Unconsciously intelligent: this is why you feel stupid

Intelligent people often feel stupid

In all the years that I have been working on developing the potential of the 10% most gifted, I have heard these intelligent people say the same thing over and over again:

“I must be the one who’s stupid”

Even when they have taken an IQ test which clearly shows that they have a high IQ, they don’t believe it.

“It was just an easy test.”
“I must’ve been lucky.”
“Surely that can’t be right…”

Many of them find it extremely difficult to believe that they have a high IQ, especially those who are affected by impostorism. And then they raise all sorts of objections:

“If I’m so intelligent, why can’t I figure out x and y?!”
“If I really am that clever, why haven’t I become chief executive like several of my friends?”

However, even if you have a high IQ, it doesn’t mean that you’re good at everything. Nor is there any logical proportionality between having a high IQ and making a career. It’s rather the opposite.
There are countless situations where you may feel that your IQ doesn’t really make things easier. And this is where you might feel stupid.

See also: 4 reasons why gifted people do not progress in their careers

 

You feel stupid because you can’t understand what other people don’t understand

These are some of the typical mistakes that unconsciously intelligent people make:

• They think that what is obvious and logical to them is equally obvious and logical to everyone else
• They think that what is common knowledge to them is also common knowledge to everyone else
• They think that what is easy for them must be easy for everyone.

This is the very reason why gifted people affected by impostorism end up underestimating themselves and overestimating others.

The four studies by David Dunning and Justin Kruger showed that the participants who got by far the best results underestimated their own performances. They believed – like the other participants in the North American study – that they had only performed slightly above average. In other words, and according to my model: they were unconsciously competent and their self-confidence did not match their actual skills.

Exactly the same applies to the unconsciously intelligent. And even when you do know this, it is easy to forget.

Recently, I faced a situation– once again – where some of my texts on this blog were copied. I had initially asked the person who did this to remove his text. He didn’t. Instead, he apologised for having copied content from my book without asking for permission, and then he quickly rewrote part of the text.
He didn’t understand my reaction and I didn’t understand his actions.

It wasn’t until quite late in the process, after involving both our lawyers, that I realised:

this person thinks that copying text from the internet is permitted!

Apparently, he hadn’t noticed that at the bottom of all the pages, it says: Copyright © 2017. All Rights Reserved.
So, in his mind, he hadn’t done anything wrong when it came to copying from my blog posts, only when it came to copying from the book.
But, as is well known, the law applies to everyone – even if you don’t know what the law says.

I also learned something from this:

what I consider general knowledge apparently isn’t general knowledge for everyone.

See also: The three biggest mistakes unconsciously intelligent people make

 

You feel stupid because the system doesn’t understand you

I’m now going to share a little story about a situation where it is exceptionally easy to feel extremely stupid, regardless of your IQ – but where a high IQ makes you foolishly stubborn.

A gifted person was taking part in a development process arranged through the City Council of Copenhagen. The process itself was straightforward and went according to plan, just like the more than one hundred other processes I have facilitated over the years. But no matter how many times I tried to invoice the City of Copenhagen, I always got the same message: “We have rejected your electronic invoice…” followed by various reasons.

It was at this point that I was foolishly stubborn. Because I reckoned that I should be able to figure it out!

Only after five or six rejections did I finally make the effort to call their Finance office, where I was fortunate enough to speak to a dry-witted, droll gentleman who calmly explained the problem:

You have been very polite in telling us that it’s to do with a User ID, but it was read by a robot, and robots don’t understand politeness.

It also turned out that I had entered text in a numerical box and the information should have been entered in the attention box, which made no sense to my logical mind. But OK. So I did as I was told.

A few days later, I got another message that my invoice had been rejected, but this time I immediately called their friendly members of staff for an explanation and further instructions. After all, when you’re up against robots, even gifted people contend in vain. And sometimes it is just plain stupid not to ask for help.

To sum up:

sometimes you may feel stupid because a relatively simple thing, which is usually easy, turns out to be incredibly hard.

And most gifted people tend to set very high standards for themselves. So, when something doesn’t work out, they blame themselves.
However, there may well be other explanations.

In this case, it turned out that apparently there was a technical issue between my accounting system and the City of Copenhagen’s input system, so the boxes were displaced in the process. It was very strange. And not my fault after all…

See also: 10 signs that you are more gifted than you think

 

What can you do to make sure that you don’t feel stupid?

At one time, I would be offended if anyone talked down to me. This was something new because prior to that, I wouldn’t have noticed at all. I would probably have accepted it, and felt stupid.

This was to do with impatience on my part.
And a lack of bandwidth on other people’s part.

This is an unreserved apology to the well-meaning and helpful people who noticed how annoyed I was:

• When I didn’t get the answer I needed – and quickly
• When I was asked about something that I’d already provided information on
• When I was forced to listen to something that I’d figured out a while ago
• When I had to repeat myself and rephrase what I’d just said.

Because they just spoke to me in the same way that they usually spoke to everyone else. That I wasn’t like them was something that they could neither know nor take into account.

You also can’t really help it if you become impatient, especially if you don’t know that you have a high IQ. And even if you do know, you can’t very well say,

“Can I please talk to a more intelligent member of staff?”

So, you and the others have to try to make the best of the conversation. And you have to practise controlling your impatience.

 

See also:

The three biggest mistakes unconsciously intelligent people make
4 differences between having a high IQ and a normal IQ
10 signs that you are more gifted than you think
Do you have a high IQ and/or ADHD?