Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green once told me he enjoys being the dumbest person in the room.
That’s easy for me. (Well, not necessarily enjoying the feeling, but being the least smart, not necessarily enjoying the feeling.) Even though most people fall prey to the better-than average effect, I rarely think I’m on the smart side of average. Plenty of people seem smarter. Wiser. Savvier. Better able to sift through the noise, and make great decisions.
That describes me. Maybe you think that describes you, too.
But it’s likely you’re smarter than you imagine, especially if any of the following are apply.
- You change your mind.
Love him or hate him (there’s rarely a middle ground where the Space Cowboy is concerned), there’s no denying the fact that Jeff Bezos is often right. Yet according to Bezos, the number one indicator of high intelligence is a willingness to change your mind.
As Bezos says:
The smartest people are constantly revising their understanding, reconsidering a problem they thought they’d already solved. They’re open to new points of view, new information, new ideas, contradictions, and challenges to their own way of thinking.
Science backs Bezos up, too. A series of experiments published by Harvard Business Review show that changing your mind can actually be smarter: entrepreneurs who adapted, revised, and changed their positions during a pitch competition were six times more likely to win the competition.
The next time you question your intelligence, think about how often you’ve changed your mind in recent days. If the answer is often, you’re probably smarter than you think.
Because, as Thinking, Fast and Slow author Daniel Kahneman says, “No one enjoys being wrong, but I do enjoy having been wrong, because it means I am now less wrong.” 2. You procrastinate.
While we all procrastinate from time to time, most people assume putting off something important indicates a lack of intelligence. After all, the smart move is to avoid waiting till the last minute.
Or not. For example, Adam Grant sees procrastination as a key to innovation. According to Grant:
The time Steve Jobs was putting things off and noodling on possibilities was time well-spent in letting more divergent ideas come to the table, as opposed to diving right in with the most conventional, the most obvious, the most familiar.
Science supports the value of procrastination. A study published in Journal of Research in Personality found that people with high IQs tend to procrastinate more, if only because high intelligence affords the luxury of waiting to begin a task.
If you put something off simply because you don’t feel like doing it, that’s one thing. But if you put something off because you don’t think you’ve found the best solution, the best path, or the best option, waiting to get started could be the smartest approach to take. 3. You spend time alone.
It makes sense that smart people enjoy spending time with other smart people. Oddly enough, though, that’s often not the case. Research published in British Journal of Psychology found that the more highly intelligent people socialize, the less happy they tend to be.
Why? The researchers speculate one reason could be that the smarter you are, the more focused you might be on achieving longer-term goals. If that’s the case, spending time with friends — no matter how smart they might be — could seem more distracting than helpful.
So if you prefer to spend time alone to focus on a project, to improve a skill, to refine your business plan, or to tick off all the steps required to reach your goals, that might make you a loner.
But it doesn’t mean you lack intelligence. You might just be smarter than the rest of us. 4. You’re a night owl.
Early birds get all the press. Apple CEO Tim Cook starts his morning routine — he wakes up even earlier — at 3:45 a.m. General Motors CEO Mary Barra gets to the office by 6 a.m. Conventional wisdom says rising and shining early is the smart approach.
Then again, research published in Personality and Individual Differences determined that night owls — people who feel more alert and productive well into the late hours — are more likely to have higher intelligence.
Along the same lines, research published in the British Medical Journal found that night owls also tend to have better jobs, and earn larger incomes, than early risers.
Who’s the smart one now?
Actually, no one. Staying up late and waking up late won’t automatically make you smarter. Neither will getting up earlier. What matters is what works best for you. If 6 a.m. is the perfect start time, the smart move is to consistently start your workday at 6 a.m. If 8:30 a.m. is the optimum time, the smart move is to start at 8:30.
Basing decisions on what works best for you?
That’s an obvious sign of intelligence.