So You Think You’re Smart?

Or, you think you’re dumb or stupid? Either way, you are only hurting yourself if you think people are naturally born one way or the other.

More than birth order, genes, wealth, education, or even parental love and support—the single most important factor that separates the people who succeed in life from the people who don’t is the belief that you can learn anything you want to learn versus the belief that you simply cannot.

Alfred Binet, who invented the IQ test, believed that intelligence can be taught, and, with enough practice, could be learned by all children. He designed the IQ tests which were given to school children—not to test how smart the children were—but whether the schools were doing their jobs of teaching the children all that they should.

Binet worked with hundreds of children with learning difficulties and had this to say about the nature of intelligence in his book Modern Ideas About Children (1909):

“A few modern philosophers … assert that an individual’s intelligence is a fixed quantity, a quantity which cannot be increased. We must protest and react against this brutal pessimism. … With practice, training, and, above all, method, we manage to increase our attention, our memory, our judgment and, literally, to become more intelligent than we were before.”

But, almost 100 years later, most people believe—incorrectly—that we are either smart or dumb. Intelligent or stupid. Sharp or dull-witted. Bright or dim-witted. Quick or slow. Gifted or normal. Talented or average. And, that there’s not much we can do about it. It isn’t a far jump from these labels to “good” versus “bad.”

WHAT’S WRONG WITH THINKING YOU’RE BORN SMART

What’s so bad about thinking you were born smart? Doesn’t that do wonders for your ego? Doesn’t that give you the confidence necessary to face new challenges with less fear than the people who had to work hard to get their knowledge due to their merely ordinary intelligence? Tragically, no. Stanford University professor, researcher, and psychologist Carol Dweck, Ph.D., learned from decades of studies conducted on people of all ages and all around the world that this is the single worst disadvantage, handicap, or obstacle that a person can have in life.

Why? Because if you believe that people either have “it” (any desirable skill, talent, or trait) or they don’t—and if you think you have “it”—then the last thing you want to do is put your “gift” or “talent” to the test. What could put your “gift” to the test? If your “gift” is intelligence, anything and everything! Even the simplest puzzle, riddle, or joke might prove that you’re not so smart after all if you don’t solve it or get it quickly enough and someone you thought was less “gifted” does. Playing a game of Trivial Pursuit can make you feel unworthy if you lose or don’t win by a big enough margin against people you judged to be less intelligent than you. How frightening the world is to people who think they were naturally born smart!

Worst of all, they fear learning anything new because—what if they don’t get it quickly enough? What if this new task will prove I’ve peaked already? Then, it’s all downhill from here. No thanks. I’ll just stick to what I already know I’m good at. I’ve mentally marked the boundaries of my special gift and I’ll defend it with my life! I won’t let anyone or anything near who questions, challenges, or threatens it. If you validate me and my special gift, I’ll let you into my tight, little circle of friends.

All of that is a far cry from having the confidence necessary to face life’s many challenges. So, what is better? Thinking that you’re dumb? No, not exactly. But, in a way, it’s at least better than thinking that you’re born smart. Why? Because at least you would listen to the results of research that showed everyone—even children with learning difficulties (as Binet proved!)—can learn to be smarter.

World-famous psychologist, researcher, and professor at Stanford University Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D., spent over 20 years studying the differences between people who think all abilities, including intelligence, are gifts we are either lucky enough to be born with (or simply unlucky to be born without) and people who think all abilities, including intelligence, can be—and must be—improved through constant hard work.

In her book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (2006), Dr. Dweck calls the set of beliefs that attribute abilities to gifts from birth the “fixed mindset” and contrasts that with the set of beliefs that attribute abilities to hard work, which she calls the “growth mindset.” She describes the powerful effects of teaching young minds that they can learn to be intelligent:

“One day, we were introducing the growth mindset to a new group of students. All at once Jimmy—the most hard-core turned-off low-effort kid in the group—looked up with tears in his eyes and said, ‘You mean I don’t have to be dumb?’ From that day on, he worked. He started staying up late to do his homework, which he never used to bother with at all. He started handing in assignments early so he could get feedback and revise them. He now believed that working hard was not something that made you vulnerable, but something that made you smarter.”

WHAT’S GREAT ABOUT LEARNED INTELLIGENCE

1. It creates a passion for learning. Instead of wasting time trying to prove how great you are, over and over again, you will use your precious time to get better. Instead of trying to hide deficiencies, you will work on overcoming them. Instead of looking for friends or partners who just stroke your ego, you will look for those who will also challenge you to grow. Instead of sticking to only the things you know, you will stretch yourself and seek experiences that will push you beyond anything you could imagine right now. Your true potential is unknown and unknowable.

2. It creates even greater perseverance when things get tough. Ever head the expression “when things get tough, the tough get going”? Those are growth mindset folks. Fixed mindset people just give up. Since they only believe in innate abilities, the fact that they couldn’t do it means they’ll never be able to do it, so why bother? Growth mindset people get more determined and relish the victory all the more when they succeed. You can’t keep a growth mindset person down!

3. It creates more accurate views of current strengths and weaknesses. People who always want to improve want and need accurate information about their skill sets. They seek honest feedback and welcome constructive criticism. But, to fixed mindset people, any kind of feedback is either good news or bad news about their precious traits. So they distort what they see and hear in the world around them. They exaggerate some things and explain away others until they really have no idea of their true abilities—or anyone else’s—any longer.

CONCLUSION

The good news is, since you are reading this self help blog, you are probably a growth mindset person. Congratulations! You already have the single most powerful advantage in life to succeed at anything you put your mind, heart, and body into. However, if you suspect that you are not a growth mindset person—or at least not in all the areas that you would like—then, there is still good news for you because the growth mindset itself can be learned! And, just like your intelligence, the more you work at it, the stronger it becomes. Be awesome! Be your own hero!

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