Is it Better to be Smart or Dumb?

Is it Better to be Smart or Dumb? | Mindset Daily Podcast

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Transcript

0:08

All right, so the question for today is, does it serve you more in life to be smart or dumb? So that's what I want to bring up on today's show, and I want to go through these kind of things, right? Because there is this notion, I think, and this is what I, this is where I've seen people fall into a big trap, which is they become, know-it-alls they inadvertently become know-it-alls meaning. They identify as smart, meaning I've got it all figured out. I know everything. And yeah, nobody can teach me anything so you fall into that trap naturally. And the downside of that is, When you become a know-it-all, you close yourself off to learning anything else. You close yourself off from looking at something from a new perspective. Now, here's what I found, and as somebody who you know has gone to college and is somebody that has had a private school education, I know a lot of quote unquote smart people, and I'm friends with a lot of quote unquote smart people that I went to college with, right? And. What's funny is the thing that I observe with them is their constant struggle in life is that they're too smart. Meaning they, they feel like they have it all figured out already. And so it stops them from ever doing anything or, and even more damaging is the fact that if someone tells them to do something, They question it because they think they have a better way. It's like the smart syndrome, and what I found is the opposite is I think one of the most eye-opening lessons for me getting into business was being surrounded by other very successful business people. And the thing that I learned with them right away is none of them identify as smart. They identify more so it's dumb. In fact, a lot of them will say to me, They'll say, because I never really thought I was smart and I always thought I was below average and dumb. I didn't question anything. Anyone ever told me. I just did it right. I. The only thing that I could do was to take action and figure it out. I couldn't logic my way through it. I couldn't think about a better way of doing something, so I just did it right. I just did proven things and they worked right. And this is something that is, this is something that comes up in coaching a lot when working with clients, right? So sometimes there are people who. And these make the best clients. They just do what you say. They just say, you know what? I'm hiring somebody to tell me what to do, so I'm gonna listen to what they say. I'm not gonna question it. I'm not gonna go do my own research because I'm paying for this. And so they just get it done. They just get the results that they're looking for because they spend less time questioning it. Smart people spend more time questioning things, and they spend, they always want to find another way. They always want to find an alternative way, or they think they know better. And that is what leads to not taking action. And for me the simple test of intelligence is simply this, which is, are you, how capable are you of getting what you want? And do you get what you want? So intelligence boils down to can you get what you want, yes or no, right? So you can be smart, you can be dumb, but the question is, can you be intelligent? Like dumb people argue arguably are more intelligent because they just take the action and they get what they want. And I know you're listening to this and you're probably saying, Brian it's derogatory to call people. Dumb, and it's derogatory to say this, but the reality of it is that dumb people that take action and get things done don't see it as a detriment to themselves. They see it as a strength. In fact, those kinds of people are the people who are taking action, right? They're action takers. The less that you. The less that you question things and the more action that you take, the faster you get to where you want to go, the faster things start to happen for you. But when you get into this mode of overthinking and you start to create this it's almost it's almost like a, it's an overthinking ritual before you do anything, if you wanna lose weight, you tell yourself, I'm gonna research every single possible diet out there. And then once I choose the one that I want, I'm gonna make, I'm gonna go and upgrade it. I'm gonna improve it in a way, and then I'll do it right. So you get in this cycle of just saying to yourself, I know best, I know better. And it shuts you off from learning. And it most importantly, it shuts you off from taking action. So it can serve you in a lot of ways to just simply allow yourself to be dumb, right? Allow yourself don't look at things as if you always know better. Don't look at things as if you have it all figured out, because that's to your detriment and that actually stops you from taking the action and getting what you want, right? And in business They always say, there's a quote, and it goes something like this right now, if you're struggling to start a business right now, there are people who are 10 times dumber than you making 10 times more money than you. Why? Because they are taking action and you are not. You're sitting on the sidelines thinking about it. You're sitting on the sidelines thinking that you know better than what's taught. You're sitting on the sidelines. Coming up with all the different ways that you think that you know best and that's a problem, right? That's a problem. It shut, it shuts you off from being able to reach your full potential. And that's the balance that you have to, that's the balance that you have to. Learn to master, which is how much do I spend time thinking about something versus how much time do I spend acting? Because those who act get ahead further. Those who act are the ones who get what they want. They reach outcomes, right? You don't reach outcomes thinking. You reach outcomes by taking action. You reach outcomes by committing to taking little, small steps every single day. And I can tell you one thing is that, if you spend more time thinking than acting, you're never gonna get what you want, right? And that ratio should be very low. In fact, there, there's also another rule that I like to subscribe to because I can be an overthinker. I am someone who identifies sometimes Especially before I started business, right? When I first started business, ironically, I thought I had it all figured out until I realized, no, I don't have anything figured out. That was probably the biggest aha moment for me was starting a business and thinking I had it figured out on my own and then realized I didn't. And then once I was able to just, you know what, let me just get help and let me just let somebody else tell me what to do. Then all of a sudden my business started growing because I was no longer thinking I was just acting right. You wanna do, for every one thing you learn, there's nine pieces of action that you take, right? So learn something, take nine steps of action. Don't learn nine things and take one step of action. It's too slow, it's not gonna work. Instead, you have to commit. You have to commit to a, to an action path and understanding that the quote unquote smartest people on this planet. Realize that they don't have to have it all figured out when they, in order to do something. In fact, it's very simple when you lower the thresholds. Of what you know to act, your ability to act and the outcomes you get become greater, right? And that's the difference between people who accomplish things and people who don't. That's the difference between being successful and not, which is how low can you lower the threshold? Of your ability to take action on something, how low can you lower the threshold of knowledge you have in a subject to take action? Because if you can act with a lower threshold of knowledge and information, you're getting ahead of the people who need more in order to act. And that over time, leads up, adds up. You're taking 10 steps every time everybody else takes one. And over time, by the time you've taken a hundred steps, The rest of the people around you have barely done 10. And it's another one of the things that I like to say to people is, failure is not a bad thing. It's not. Failure is not a bad thing at all. In fact, it's a really great thing. And that you learn more from failure than anything else. You learn more than the overthinker, right? You could have no clue how to run a business. And so you can sit and you can think about it, right? And you can think and think for an eternity and never take action. But if you just keep taking action and even failing over and over again, you will have tried and failed so many things that you all have figured it out. Long before the person who tries nothing but sits and thinks, right? And so that's what society doesn't tell you. Society tends to only show the successes, so therefore you'll naturally have this negative feel around around failing. But behind every success is loads of failures, like as they say, an overnight success. Is 10 years in the making, right? Which is, you don't see the struggles. The media society in general. It doesn't, they don't portray the struggles. They don't show the struggles. They show the in product, right? The struggles are what you do in private, on your own. That's how you get stronger. That's how you build the muscle. They just show the outcome. So we're conditioned, like if you're not careful, you open up social media, you watch the tv, you see all the successes. You see all of the overnight, the quote unquote overnight successes, but you never see the road that it takes, and that road is action. So you have to get yourself into action mode, right? You have to get yourself into less thinking, more acting. It serves you to be dumb and think less and do it and take action and not question everything than it does to simply sit around and keep thinking about everything that has to get done right around every possible little detail, every possible little nuance, less thinking, more doing. Tends to lead to success and leads to the outcomes that you want. But you have to condition yourself, right? And, and you have to be, you have to get good. So one of the things that I have trained myself to do is you have to learn, you have to learn your personality type, right? If you are someone who knows, deep down. That you are one of these overthinkers, right? You overthink things, you question things. You challenge everything. Instead of just doing it, instead of just following proven plans, the more you start to go into that overthinking mode, the quicker you have to catch yourself and say, in that moment, I'm going into overthinking mode, so I'm gonna stop thinking and I'm gonna act. What is one step that I can take right now? What is one step that I can take right now in order to get what I want? Can I take just one small step to get a little bit closer to my goal? Because when you do that is when you start to build the muscle. And ironically, that's when you learn more. That's when you develop the real skills is through action, right? Action is how you build those skills. So think about it. I'm gonna give you something to think about on today's show, which is. Do you? Does it always serve you to identify as being smart, or is there a lesson that you can learn in being dumb? Can it serve you more in dumbing yourself down? Sometimes less choices, less thinking, less options available to you, leads to more action because you've got no choice. Because you've got no choice. And it's like the ice cream analogy. You walk into an ice cream shop that's got 30 different flavors of ice cream, right? What happens? You sit there and you are trying to decide for an eternity, what flavor of ice cream do I want? But if you walk in and there's two flavors, the question is really, do you want ice cream? Yes or no? And it's a, it's quick and that same mentality is how you want to cha train yourself. To become in your life, which is, let me find a proven plan. Let me just follow the plan and not question it. Because when I do that is how I'm gonna get the outcome that I'm looking for. And then it may serve me to not identify as smart, and it may serve me far more to identify as dumb, because dumb leads to action. Smart sometimes leads to overthinking, and overthinking doesn't serve everyone. All right? That's the show for, that's the show for today. That's all I've got. Again, if you've learned something from this, please do take some time to tag me a story on Instagram. Let me know what you learned, how you're gonna apply it, to know. I like to hear these things and interact with you guys. And two, also, if you're enjoying the show, share it with somebody who you think would benefit and take some time to leave a review wherever you listen to podcast. All right, so that's all I've got on today's show. Talk to you next time.