I feel it in my bones - the smartness I was fed all my life. I was an A+ student all my life, and I was equally interested in co-curriculars. In fact, my father nicknamed me “intelli.” This gave me immense confidence to ace academics.
Some 20 years later, I found myself stuck in this weird cycle. Every 6 months, I would have an existential crisis followed by burnout. I would stop feeling like working on anything at all. And because I’m so smart, I would try solving it with my intellect.
Once, twice, thrice… this became a pattern that repeated for 7 years of my life. And after such persistence to solve things, I broke down.
Wasn’t I supposed to be the smart one? Then why were people half my intellect getting opportunities I could only dream of?
I would wonder what’s wrong with me? And people around me would give me answers like - hey, you need to chill a bit, stop overthinking, the usual “calm down” guide. As if that would be any help.
One fine day, I was just casually narrating something to my roommate, and she said - Oh my god, you’re such a queen of intellectualising and compartmentalising. What? I had just been called two words I had never heard in my life before.
That’s when I started digging deeper (unobvious irony here) and found that being “smart” was ruining my life after all.
The curse of being smart
"You have so much potential.”
As a kid, this phrase used to feel good - but now that I hear this from my family and friends, I can’t help but feel angry.
I feel so angry at the society that made us high-performing kids feel so good about our intellect for 12 years of life and then just abandoned us. Term after term, year after year, our self-worth was built based on excellence. Certificates, awards, medals, we were gifted them all.
For what? To develop dysfunctional living styles later in our lives. Here are some classic styles that “gifted kids” often have, depending on what they choose as their coping mechanism:
You either get chronic procrastination or chronic burnout cycles. Both because you are terrified of failing. I suffer with the latter.
Inability to make decisions (Analysis paralysis) because your brain is too good at simulating every possible negative outcome. You get stuck trying to find the "perfect" choice.
If you cannot do something perfectly, flawlessly, or at an elite level right out of the gate, you lose interest entirely. You live in a cycle of intense hyper-fixation followed by immediate abandonment. (All or nothing)
Inability to follow systems or hyperfixate on the need to systemise everything.
Imposter Syndrome, because if you have to work for it, you’re not smart, and you've finally been exposed as a fraud.
Every feedback or criticism feels like an existential threat.
You view asking for help as a sign of weakness.
You have this quintessential need to be right.
You over-analyze a situation using cold, detached logic to avoid feeling uncomfortable emotions. (Intellectualisation)
You are so stuck in your own brain that you rarely see any situation clearly as it is. Is it even surprising then that smart people get left behind in the race?
How does this show up in your career?
The fundamental mistake smart people make is treating the free-market economy like a university exam. As if cramming every single concept that exists online will somehow make you win.
But the market doesn't care about your potential. There is only one thing it rewards: your tolerance for public embarrassment.
You can keep changing your LinkedIn bio, your offer, or your posts. But the breakthrough will always come with actually doing things that you’re most afraid of doing.
But of course, no course will actually tell you that on account of losing their customers. And even if they do tell you to put in active efforts, you find absolutely logical-sounding reasons that prove why you’re not ready or now is not the time.
And god forbid you fail at it. Because then you will shelve it forever.
Am I right or am I right?
The dumb way of being successful
Ahh, the section where we get all the answers - your brain is lighting up again, isn’t it? Have you ever considered the possibility that it might actually be addicted to all these frameworks and learning? And you’re just feeding it non-stop?
I’ve one question - has it helped you? Well, had it helped you for real, you won’t be reading this newsletter, so the question is rhetorical.
You’ve got to stop doing this - taking everything so personally. Believe me - I have looked and searched, and there’s no way you can heal yourself out of this mindset just by using your brain alone.
That’s like playing with a festering wound. You’ve got to leave it alone, and let it heal!
If you want to get out of this trap, you have got to learn how to operate with less information. You need to study the people you secretly look down on - the ones who don't read strategy, don't understand positioning, and yet are currently closing clients you can only dream of.
For every task, think how a dumb person would do it:
They’ll not do endless research because they don’t know how to.
They have no reputation to protect because, well, they are already dumb.
They can’t predict if something will work or not because they don’t have the intelligence. They just fuck around and find out.
They only think of the next step when it comes to that.
Only 4 points because they don’t need frameworks to be defined (see what I did there?)
Unlike my regular newsletters, I’ll not drown you in steps. I have just one task for you, and it will take 10 minutes tops.
Think of a task you feel physically scared to do but know is important for solving that big problem of yours. Maybe it’s asking for work publicly. Or making your LinkedIn Open to Work. Or sending that pitch.
Set a timer for 10 minutes and do it. Send me the screenshot as a reply.
If you choose not to do it, know that you have an addiction to being smart. And live with it.
Now go out there, be dumb, and conquer the world!
Until next time,
- Shrishti