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How Smart People Sabotage Their Success

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Re: How Smart People Sabotage Their Success

#171

Post by dahart »

throwaway713 wrote: post #82

I remember reading once that students who excel in high school (valedictorians and salutatorians) are underrepresented as successful company founders, meaning that they occur at a lower rate than one would expect from chance alone. I think the hypothesis was that these people tended to develop a perfectionistic (or even people pleasing) approach, and that this strategy works really well for "doing what you're told".…

I like your theories, and the other theories here.

There are lots of possibilities.

People who do well in school may require structured settings and feed off the sense of accomplishment. Maybe it backfires in less structured jobs for those people.

People who overly care about meet the expectations of others may not be as good at establishing expectations for themselves.

People who do well in school may have something to lose (money & social status), and because they're smart, they are good at risk analysis, so they choose less risky paths.

OTOH, contrary to popular belief, high school and college dropouts are also underrepresented in the group of successful founders (and many other groups of people considered successful). People with a college degree is overrepresented relative to the population. Also overrepresented are people who attend elite schools and people with wealthy parents... http://theconversation.com/the-myth-of-the-college-dropout-7...

Re: How Smart People Sabotage Their Success

#172

Post by brianmcc »

brianmcc wrote: post #11

Read about Belbin team roles if you've never done so. If you're someone that thrives on finding new things and learning them, revel in it, don't beat yourself up - that's valuable. Others thrive on crossing 't's and dotting 'i's - and good luck to them, the whole point is that teams succeed with the right blend of people. https://www.belbin.com/about/belbin-team-roles/ Bottom line if you try to be perfect at all dime…

Reply to myself - found it interesting to revisit this stuff again so I put a quick post together on it -> https://mcconnellsoftware.github.io/build-better-teams/

Re: How Smart People Sabotage Their Success

#173

Post by cbsmith »

throwaway713 wrote: post #82

I remember reading once that students who excel in high school (valedictorians and salutatorians) are underrepresented as successful company founders, meaning that they occur at a lower rate than one would expect from chance alone. I think the hypothesis was that these people tended to develop a perfectionistic (or even people pleasing) approach, and that this strategy works really well for "doing what you're told".…

I would argue you don't have to be a successful company founder to avoid leading a boring life.

There's a simpler reality: if you are really smart, there is less of a need to take the kind of risks and invest the kind of effort involved in a founding a company in order to achieve the lifestyle you want.

Re: How Smart People Sabotage Their Success

#174

Post by crazygringo »

> 5. Smart people sometimes see in-depth thinking and reflection as the solution to every problem.

This one really rang true for me when I was less experienced... yet for me, the solution isn't what they list.

For me it was to talk to people. Don't solve things too much on your own.

Spend at least as much time communicating as you do thinking, because it turns out 1) assumptions you'd never think to question turn out to be invalid all the time, and 2) other people suggest solutions you'd never come up with because they have a different thinking style and different experience.

Over-communicate even when it seems pointless, especially when it seems pointless, because other people will point things out where you never imagined.

Re: How Smart People Sabotage Their Success

#175

Post by wannabeeanon »

throwaway713 wrote: post #82

I remember reading once that students who excel in high school (valedictorians and salutatorians) are underrepresented as successful company founders, meaning that they occur at a lower rate than one would expect from chance alone. I think the hypothesis was that these people tended to develop a perfectionistic (or even people pleasing) approach, and that this strategy works really well for "doing what you're told".…

I think a certain type of person is attracted to being valedictorian, generally people who seek approval from others and society. On the other hand I knew a person that intentionally got a B in a elective because he didn't want to give a speech. Personally I follow the 80/20 rule, I could get A's and B's with no effort while getting a 4.0 would have taken quite a bit more effort. I was able to learn about the things I wanted to learn outside of school. Result of that was only having a 3.4 GPA but having the highest standardized test scores in my class, to the surprise of the teachers and admin when their dutiful valedictorians were surpassed by the slacker.

TLDR: the type of person who actually cares about being valedictorian typically isn't the type to go outside the lines set up for them and create startup or business

Re: How Smart People Sabotage Their Success

#176

Post by shostack »

pjungwir wrote: post #81
bootsz wrote: post #4

> 4. Smart people get bored easily. Being smart is not exactly the same as being curious, but if you have both these qualities you might find yourself becoming easily bored with executing the same behaviors over and over. Some types of success stem from creativity, but other types come from becoming an expert in a niche and performing a set of behaviors repeatedly. If you’re smart, curious, and have a love of learnin…

I think going deep on something is the key. It lets you keep learning without getting bored and needing to jump ship. One of my pet peeves is how programmers think "keep learning" means "learn another programming language". Not that that's bad, but after the twentieth or so, . . . instead try learning something "adjacent" to what you enjoy & do well. For example for a Ruby+JS web developer: read some HTTP RFCs, play…

This really resonates with me.

I'm a marketer who has become more and more technical over my career. The amount of opportunities that has unlocked have really been worth it for sure, but it also simply lets me be better at my trade than those who do not have those skills because I see connections they may not, and I can implement those things independently or with fewer resources than others.

It also frankly just makes things more interesting, because when I think I've reached the bottom of a rabbit hole and risk getting bored, suddenly there's this new tunnel branching off of it that I can explore, and before I know it, I'm delving into expert-level problems of a part of my industry I've never considered before.

Re: How Smart People Sabotage Their Success

#177

Post by navinsylvester »

bootsz wrote: post #4

> 4. Smart people get bored easily. Being smart is not exactly the same as being curious, but if you have both these qualities you might find yourself becoming easily bored with executing the same behaviors over and over. Some types of success stem from creativity, but other types come from becoming an expert in a niche and performing a set of behaviors repeatedly. If you’re smart, curious, and have a love of learnin…

Not everyone can find the right balance and that is the issue. This is the reason why we need to strike the right balance when forming a team. Having too many "rockstars" can actually sound good on paper alone.

In my experience the people who actually focus on shipping are the real rockstars.

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