Transcription
Do you remember what it felt like when you were young and you found out that Santa Claus isn't real? I don't because my parents didn't lie to me and also I don't celebrate Christmas, but let me tell you about the closest thing to that that I have experienced.
It was getting older and slowly having to come to terms with the fact that the world is run by idiots. That often even the people who on the surface you'd assume are smart, the ones with impressive educations, prestigious and important jobs, and the high salaries to go along with it, can still be dumber than a bag of rocks. This has become my Roman Empire.
I think most of us have a tendency to equate success with intelligence. Like, surely if someone has managed to get themselves into an important role or into some position of power, or if they've earned a lot of money somehow, they must be smart, right? Well, no, not really. Truly, you don't have to look any further than the Kofifi King and his ketamine-addicted ex-girlfriend to see my point. And really, most celebrities are proof that brains aren't a prerequisite to make millions of dollars.
But even in my personal life, I've had the opportunity to get to know all sorts of highly educated, successful people like esteemed doctors of all types, and partners for massive law firms, and highly paid bankers, scientists, all sorts of business owners and entrepreneurs, you name it. And time and time again, I've been, I guess, bewildered is the best word to use. I've been bewildered to find out that so many people, regardless of their accomplishments, can't tie their shoes into bubble gum at the same time. And yes, I know that that's purely anecdotal, but I have a feeling that most of you have had a similar experience of meeting someone important and wondering how the hell someone so stupid landed themselves in that position. And if you haven't had that experience, it's probably you.
Inversely, throughout history, there have been many people who were considered to be geniuses but who lived and died in poverty. People like Nicola Tesla, and Vincent Van Gogh, and Edgar Allan Poe, and even Socrates. And again, this has been replicated in my personal experience where I've met countless people who are highly intelligent but just not living up to their potential. So, how does this happen? How do so many smooth-brain knuckle-draggers end up at the top of the societal food chain while smarter, more competent people fall behind? Let's talk about it.
The first thing we need to understand is something called the Dunning-Kruger effect. The Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias where people who know very little about something, or people who are objectively bad at something, tend to wildly overestimate their own abilities and knowledge. Whereas people who are very knowledgeable or highly skilled at something tend to dramatically underestimate their own knowledge and their own competence and their own abilities. Basically, the more you think you know, the less you probably do know.
A lot of this comes down to self-awareness. And realistically, if there's anything that stupid people lack, it's obviously self-awareness. Someone who doesn't know much about something can easily read a few articles or maybe watch a few videos and then feel like they have all the information because they don't even know the depths of the information that exists, or if what they're learning is even accurate for that matter. Or someone who's inexperienced at a particular task could easily think that it's a lot easier than it really is, or that they're a lot more skilled than they really are because they don't know what they don't know.
But someone with the self-awareness to recognize how complex a topic or a field might actually be will likely never truly feel like they're good at it, even if they are. Like a perfectly competent surgeon, for example, might feel incompetent when they see a colleague who makes smaller, cleaner incisions than they do. Or when they attend seminars and learn about emerging medical research, they might feel overwhelmed by how much is out there that they don't already know about and start to believe that they hardly know anything at all. The self-awareness that there's always a lot more to learn, or that there's always probably going to be someone who's better at something than you are, is a good thing to a point, but it can often lead to feelings of impostor syndrome that prevent people from going after bigger opportunities due to a lack of self-confidence. While dumber people who don't know how dumb they actually are sail right past them without hesitation.
Unfortunately, we live in a society where confidence beats out competence almost every time. Two people could interview for the same job. One who has an amazing resume full of relevant experience, but who's maybe less confident in themselves and doesn't interview that well, and another who's much less experienced and much less qualified, but thinks they're hot and interviews with a lot more confidence. And guess who's probably going to get the job? The confident idiot. Because, I hate to say it, but most of life is sales. It's selling yourself and trying to get people to like you and trust you so they overlook your insufficiencies. This is job hunting. This is dating. This is life.
And in a way, I think it has to be this way because while anybody can become educated, intelligence is something you're born with or not born with. And if the world only allowed people who are genetically gifted in an intellectual sense, at least, to succeed, well, most of the world would be destitute. But on a serious note, as I've said many times in the past, the single biggest factor to becoming successful at anything is just having a clear and concise idea of exactly what you want and then creating an actual plan to make it happen. But sometimes hashing out those details can actually be the hardest part.
So, I want to thank Strawberry.me for sponsoring this video. Strawberry.me connects you with a certified coach who can help you sort through those big life questions and then collaborate with you to not only find the answers, but to actively work towards your goals. This is something that I've actually been struggling with lately, trying to figure out what I want to do next and what direction I want to take my work in and generally what kind of life I want for myself. So, I've actually been working with one of the coaches on Strawberry.me and it's been really helpful. Whether you're going through a job change, or working towards personal goals, or just trying to figure out what comes next for you in life overall, Strawberry.me can match you with a certified coach who can help you reach your potential. To be clear, this isn't therapy. We're not talking about mental health here. We're planning for the future. And my coach listens and then gives me practical feedback that actually helps me problem-solve and take action. Head over to strawberry.me/according-to-nicole and use the promo code "according to Nicole" to get started with a $50 credit towards your coaching today. It might just be the best choice you ever make.
So, the education versus intelligence thing in particular has always been interesting to me because I think we innately tend to use the word "smart" and "educated" interchangeably, but they're not the same thing. Like, if you find out that someone has a master's degree or a PhD, you might automatically think, "Wow, they're smart." And they may be, or they may not be. Taking a completely new approach to the subd design and it's all run with this game controller and these touchscreens. You can be objectively brilliant and completely uneducated, and while your lack of education may determine what you ultimately achieve professionally, it doesn't change the capacity at which your mind physically functions.
At the same time, you don't have to be particularly smart to become highly educated in a given field. You just have to be dedicated to studying. Being extremely knowledgeable about one or two particular things because you've studied them extensively doesn't inherently make you smart. I mean, even Kim Kardashian passed the bar exam, for God's sakes. Um, sorry, what was the question?
To me, intelligence is adaptability. It's maybe not being an expert at any one thing, but being competent enough to figure out most things to a reasonable degree and problem-solve. It's having the motivation and drive to learn new things and to find out the answers to the questions you have, while also being aware of your own limits and not being afraid to ask for help when you need to. It's having the maturity to know where your priorities truly need to lie and doing the right thing even when it's not the fun or easy thing to do. It's being receptive to new information instead of just defensive or dismissive. And none of that has much relevance to what level of formal education you have, or what you do for work, or how much money you make.
But we live in a capitalist society that rewards bravado, not intelligence. Capitalism favors doers over thinkers. For example, a smart person wanting to start a business might write up an elaborate business plan. They might research what's required to start and run a business like, "Do I need to register my business? Do I need a tax number? Do I need a business banking account or insurance or an accountant or a lawyer? And what about my logo? And what about my website? And what about, what about, what about?" They can easily get so caught up in overthinking the minute details in pursuit of perfection that they never really get to the meat and potatoes of what they're trying to do. And before you know it, months or maybe even years have passed by without any actual progress being made. Meanwhile, a dumb person may not consider any of that and may just go straight to acquiring clients and making sales. Hopefully, they learn the rest along the way. But in the time that it took the smart person to set up all their business banking and make their plans and do all that kind of stuff, the dumb person has already established themselves and become profitable.
But it goes even deeper. Studies have shown a really strong correlation between emotional intelligence and empathy. But unfortunately, having empathy and compassion and a strong moral code can often be a hindrance in business. What a sad world we're living in. Most of the wealthiest people in the world have gotten to where they are, at least in part, by exploiting and screwing over other people. Like billionaires lounge on yachts while their frontline employees, the ones who actually do the work that actually generates the revenue, live in poverty and rely on social services to survive, which is really one of the biggest scams in the world if you think about it. Because that means that the public, like you and I, we're subsidizing wages for Amazon and Walmart and all those guys. We're paying their employees because they've chosen not to make it make sense.
Donald Trump, who's thought to be worth about $5 billion, is notorious for stiffing contractors he's hired after they've completed the work. Barry Sherman, the billionaire CEO of Apotex, a Toronto-based pharmaceutical company, who along with his wife was found, what's the word that I can use to not get demonetized, um, not alive back in 2017, he was known as the most litigious man in Canada. And there's a reason that they call that show Shark Tank. People like Kevin O'Leary and Barbara Corcoran, they're known for their shrewd, cold-blooded approach to business that often involves bullying small business owners into unfair deals and mocking the ones who try to operate with any sort of ethical standards. "It's got to be a $10 royalty." "Yeah, it's a little tight." "Kevin, you're going to bankrupt them at $10 in your head." "I love firing people on Friday."
The more willing a person or company is to use and abuse and exploit and bully and scam someone else, the less they care about things like equitability, human rights, animal rights, environmental impact, and general decency, the more opportunity they have to make money. Being devoid of empathy might make you rich, but it's far from a sign of intellect. "I'm a very stable genius."
And finally, how could we possibly have a discussion about rich idiots without talking about nepotism? Many of the wealthiest and most successful people in the world got to where they are in large part due to generational wealth and connections. Intelligence, ambition, and talent be damned, because when you're born on third base, that hardly matters at all. Obviously, there are some famous examples like Kylie Jenner being called the world's youngest self-made billionaire at 21 years old, which is hilarious. Then there's the fact that Jeffrey Bezos was given a $300,000 loan from his parents to start Amazon. And Taylor Swift's dad made a similarly sized investment in the record label who happened to eventually sign her when she was a teen. Total coincidence, I'm sure. I don't know about you guys, but my folks couldn't just give me 300K.
Then there's Elon Musk, who happens to think that he's the smartest man in the world, but he's never actually invented anything himself. I mean, I have no doubt that some of the engineers who work for him are probably brilliant, but he's just the drug-addicted son of a South African emerald mine owner who likes to throw tantrums and apparently pee his pants. But even on a much smaller scale, there are probably millions of people in the world who have trust funds or inheritances, or who have been given high-paying jobs in their family's business, or whose parents could afford to send them to Ivy League schools or buy them property or whatever else. And I'm not suggesting that these people don't have any skill or talent whatsoever. Well, maybe some of them. But my point is that the level of wealth they've accumulated and the level of success they've achieved is not because they're smart. It's because they started with a massive leg up.
There are plenty of people in the world who are 100 times smarter and more skilled and more talented, but they'll never have the opportunity to make a dent because they don't have the same resources. And when people are born and raised in these privileged environments, they generally don't get the life experiences that normal people get, which are essential for developing competence and ingenuity and problem-solving skills, and of course, empathy. But they don't have to learn those skills. They can just throw money at all their problems. And then we wind up with millionaires and billionaires who don't know how to pump gas, or even make a grilled cheese sandwich, or do laundry, or treat people with respect. And the public goes, "Wow, look how smart and successful they are." "I mean, it's one banana, Michael. What could it cost? $10." "You've never actually set foot in a supermarket, have you?" "I don't have time for this."
And obviously, they don't need to know how to do those particular things because they have people to do it all for them. But that's not the point. There's a big difference between not needing or wanting to, and straight-up not knowing how to. And more specifically, not having the brain capacity or skills to be able to figure it out if they had to, because it goes much deeper than cooking and cleaning and pumping gas. It goes back to problem-solving, which, hold on a sec, matters in business too. All business. But if you're a dumbass who's just been lucky enough to connive your way to the top, you probably don't even care. "Look at me. I am a worthless employee just like Homer Simpson. Give me a promotion."
So, what's the takeaway here? It's that people who have seemingly accomplished more than you are not inherently smarter or more capable than you are. And the fact that you may not be rich, or maybe that you're just not where you want to be in life yet, doesn't mean you're an idiot. I mean, you might be an idiot. Technically speaking, 50% of the people watching this, approximately 50% of you watching this right now, have an IQ below the median because that's just how math works. But I guess that's besides the point. And hey, at least now you know it doesn't have to hold you back. Oh god, is that how I'm going to end this video? Yeah, it is.
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