Read This if You’re Not Smart Enough to Do [Insert Thing Here].
Why I Hate the Word, “Smart.”
“My brain weighs eight pounds,” my friend gloated. We were eight years old. I burst out laughing so hard. So did she. Even as children, we both figured that was absurd. As if having a big, heavy, brain would make you smarter. (Looks like the jury is still out on this…)
“He’s doing very well for himself, obviously he’s super smart,” I heard last week. I didn’t laugh at this. I winced. The comment was not ironic. In my mind:
So, because he’s doing well for himself, he’s labeled as “smart” — not anything else?
The adjective, “smart,” is inherently lazy (just like the word, “busy”). It’s typically used as a blanket statement for someone who does something well or in an impressive way. The thought foolishly stops at “smart.”
But what does this adjective actually mean, and what can we learn from it?
For example, when you mean someone is smart, does that mean they’re creative? Or thoughtful?
Do they work harder than the others?
Do they use a thought process or mental framework that you can replicate?
Are they curious (like you’re being right now)?
Or in the rare case, by, “smart,” do you literally attribute their performance and achievement to pure hardware, intellect, and talent?
I’ve met some people who are very smart, and I can’t say they’re much different from us regular folk. Nor do they have “magical” solutions to the problems we all face — anxiety, fear, and doubt (amongst many others). Never forget the amount of work people conceal.
I’ve also met a lot of people who are really good at specific things, who I would call well-practiced, hard working, meticulous, or whatever. But they’re not geniuses.
As you can probably guess, I’m not very smart. I have trouble grasping complex concepts the first time around. I can associate thoughts and words well, but I’m not very witty. I take too many notes when I read and talk to people because I know better than to trust my memory.
And, most tellingly, I’m envious of smart people. There’s clearly some element of sour grapes as to why I have such a strong reaction to the word, “smart.”
Yet I also wouldn’t characterize many of the people we consider “successful” as particularly smart.
I watch a lot of them do the heavy lifting — every week, every day — in order to make sure they’re at high performance.
They read a lot, they combine new ideas together, they write a lot to communicate better. They double check their emails to ensure they’re clear. They ask questions to clarify matters. They learn other people’s processes and try them out. They experiment.
In actuality, this stuff can be replicated. Sure, you might never be as good as they are if they have a head start (or if it turns out that science proves smarter people have bigger brains, and you have a little one)… But you can be, “smart,” too.
And therein lies the difficult part. You will realize this:
You can influence, and often directly control, how well or poorly things turn out. You don’t need to be smart, you need to be curious.
And the shocker:
You have a lot of work to do.
In his book, Total Recall, Arnold Schwarzenegger joked that he couldn’t have done half the things he did if he knew beforehand all the trials that awaited him. He dumbed it down. (Another topic for another day.)
So, the next time you’re tempted to describe someone as “smart,” or wish that you were “smarter,” I urge you to go deeper. Let your curiosity draw you in. What makes them good at what they do? Why? And what can you learn from them?
Herbert Lui is the creative director at Wonder Shuttle and a former staff writer for Lifehacker. His writing has appeared at TIME, Fast Company, and The Globe and Mail. He writes a monthly newsletter where he shares books and quotes to make you happier, more creative, and more productive.
