An intelligent person is equipped with the ability to understand and solve problems easily. It is assumed that he is more analytical than his contemporaries, and can smoothly scale through difficulties when they arise.
Intelligent personalities abound in academia and in the business world; in conventional settings, a person who exhibits a high level of intelligence than others in the same position stands a healthy chance of being appointed a leader in an organization.
With the many expectations hung around the necks of intelligent people, it is rather disappointing to read news articles on or witness first-hand the failure of some of these smart people.
In this blog post, we’ll be sharing with you, 10 Reasons Why Many Intelligent People Fail In Life.
- Many Smart people are overconfident in their abilities
Seen any intelligent person who knows he’s intelligent? There’s an air of confidence in him that can drive fools away. Coupled with extraordinary achievements of the past, he assumes he is the most important person in the world who can never fail.
It is alright to be confident in your abilities, but not to the point of esteeming yourself more highly to never make mistakes. Some intelligent people are overly convinced that whatever they lay their hands upon shall turn to gold, and they make sure everyone around them is aware of that.
Such a level of over-confidence usually is their undoing since it could shut their minds toward others and their contributions for needed success.
Since he feels he cannot fail for any reason, it becomes easy for him to be too immersed in himself to spot actions that could actually be his downfall.
- Many Smart people are easily distracted
Because of his great and diverse analytical and problem-solving skills, it doesn’t take much for an intelligent person to shift his attention from one project to another. Once he feels he has gotten the solution for one, he could speedily abandon it for another.
This makes for shallowness in task completion and makes a mess of the entire project. Intelligent people are passionate to display their all-roundedness in different areas.
Lack of concentration on a given area makes understanding how it works superficial, and no one succeeds that way.
- Many Smart people are vulnerable to praise singers
Everyone needs someone to encourage and lift him up, someone who cheers him up when he is down and out. But it becomes a problem when you’re surrounded by people who are always cheering you, even in the face of wrongdoing.
Intelligent people are almost always victims of sycophants, who do what they do for the favor they would receive from them.
It is a very dangerous situation as so many business executives and other sensitive position holders have failed woefully because they had more praise singers than critics.
- They are wary of critics
Yes, they are. Apart from the mature ones amongst them, intelligent people are contented with being by themselves without anyone telling them they are not perfect.
That explains their affinity for praise singers. Who should ever think they are wrong or incapable of performing all tasks satisfactorily? Who should contest their sterling suggestions? Who thinks better than them?
Therefore, any act of criticism is viewed as a threat, and instead of giving ears to the opposing but helpful opinions, they tend to avoid such completely and that results in stagnation and failure.
- Many Smart people are afraid of new heights
Granted that they are intelligent and hot smart, yet, many of them are not daring, daring enough to go beyond their comfort zones. They are innovative but can sit on an invention for fear of being copied or overtaken.
This can be quite obtainable in business settings where fearful, but intelligent business executives have delayed launching into the deep for fear of being thrown off balance by changes.
The bitter truth is that unless one keeps advancing, one’s relevance can become outdated very quickly, and nothing can help it. Ask Kodak, Nokia, or Yahoo!
- They could be impulsive in their decision-making
There’s no doubt that it is important in certain cases to make on-the-spot decisions when one is caught up in an unlikely position. Nonetheless, it becomes destructive when it becomes a habit
especially when there are others on the line who could be affected by the outcome of the decisions taken.
An intelligent person as a leader could decide to spring onto the board of sudden decision-making without proper consultation with others who matter. Sometimes because of the one-man piloted decision exclusive of others, failure isn’t very far from hitting that business.
- They are secretive
Or better still, discreet. Smart people only make known what they feel is necessary to show. Apart from that, they maintain silence that could be to the detriment of those they are involved with.
In leadership, that could make a leader have a dysfunctional style of communication with his followers. A business involving people demands that information is sufficiently supplied to everyone concerned.
An intelligent child who’s constantly abused could keep quiet about it in order to save his/her loved ones the public embarrassment. However such is viewed, negative secretiveness can bring about a shameful failure because, without effective communication, anything and everything can go wrong.
- Many Smart people are blame givers
Rather than take responsibility for their mistakes, many smart people tend to look for the most liable person to pour the blame on. It could be the government, a work colleague, that stingy spouse, or a parent who couldn’t sponsor their education.
They may be able to solve problems, but they derive some pleasure in limiting themselves by seeing the problem with others.
- Smart people often want the world to revolve around them
That is why they are not interested in having others help them out. They would rather be recognized as the central force, the fore force, and the back force of a project.
To delegate others to carry out certain tasks is too much of a favor to them. Inevitably, failure meets them when they are driven by stress, or when they are absent and events come to lockdown because nobody was designated to stand in for them in their absence.
- They look down on others.
Most smart people are often more intelligent than everyone around them. This could make them disregard, disrespect, and disdain others. They would be blinded to the beautiful sides in others while focusing on their mental abilities.
Such an attitude could rob them of help and important connections as those who they look down upon could be a link to their better successes.
In conclusion, intelligent people are lovely but can fail if they are not careful. Being too confident in themselves, becoming easily distracted, being vulnerable to praise singers, avoiding critics, running away from attaining new heights, being impulsive in decision-making, being secretive, blaming others, wanting the world to revolve around them, and looking down on others are reasons many of the smartest people meet failure in their lives.
Thank you