By | Valerie Soleil | www.learning-mind.com
Not so long ago, researchers discovered that smartness does not equal intelligence. Intelligence is systematically measurable and defined as an ability to acquire new knowledge and skills and to use them. On the other hand, smartness is a collection of often counter-intuitive traits that help you reach your goals through sometimes unorthodox means.
Genuinely smart people do not have to be ‘brainiacs’.
Most often than not, they will go through school being average, never drawing attention to themselves by being stellar performers, athletes, or spelling bee champions. Their unique skill set will help them out more in the real world, which is not boxed into a set of academic rules and expectations.
Highly intelligent people have the upper hand in a well-organized, structured environment, but they will still often be outperformed by smart individuals who might not be their intellectual equals.
Why is that? What do genuinely smart people have that the intelligent ones lack? For starters, intelligent people are overly confident. They know they are smart and will often make ‘mental shortcuts’, believing that they are doing the math faster that way.
The truth is, they are skipping it altogether. This leads to a number of embarrassing mistakes – just think of the bat and the ball question! – that smart people sidestep with ease.
