I’m generally considered relatively high intelligence (136 IQ…not that this means that much, and that’s probably pretty average on this board), I’m certainly well read and debatably bright and I’m fairly risk averse. I suppose the reality is that I get into analysis paralysis fairly often, as my mind works through the various permutations and I what-if myself to death. I’m not sure if this has so much to do with my intelligence (or lack thereof) or just my life, which has been pretty fraught with loss, pain and struggle.
Depends. Our school district has an active GATE program, with a GATE administrator at HQ. Each school site council has a GATE parent (if they can find a volunteer) and I was involved with a district wide support group for GATE parents which had about 200 on its mailing list. (I did the list.)
When I was growing up in NY the classes were stratified by intelligence and/or achievement. I’m sure there are good reasons against this, but I went through high school without any of the angst that seems to be standard. We also had the highest test scores of any high school that you didn’t need to test to get into, so I had a lot of peers.
When I was entering second grade my teacher discovered that I was reading and understanding Jules Verne books. I don’t know what happened out of my view, but I got to read anything I wanted, never felt odd, and was never bored.
But these might be exceptions. It seems that even in our district there was a problem with some teachers thinking a GATE kid needed no special treatment, and was a good person to help the other kids who were behind - which is an awful idea.
I think it depends on how you want to be successful. Certainly one can be a successful mathematician, computer programmer or financial quant with little to no people skills. Being a successful CEO, entrepreneur or politician requires skills besides raw analytical horsepower.
At entry levels, this is true. But to rise to higher levels at virtually any field, people skills are going to make an enormous difference. Maybe things like professional athlete would be exceptions. But in other fields, the higher levels of success involve managing people and selling your product or services, and people skills are crucial to these.
Ignorance fought, thank you. I am disappointed, but not surprised.
I have a high IQ and for the most part, I’m very happy. I do tend to be a pessimist and I’m the guy who can see the pitfalls in most plans. If I’m wrong, I’m happy about it.
Parents are now encouraged to praise their kids for working hard rather than praising their smarts, and the rationale for this makes sense to me. When a kid can accomplish something with minimal effort and is rewarded for this by being called smart, there is less incentive for them do anything that presents a real challenge for them.
I think this is why a lot of intelligent students often struggle (and even flunk out) their first year of college. They are used to coasting by in grades K-12, but in college suddenly find themselves gasp actually having to pay attention in class and invest time in studying. Not only do they lack study skills because they never really had to acquire them and put them into practice, but they also don’t have the discipline to do it. They are used to indulging their boredom instead of gritting through them. And I do think ego and self-esteem may also come into play. Suddenly when confronted with evidence that their brilliance is insufficient to save them from failure, they have to come to terms with this disillusionment about their abilities. In contrast, a person of more average intellect would already know that having to work hard isn’t a direct reflection on their worth; all it means is the subject matter is hard.
So I do think there is something to the idea that intelligent people are more risk averse than others, especially if the risk concerns their self-image as a “smart person”.
I don’t think anyone would argue that Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates are “people persons”. And Steve Jobs seemed like a gigantic A-hole.
There are plenty of people in fields like finance, sales, high tech, entertainment, and others who make a ton of money but act in a way I would hardly describe as having “people skills”.
Being able to generate millions or even billions of dollars of wealth overlooks a lot of personality quirks.