

Stop Trying To Be Smart...?  Goal for 2010 - waivej

Almost 20 years ago someone wrote in my yearbook that I would "do better when I stop telling people how smart I am."  It stung and I avoided the guy ever since.<p>In fact, I've spent my whole life trying to be the smartest guy in the room.  In school I took the hardest classes and shot for the best grades.  I also try to say smart things and speak as an expert on a wide range of things.<p>Now, that guy popped up in Facebook and I'm wondering if my business and personal relationships are suffering.  Maybe my biggest room for improvement is changing this perspective?  This might actually help my business more than anything.<p>Can you offer any advice?  How you approach the world?  Are you the well read geek that with all of the answers.  Or are you a wide eyed "beginner" ready to experience truly new things and learn from anyone?
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cperciva
_Are you the well read geek that with all of the answers[?] Or are you a wide
eyed "beginner" ready to experience truly new things and learn from anyone?_

Yes to both questions.

I'm a firm believer in expertise -- both mine and everybody else's. If
discussion turns to topics which I know a lot about, I will speak with
authority; but when discussion turns to topics which I know little about --
which happens quite often -- I will listen quietly or sometimes ask questions.

In some cases people misinterpret my listening quietly as being uninterested
in the topic at hand, but I can usually correct that misconception when it
arises.

~~~
andreyf
I'm definitely in a different intellectual stage than cperciva, but I find
that the more "expertise" I gain (in computation), the more I realize how
intractable the field is, as a whole. I look at the problems twitter has
scaling, and it pains me - that's such an easy-to understand problem, and yet
the solution is way beyond the vast majority of engineers' capabilities
(probably mine, as well).

I like to think I studied at least a standard deviations more than the average
student in college, but when people ask me what I learned from majoring in
Math and CS, it's that:

1) I know virtually nothing about calculus/chaos theory/topology/linear
algebra, very little about set theory, graph theory, or the properties of
natural numbers. There are more different systems of formal models (algebra
and set theory) that might be useful in describing the world than I will ever
have time or energy to learn.

2) I know virtually nothing about computers. I know nothing aside from high
level properties of the interfaces between a hard disk, a CPU, memory, and a
network. I know virtually nothing about how memory is allocated by the OS,
applications, or how/when caches are populated. I know only the very basic of
data structures or algorithms, and nothing about distributed or probabilistic
algorithms. I don't know how to most optimally model any of the systems from
#1 on a computer's architecture.

But seeing the problems twitter is having scaling, I imagine neither do most
engineers.

------
gruseom
The fact that you're thinking and asking about this is a sign of growth. It
seems to me the best thing you can do is allow yourself to be drawn further
down that path.

What you wrote strikes a chord with me. I grew up frequently being told how
smart I was. Since this was most of the positive feedback I received, my
concept of myself was heavily biased that way. But life intervened and I was
forced to change. Among the conclusions I drew is that knowledge is no basis
for identity.

For me the shift came from seeing that the cognitive intellect is not as
important as it thinks it is. (I love Emo Phillips' line, "I used to think
that the brain was the most wonderful organ in my body. Then I realized who
was telling me this.") It wants to live in a world where it's at the center,
figuring things out and making decisions, but this is largely a fiction. In
recent years there have been a host of experimental results demonstrating
this, but wise people have said it forever and I think many people feel it
instinctively. To those of us who have grown up identifying most with the
cognitive mind, this is a challenge.

The reason relationships suffer if you place too high an emphasis on being
smart is that you're paying attention to only one channel and are closed to
other ones (emotion, intuition, etc.) that have a greater role to play. You
can easily be "right" in everything you say and do, yet end up in a colossally
wrong and pathetic position, unable to understand why people react to you the
way they do. Meanwhile those other people are wondering how you could be so
oblivious.

The issue here is not how smart one is, but rather the _need_ to be smart,
which is ultimately the need to be _seen_ as being smart. That is not a
cognitive need, but an ego defense. It gives you something to be; it tells you
who you are; it assigns you (the smart one) a high status. But it's grounded
in fear: if I'm not smart, what am I? who am I? what value do I have? (The
fear being, I'm nothing, I'm worthless.) This is a weak position to live from.
Maybe you can get by, but reality has a way of contradicting it, such as when
other people don't conform to the script.

The best way out of this that I've found is simply to learn to be ok with not
knowing. When you switch your default position from "I know" to "I don't
know", a lot of things follow. It's a tradeoff: you don't get to feel
particularly smart or special any more, but in exchange, a lot of the hitherto
frustrating and impenetrable aspects of life start to go better. Basically,
you stop optimizing for a local maximum and get pulled into the main current.

Edit: it's good for creativity too, because you stop fighting for _your_ ideas
and become open to more and better possibilities.

~~~
kalid
Just wanted to say thanks for posting this thoughtful comment. I completely
agree that many such "needs" are actually fear-driven.

------
cabalamat
> Almost 20 years ago someone wrote in my yearbook that I would "do better
> when I stop telling people how smart I am."

That sounds good advice. If you want people to think you're clever,
demonstrate it by your behaviour. Telling people you are will convince no-one,
they will just think you're an arsehole, and a stupid one at that.

When I consider all the people I know who I consider to be highly intelligent,
none of them go round boasting about how clever they are.

> I also try to say smart things and speak as an expert on a wide range of
> things.

Do people ever tell you that you come across as an arrogant know-it-all? The
reason I ask is to try to gain an appreciation of how others see you.

> I've spent my whole life trying to be the smartest guy in the room.

If you have to try to be clever, you're not clever. Sorry.

> Are you the well read geek that with all of the answers.

I've been doing programming for over 30 years. I'm still learning new stuff. I
don't have all the answers and i doubt if I ever will. Anyone who thinks they
do know it all is either (i) an expert in a small field, or (ii) an idiot.

~~~
10ren
Yes, his love is competition instead of cooperation and creation.

About _trying_ to be clever: If you are a human being, you an intelligent
animal; you are already clever. If you are trying to understand something or
someone, or solve a problem, or capture an elusive inspiration that's just out
of reach, then it is natural to _try_ , to make an effort. Genius only exists
in action.

> Are you the well read geek that with all of the answers.

No. But I notice that when I encounter a problem, I get lots of ideas about
how to solve it, often building on each other. Some of them work really well.
I don't like to tell people what the answer is, but to give my perspective and
hear their's: then I have two perspectives. And the beginner often sees things
in a novel way that the expert misses, so that an open discussion is often
greater than the sum of its parts.

------
weaksauce
I think you should go and read "What do you care what other people think?" by
Richard Feynman or "Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman." He had an insatiable
curiosity, was well liked, had a lot of fun, and a lot of the times was the
smartest guy in the room. But the key fact from the book and his life is that
he didn't take any of it too seriously.

Not to be offensive as I can only go off of the few sentences that you have
written but it would appear to me that you have the problem that you are
trying to "prove" to yourself that you are smart in every encounter and this
manifests by trying to be the smartest guy in the room. The smartest guys that
I know will say "I don't know" when asked a question that they don't know.
That to me is the essence of intellectual confidence.

~~~
cabalamat
> it would appear to me that you have the problem that you are trying to
> "prove" to yourself that you are smart in every encounter and this manifests
> by trying to be the smartest guy in the room.

I get the same impression.

> The smartest guys that I know will say "I don't know" when asked a question
> that they don't know. That to me is the essence of intellectual confidence.

Yes, exactly.

------
j_baker
This quote probably doesn't sound relevant to your question at first glance,
but it's helped me a lot:

'It was a turning point in my programming career when I realized that I didn't
have to win every argument. I'd be talking about code with someone, and I'd
say, "I think the best way to do it is A." And they'd say, "I think the best
way to do it is B. I'd say, "Well no, it's really A." And they'd say, "Well,
we want to do B." It was a turning point for me when I could say, "Fine. Do B.
It's not going to hurt us that much if I'm wrong. It's not going to hurt us
that much if I'm right and you do B, because, we can correct mistakes. So lets
find out if it's a mistake.'

The reason being that I never had a problem worrying about how smart I am. I
was just afraid of being wrong. The reality of the situation is that you're
wrong sometimes. In fact, this is a _good_ thing. A person who isn't wrong is
probably also never right.

~~~
gruseom
Very relevant.

Easy to Google, but here's the link anyway:
<http://www.artima.com/intv/ownershipP.html>

------
btilly
Pride in how good you are is for many people a barrier to continuous
improvement. See <http://www.perlmonks.org/index.pl?node_id=270083> for some
stuff on why.

The flip side of the dynamic discussed there is that there is no faster way to
make yourself disliked than to make it clear to someone who thinks they know
something that they have things left to learn. The defensive actions you can
get are amazing and are best observed from a distance.

Personally I spend my life learning, and like sharing. I've found to my
detriment that I sometimes rub people the wrong way because they think I am
more arrogant than I mean to be. But I've found that once people get to know
me they understand how I am and it tends to work out in the long run. I think
that it helps that I go out of my way to make everyone in my environment aware
that I've identified things that I know they know more than I do, and that I
honestly respect them for having expertise that I don't have.

------
alexgartrell
When you go out of your way to illustrate your superior intelligence to
someone, you put up a wall. That person instantly sees you as being someone to
whom they can not relate, and you've essentially neutered your relationship.

I might have an extreme opinion, but I believe that you should often downplay
your intelligence and work hard to relate to the "lowest common denominator."
Many intellectuals may find this idea extremely distasteful, but they
generally also fail to see the huge amounts of value to be gained from such
relationships. Namely, you're able to learn the "soft skills" that many people
in our field find so hard to grasp. I've learned the majority of what I know
about life and dealing with people from the B/C students I've encountered
along the way. The best part about this strategy is that, if you're _actually_
intelligent, it'll probably come across _all by itself_. It's win/win.

------
mcantor
I feel like the optimal path is a middle road between the two extremes you
listed. I try to learn as much as possible. Once I have learned something, I
am quite confident in what I have learned, but I recognize that at any given
time, new information may come along which changes or contradicts what I
already know. "Strong opinions, weakly held."

I really enjoy the "progressive degrees" joke: "When you get your Bachelor's,
you think you know everything. When you get your Master's, you realize that
you don't know anything. When you get your Doctorate, you realize that
_nobody_ knows anything."

To your high school/college un-friend's yearbook snipe... based on human
nature, I would expect that he just wanted to have the last word on you.
However, that doesn't mean there wasn't a point lurking there... I know I
enjoy being the center of attention, and I think it's important to discipline
oneself to temper that attention-seeking with humility. So maybe what you can
take away from that yearbook note is two-fold. One lesson might be, "Show,
don't tell." Let your intelligence speak for itself. If the people in the room
are supposed to know that you're the most intelligent, they will, based on
_how_ you say what you're saying, and _how_ you do what you're doing, as
opposed to what you are saying or what you are doing.

The second lesson could simply be humility. Maybe your constant striving to be
the smartest, while admirable, has given you a subtle sense of entitlement to
admiration or good results. It could help to examine that.

It's really cool that you're willing to take a step back and ask yourself if
there was something under the surface of that comment, especially almost two
decades later. I hope you find the epiphany you're looking for this year.
Happy holidays!

------
andreyf
"Smart" is a really vague concept that's nearly impossible to define. PG
touches on this when he asks "Is it worth being wise?" [1].

In reality, the people I know who are truly wisest in a truly meaningful way
are very down-to-earth. Until you get to know them, you can't really tell
they're "smart" in the traditional "perceived IQ" sense.

 _I also try to say smart things and speak as an expert on a wide range of
things._

This sounds like you're intellectually confident, which, I think, is very
different from being "smart". I'm going through the exact same transformation
as you, I think, one triggered by some very rudimentary study of epistemology.
Most people, after meeting me, have a very high opinion of my intelligence,
much higher than (I think) is deserved. So the realization _I'm_ going through
is how little I really _know_ , in the epistemological sense.

For the most basic example, I can certainly talk intelligently about computers
and programming, and do excellent at interviews and even at getting work done,
but in reality, I know very little about the details of a computer's
architecture, and much less about the details of networking. I know the high-
leve abstractions, but I have no idea what's actually _going on_.

1\. <http://www.paulgraham.com/wisdom.html>

------
jsz0
Being the smartest guy in the room is fine but you don't have to flaunt it.
Being a know-it-all is really a bad social/professional choice. No one likes
know-it-alls. Even if you've got the knowledge to back it up there's just
something about our society that makes people want to see the know-it-all
fail. They will actually contribute and celebrate your failures because of it.
A humble person will get sympathy in the same situation.

I work under the assumption that lots of people know more than I do about lots
of things. These people are not a threat to me or competition. They're an
opportunity to learn. Looking back there are so many times when someone who
had really mastered a topic has helped me understand it just through a
paragraph of text or a few minutes of conversation. It may have taken me
hours, days or weeks to figure it out on my own. I try to do the same for
others when I can. Knowledge & information should be freely shared in a
comfortable exchange whenever possible.

------
hegemonicon
There's nothing wrong with trying to be smart. The problem is trying to show
others how smart you are (as the guy so astutely wrote in your yearbook). It
makes you look like a jerk. No one likes a jerk.

I have an extremely similar problem, where I feel like I always have to be
right about...well, whatever I happen to be talking about. Because big
personality changes are hard, instead I try to control some specific behaviors
that get me into trouble, such as getting defensive and trying to sound like I
know more than I do. That may be a better goal than a complete personality
makeover.

[If you're interested, I wrote about getting defensive here:
<http://www.hegemonicon.com/blog/?p=184> and sounding like I know more than I
do here: <http://www.hegemonicon.com/blog/?p=683>]

------
timwiseman
Remember that there is a difference between trying to be smart and trying to
appear smart.

I think it is always valuable to try to be as smart as you can, learn as much
as you can, and always keep improving your mind. (Whether your should focus on
one domain of expertise or try to be well rounded is a more personal choice
with pros and cons).

Trying to appear smart is often not worth it, even if you are extremely smart.
This can be off putting to other people in some cases and can hinder you from
being receptive to learning more.

In short this:

 _In fact, I've spent my whole life trying to be the smartest guy in the room.
In school I took the hardest classes and shot for the best grades._

was probably a good and commendable decision.

But this:

 _I also try to say smart things and speak as an expert on a wide range of
things._

was probably less useful.

------
Freebytes
You should be humble, but at the same time, you should appear to be a genius
to most others. This judgment should not be based on your own evaluations.
Instead, your clients, customers, and coworkers should evaluate you as
intelligent. You cannot truly fake being intelligent just as you cannot fake
being a fool. If you fake being a fool, that makes you a fool. If you fake
being intelligent, it will be evident to those more intelligent than yourself.
Just be yourself.

In addition to this, though, I must say that you can think unintelligently if
only for the purpose of seeing from the perspective of someone less
experienced than yourself. This is helpful for the purposes of understanding
others, but it should not be demonstrated anywhere outside of your own mind.
This can help with design, but in turn, that design will be deemed wise
because of its simplicity.

------
mping
Forgive my psycho babble, but being the smartest guy in the room and/or having
the right answers should not be the end per se, but the means to anyting else.
It seems to me that back in the day you were trying to please people.

When I was in high scholl I tried hard to impress by having nice grades, being
the smart one, etc. When I got to college I became just another college
student, barely making it, and had colleagues that had straight As when I
would study just to pass the course.

It turns out 1) It was a real eye opener, I realized I needed to work hard If
I ever wanted to become good at something 2) I started to realize my own true
interests, and acting accordingly.

Just ask yourself a simple question: what really makes you happy. When you
know the answer (or answers) to this question, you'll be on the right track ;)

------
Ixiaus
Sounds like you're insecure about something and you are using your
intellectual prowess to make up for a perceived lack. Your insecurity is
probably resting on something your father did not provide for you, I'm basing
that statement on the fact that another male "stung" you; indicating you
projected your Animus (shadow masculine self created by father figure) onto
him.

Introspection/meditation is your tool to the inner self; there you will find
confidence, security, and peace. Sophrosyne (moral sanity; moderation through
true self-knowledge) is the state of mind you will attain when you honestly
practice not caring about what other people think, go within rather than
without (introspect/meditate), and discipline yourself.

From the looks of it, you've begun the alchemical path of transformation. Your
propensity for intellectualism can help you here, C. G. Jung has created a
comprehensive intellectual framework of the human psyche that uses symbolism,
alchemy, and allegory to model the psyche and its processes in a way that
makes sense. You would benefit from casually reading some his material and
applying it when you can; more rigorous application will make a noticeable
impact on your psyche.

So, yes, stop _trying_ to be smart and just be smart. Realize that your
parents cannot and never will provide everything you need for a _whole_ Self,
that certain aspects must be cultivated within you. This is one of those
facets.

Kudos to recognizing it and even more kudos to your asking for help -
psychologically speaking, asking "others" for help means you are asking the
rest of yourself for help; just remember we can't give all the answers since
we aren't you, the best answers are given by the members _within_ you.

~~~
jbc25
I'm not smart enough to tell if this is a serious comment or a joke.

~~~
Ixiaus
Downvoting is fine, but it did take me a mindful amount of time to write that
response; your comment is bordering on "trolling". If you choose to downvote
me because there is a critical flaw in my reasoning, or a faulty premise, or
maybe something I just didn't think of, then say so in a thought-out argument.

 _I do not appreciate one-liner, sarcastic comments._

My reply was serious. The abstract topic of the OP's post was on _character
development_ and that is precisely what I provided in my reply - both from a
personal experience perspective and from a rationally deduced perspective.

------
Aegean
Just be what you are and don't be afraid to lag behind in many different
aspects of _smartness_.

I usually don't say things that people find extremely intriguing, I also am a
slow responder in arguments. I have to think. But when I think for some time,
I sometimes get such good results that the other smart-thinker/showers are
simply outdone. I say _sometimes_ because you can't and don't have to always
show your brightness.

------
andrewcooke
as someone who (like, i guess, many people here), is "smart", what strikes me
most about your post is not that you might gain by being a little less
obnoxious, but that it's taken you so long to find out. i didn't go to a
particularly "tough" school (i'm talking english english now - the place where
children learn), but "[not] telling people how smart i am" is a basic survival
skill i learnt pretty early on in life.

i'm not sure what lesson to draw from that, though. does it mean that you are
completely insensitive to what other people think about you? or that you're
way, way too desperate to prove yourself? or perhaps it just means you're 6
foot plus and heavy with it?

so i'm wondering if there's a broader lesson here. like you need to listen to
people a whole lot more (ie over and above being a little more modest)? or
love yourself rather than trying to live up to what (perhaps) your parents
demanded way back when?

sorry if this seems like cheap psychology - not trying to knock you, just
thinking out loud.

------
sketerpot
No matter how smart you are, you can be humble if you just remember that
intelligence and knowledge don't seem to have an upper bound. You can always
imagine someone who makes you look like an ignorant dullard. _You are always a
beginner_ when measured by that unattainable standard. Whether you're wide-
eyed and ready to experience truly new things is up to you.

------
rmason
I decided by the time I got to college that I wanted to be the dumbest guy in
my peer group.

Because if you're the smartest you don't grow. It's also can be a humbling
experience and it sounds like that might be something you need.

As it is I am always hustling to keep up and that's a winning strategy for me.

------
iterationx
Stop trying to impress people with your intelligence, just try to connect with
them.

------
noodle
i like operating both ways in the real world. on the one hand, i'll cough up
any knowledge i have when prompted, but not until prompted (unless its
important). and until i'm prompted, i just listen and learn and experience.

------
MaysonL
Pick up a copy of the book _Mindset_ by Carol Dweck, read it, and work on
developing your "growth" mindset.

------
maxklein
The cleverest people about the topics don't usually like talking to laymen,
because their knowledge is at expert-level - laymen would not be able to
contribute. If I speak C++ with a beginner programmer it gets boring for me
quickly.

People who just have a surface knowledge or just learned some stuff by
watching national geographic or some pop science thing seem the most willing
to impart knowledge.

~~~
anonjon
I think that is an over-generalization.

There is no point in gaining a whole bunch of knowledge if you are not going
to pass it on somehow. You are not going to use it as you decompose. I think
that the cleverest people I have met were also really good at explaining
things in terms that almost anyone could understand.

In fact, I think that not being able to explain something to a 'layman' is
actually indicative of having a superficial understanding of a topic. Even if
there is a large amount of superficial (memorized) knowledge, there isn't
necessarily any insight.

The best way to learn and remember and understand anything, for me, is to try
to explain it to someone else. It is the easiest way to really think about a
topic.

~~~
maxklein
If you meet Einstein, how likely do you think it is he wants to talk about
relativity with you? You would be the how manyeth person who does not
understand the topic? You really think he is interested in explaining it to
every person he meets who has no idea?

~~~
anonjon
I'm thinking 100% likelihood if I expressed a genuine interest.

~~~
maxklein
I'm thinking you're thinking wrong, but I, as a person who often gets lectured
and thinks this is annoying, bow to your opinion.

------
jaekwon
Shine your SMARTS upon your brethren, and watch them shun you like hot
resistors on a circuit.

------
perplexes
Why do you try to be the smartest person in the room?

