. There wasn’t this hierarchy of prestige/exclusivity.” - it is still the same where we live and my kids did not have any idea about “the college rat race”, which is more or less bizarre. So much resources are wasted instead of having a great memory about fun process that whole family could enjoy immensely. I feel really sorry those in “the college rat race”, being miserable by your own choice for nothing, why? I would say, get out, relax, the results will be the same, anyway.
With regards to stay at home moms, I think I can say this.
If a stay at home mom choses to stay at home, but is fully capable of holding down a job, that mom is successful at life because she is chosing her job to be taking care of her little ones.
On the other hand, if the stay at home mom got fired from every job she held and could not stay gainfully employed, I don’t consider that successful at life. In that case I consider her choice to be a stay at home mom is made for her because of her lack of success at the working world.
Many people are happiest doing activities other than their day job, so I wouldn’t assume their job is a key part of how many people define “success at life.” For example, it the page https://www.reddit.com/comments/2livoo/ , a guy talks about how when he was in college he aspired to travel the world, write a novel, and various other amazing non-traditional job activities. He didn’t make much money in his day job, but he’d splurge what he did make on activities that made him happy and seemed to be happy with his life. After college, he took a banking job with long hours and likely high pay. He started always taking the safe path, saving every penny and never doing anything he considered fun. The lack of time with his family while working led to being emotionally distant from his children, his wife cheating, etc. He didn’t accomplish any of the goals he had when younger. He was very unhappy and calls this “wasting his life” instead of being successful, in spite of likely having a high paying job and great LinkedIn resume.
You can find people who strive to rise to the top of the corporate ladder, become a successful MD/JD/PhD/… , and there is nothing wrong with that. You can also find people who instead focus on being a great parent, making the world a better place, fulfilling various personal dreams, etc; and again there is nothing wrong with that. The problem comes from trying to define others’ success at life by your own personal scale, which is probably very different from their scale.
Personally I more admire persons who take a non-traditional path and accomplish something unique and often amazing in that path over the more traditional “successful” 9-5 job. Examples including things like being involved in starting a small company that does something impressive (regardless of whether company succeeds or not) , being great at something unique after an extreme amount of practice (athletics, a band, tournament poker, etc.), doing something that really makes a difference in the community/state/world or changes peoples lives, etc.
EDIT – Search for “TIFU my whole life” if you want to see the link
i’m a partner at a consulting company and interview lots of candidates. Gpa and school attended are meaningless during our hiring process and I often have no idea where our employees went to school. We’re focused on communication skills and ability to perform analysis.
We decided on this method after observing, time and again, the people from the ivys outperformed by the people from state schools or schools we hadn’t heard of.
I grew up in a mid-to-upper-middle-class home in a relatively prosperous area in northern Wisconsin known for lots of lakes and a few more trees. Every summer, they come in droves from (mainly) Chicago and Milwaukee to enjoy our (I still say “our” even though I’ve been gone for 20 years…) lakes and accompanying mosquitos.
Anyway, among my closest friends:
One is in the CIA and is currently abroad, toting his wife and kids (or vice-versa). His wife has an MS from Northwestern.
One is a mechanical engineer somewhere else in Wisconsin. Wife and kids.
One is a pastor in Texas. Wife and kids.
One is an opthalmologist in North Carolina. Divorced, one boy.
And then there’s me, a process analyst in Davenport. Wife. No kids yet.
The most monetarily successful one – the opthalmologist – is also dealing with the most adverse personal/family issues.
The longer I live, the more I realize that it’s not really at all about the money or position.
Rather:
Surround yourself with your family and your friends. Immerse yourself in their goodness.
Work a job that you can bear and that pays the bills (or enough of them so that your spouse or SO can handle the rest). If you love your job, you are really lucky.
Help people: help teammates improve in their work, help the elderly next-door neighbor with his or her lawn, bring the couple that just lost a job a meal. You help them, sure, but there is also a wealth of warmth gained in your own soul from helping others.
Finally, cheer loudly for your teams. Sing in the shower. Laugh out loud, for real… big, loud laughs that start in your gut. We only get to ride this spinning rock once; might as well enjoy it.
