Intelligence Is Overrated: What You Really Need to Succeed

[C RAVI]

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But thats what the OP is trying to do.
May be we agree that Intelligence is not the key to 'success', not all are successful, so for those who dont succeed, they need intelligence to succeed (or survive?).

There are many forms of intelligence that would help you to succeed and survive.

We first have to clearly determine as what sort of intelligence we are talking about?


1) One's knowledge and intelligence in a subject/industry and the related strategies that can produce correct results and achievements, without any foul games.

OR

2) One's knowledge and intelligence in tapping the hidden and twisted way and means AND the manipulative skills, tactics etc..etc. without any guilty consciousness and there by bringing about expected correct results and achievements.

An intelligent person of the former case may fail to survive due lacking the intelligence of the later type. And an intelligent person of the later type may survive successfully though he/she lacks in intelligence of the former type.

Analyzing 1) and 2) can we say that "survival" is possible in this vast globalized world, irrespective of your type of intelligence? Perhaps the time taken to attain success would differ.

Still many may try to adopt and equip themselves with the 2nd intelligence as well, in order to achieve successful survival in a shortest possible time. At least for the sake of organization and or family Or just for self satisfaction of pride and pleasure.

Above all there is something called LUCK!! . Based on which, what ever type of intelligence you keep equipping yourself with and implement them successfully, the outcome can be favorable or unfavorable.

Simply, when we talk about the value of intelligence, that can bring about fantabulous achievements/contributions, leaving aside the skills to be successful among multiple personalities, we can not say that "Intelligence is Overrated", IMO.

 

[Naina_Marbus]

We had a cook who had no formal school education. The only things she knew about were what she learned from her own unschooled mother. There was a time one member of the family suffered from what the professional doctors called Seborrheic dermatitis. The dermatolgists and internists, all prescribed all kinds of drugs but none would cure the problem. This went on for more than a year, when the cook joined for work in our home. After a few days she got to know about the health problem and right away suggested that we try a paste of vendhayam ( Fenugreek ) mixed with neem leaves to be applied on the scalp, let soak for 15 minutes and then take bath. Since we had tried all kinds of other allopathic medicines, we were sceptical at firts, yet gave it a try. And lo and behold, the dermatitis was gone in a week's time.

Now, is this lady intelligent or what? Is she successful or not?

 

[ozone]

We had a cook who had no formal school education. The only things she knew about were what she learned from her own unschooled mother. There was a time one member of the family suffered from what the professional doctors called Seborrheic dermatitis. The dermatolgists and internists, all prescribed all kinds of drugs but none would cure the problem. This went on for more than a year, when the cook joined for work in our home. After a few days she got to know about the health problem and right away suggested that we try a paste of vendhayam ( Fenugreek ) mixed with neem leaves to be applied on the scalp, let soak for 15 minutes and then take bath. Since we had tried all kinds of other allopathic medicines, we were sceptical at firts, yet gave it a try. And lo and behold, the dermatitis was gone in a week's time.

Now, is this lady intelligent or what? Is she successful or not?

I cant speak about her intelligence (either way) from this episode, but certainly she is knowledge-able.

 

[renuka]

We had a cook who had no formal school education. The only things she knew about were what she learned from her own unschooled mother. There was a time one member of the family suffered from what the professional doctors called Seborrheic dermatitis. The dermatolgists and internists, all prescribed all kinds of drugs but none would cure the problem. This went on for more than a year, when the cook joined for work in our home. After a few days she got to know about the health problem and right away suggested that we try a paste of vendhayam ( Fenugreek ) mixed with neem leaves to be applied on the scalp, let soak for 15 minutes and then take bath. Since we had tried all kinds of other allopathic medicines, we were sceptical at firts, yet gave it a try. And lo and behold, the dermatitis was gone in a week's time.

Now, is this lady intelligent or what? Is she successful or not?

Many illiterate persons actually have high IQ but its just becos they didnt have the chance to attend school so no one really knows their capability.

I would say that the lady had experience and knowledge and also the intelligence to apply what she knew and above all the confidence to actually recommend it.

Some people might have knowledge but have the fear "what if I am wrong" and shy away from even trying.

So this lady I feel she had it all!!

 

[C RAVI]

We had a cook who had no formal school education. The only things she knew about were what she learned from her own unschooled mother. There was a time one member of the family suffered from what the professional doctors called Seborrheic dermatitis. The dermatolgists and internists, all prescribed all kinds of drugs but none would cure the problem. This went on for more than a year, when the cook joined for work in our home. After a few days she got to know about the health problem and right away suggested that we try a paste of vendhayam ( Fenugreek ) mixed with neem leaves to be applied on the scalp, let soak for 15 minutes and then take bath. Since we had tried all kinds of other allopathic medicines, we were sceptical at firts, yet gave it a try. And lo and behold, the dermatitis was gone in a week's time.

Now, is this lady intelligent or what? Is she successful or not?

I would consider her as an intelligent lady who could apply her presence of mind and gave the right suggestion, as much as she could learn from her unschooled mother.

Yes, she is successful by providing the most expected relief, in a short time.

Whether she was rejoiced by anything as a reward to her most valuable tips or not, certainly she would be happy with a sort of humble pride and pleasure, within herself

 

[vgane]

Following an earthquake and tsunami on 11 March 2011 in Japan, a series of equipment failures, nuclear meltdowns, and releases of radioactive materials occurred at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant. There were six separate reactors. At the time of the quake, Reactor 4 had been de-fuelled while 5 and 6 were, luckily, in cold shutdown for planned maintenance. The remaining reactors shut down automatically after the earthquake, and emergency generators came online to control electronics and coolant systems. The tsunami broke the reactors' connection to the power grid and also resulted in flooding of the rooms containing the emergency generators. Consequently those generators ceased working and the pumps that circulate coolant water in the reactor ceased to work, causing the reactors to begin to overheat. The flooding and earthquake damage hindered external assistance. Subsequently, reactors 1, 2 and 3 experienced full meltdown. As workers struggled to cool and shut down the reactors, several explosions occurred. Workers suffered radiation exposure and were temporarily evacuated at various times.The accident was assessed as Level 7, the maximum scale value. The plant is now decommissioned.

The technocrats who built the reactors were all intelligent and knowledgeable. But they lacked the commonsense to avoid putting so many reactors close to each other, knowing fully well that the country and the region are visited frequently by earth-quakes and tsunamis. Simple commonsense dictates that they could at least have distributed the reactors over a wider region across the country.

You have raised a very valid point...

We have highly intelligent but socially inept individuals...Excelling in the academic world with research publications to their credit but poor common sense

This dichotomy was analysed by Bruce Charlton, Editor-in-Chief of the journal Medical Hypotheses..He calls these people as " Clever Sillies" in his article "Clever Sillies-Why the high IQ lack common sense

The highly intelligent use their analytical abilities to solve the day to day common problems which result in inappropriate ideas, behaviors and opinions...When it comes to solving day to day problems they develop novel but silly ideas which are laughed off..This is attributed to their personality trait of "Openness to experience"...Such persons are very creative in their thinking but poor in common sense


What is required is high IQ, Openness and also high in "Practical Intelligence"....Infact this third facet of Intelligence has been described by Sternberg in his Triarchic Theory of Intelligence...Such persons have novel ideas but are also able to apply to social situations

 

[ozone]

Do you remember the story of the scientist who had a cat as his pet? He made a hole in the door large enough for the cat to fit in, so it can come in and go into his lab when it pleased. When the cat laid kittens, he made a smaller hole for the kittens

 

[suraju06]

Do you remember the story of the scientist who had a cat as his pet? He made a hole in the door large enough for the cat to fit in, so it can come in and go into his lab when it pleased. When the cat laid kittens, he made a smaller hole for the kittens

Speaking about stories this one is quite interesting:

When the first atomic bomb was exploded in the underground experimental shaft in the north American desert the chief scientist who was heading the team was anxious to determine the power of the bomb in K-tonnes. He could not wait for the computers to analyse and give him the figure. He was impatient to know whether the targeted power was reached or not. When the actual explosion took place and the observation chamber was reverberating, he took a piece of paper, tore it into pieces and dropped them in the air from a height and looked at his watch to measure the time taken for a random bit of paper to reach the ground. He took a paper quickly did a few calculations and was all smiles because the bomb had behaved as expected.

This was intelligence and practical wisdom together on display.

But Indian(Brahmin?) culture is different. Our elders would not even call this intelligence. They would say it is knowledge deposited not in a "sat paathram". Think about it.

Cheers.

 

[Jaykay767]

Following an earthquake and tsunami on 11 March 2011 in Japan, a series of equipment failures, nuclear meltdowns, and releases of radioactive materials occurred at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant. There were six separate reactors. At the time of the quake, Reactor 4 had been de-fuelled while 5 and 6 were, luckily, in cold shutdown for planned maintenance. The remaining reactors shut down automatically after the earthquake, and emergency generators came online to control electronics and coolant systems. The tsunami broke the reactors' connection to the power grid and also resulted in flooding of the rooms containing the emergency generators. Consequently those generators ceased working and the pumps that circulate coolant water in the reactor ceased to work, causing the reactors to begin to overheat. The flooding and earthquake damage hindered external assistance. Subsequently, reactors 1, 2 and 3 experienced full meltdown. As workers struggled to cool and shut down the reactors, several explosions occurred. Workers suffered radiation exposure and were temporarily evacuated at various times.The accident was assessed as Level 7, the maximum scale value. The plant is now decommissioned.

The technocrats who built the reactors were all intelligent and knowledgeable. But they lacked the commonsense to avoid putting so many reactors close to each other, knowing fully well that the country and the region are visited frequently by earth-quakes and tsunamis. Simple commonsense dictates that they could at least have distributed the reactors over a wider region across the country.

Agreed. However pl note, Common sense & intelligence are the same, it is "intelligence" that gives us the ability to forsee all the possible problems, systematically avoid them. Learning this through experience will be "disastrous" like we had in this case !!

 

[Iyyarooraan]

All post-Munnabhai MBBS. Modern medicines and native intelligence are good so long as they work. In every field there are parallel lines which must be meeting only Him.

 

[prasad1]

Agreed. However pl note, Common sense & intelligence are the same, it is "intelligence" that gives us the ability to forsee all the possible problems, systematically avoid them. Learning this through experience will be "disastrous" like we had in this case !!

Unfortunately when they calculate IQ the definition of "Intelligence" is different than your definition of the word.
I agree with your statement.

 

[sravna]

Unfortunately what is regarded as intelligence in present world is something that helps one to promote self interests. All the finer aspects are lost and I would say that it is this sort of intelligence that is highly overrated. Pure intelligence is something that is not clouded by such aspects and it is extremely rarely found today.

 

[C RAVI]

Unfortunately what is regarded as intelligence in present world is something that helps one to promote self interests. All the finer aspects are lost and I would say that it is this sort of intelligence that is highly overrated. Pure intelligence is something that is not clouded by such aspects and it is extremely rarely found today.

Very well said Shri Sravna..

 

[renuka]

Unfortunately what is regarded as intelligence in present world is something that helps one to promote self interests. All the finer aspects are lost and I would say that it is this sort of intelligence that is highly overrated. Pure intelligence is something that is not clouded by such aspects and it is extremely rarely found today.

Dear Sravna,

I fully agree with what you wrote.Its a dog eat dog world with only self interest in every breathe we take.
This sometimes makes the really truly pure intelligent ones shy away from even contributing when the surrounding atmosphere sucks.

Following Dharma in our job is no longer seen as a virtue but rather being stupid.
I have had many situations where I had refused to commit any adharmic act in my job and been told to my face that I dont know how to live in the present world.

Once a person brought some 100 forms of Commercial Driving License medical check up to be certified for his transport company drivers.
I asked him where are your drivers and he said to me to sign them without doing a medical check up on his drivers.

I said "No I can only certify them if I have done the medical check up and only truly fit individuals will be certified"

The person got real pissed with me and told me "You surely dont know how to live..its easy money for you and you dont even know how to take it....any other doctor would have taken this offer"

I told him "I cant be certifying an unfit person for Public Transport knowing very well so many other lives are at stake when an unfit person drives a bus"

He left the clinic and I called up some of my friends and told them what happened and to my surprise my friends said "do you have his number..tell him to bring it over here..you are dumb Renu...you surely dont know how to live..cos this type of guys are the ones who will bring even other patients to you when he knows that you dont mind bending rules...so you have ruined your business potential"

You get what I mean Sravna...sincerity and dharma in work is looked down upon these days.
But I will still stick to my principles cos I dont want money got through Adharmic means.

 

[ozone]

Unfortunately what is regarded as intelligence in present world is something that helps one to promote self interests. All the finer aspects are lost and I would say that it is this sort of intelligence that is highly overrated. Pure intelligence is something that is not clouded by such aspects and it is extremely rarely found today.

Back with a Punch! ?
Welcome back

 

[ozone]

you are dumb Renu...you surely dont know how to live..cos this type of guys are the ones who will bring even other patients to you when he knows that you dont mind bending rules...so you have ruined your business potential"
.

And the world would look at those 'successful' people who manage to stay worthwhile and say - they had intelligence, since they are qualified doctors and the EQ/Smartness to succeed.