Big Idea: How’s Your SQ?
Posted on Oct 7th, 2007
by 
Brian
Brian
How’s Your SQ?
Robert Sternberg, a leading researcher mapping out the science of wisdom at Yale, wrote a great book called “Successful Intelligence.”
His big idea?
IQ is interesting (somewhat) but a poor predictor of success.
What is?
Your “successful intelligence.”
Quite simply, successfully intelligent people know what they’re good at and they do that a lot. And, they know their weaknesses and make sure their weaknesses don’t kick their butt.
He makes a very important distinction, however. Successfully intelligent people DO NOT spend a lot of time trying to get good at something they stink at. They bring just enough awareness to their weaknesses so they don’t get their butts kicked and they spend all the rest of their time on what they rock at.
Oh, shiznit! We talked about this before. :)
Robert Sternberg, a leading researcher mapping out the science of wisdom at Yale, wrote a great book called “Successful Intelligence.”
His big idea?
IQ is interesting (somewhat) but a poor predictor of success.
What is?
Your “successful intelligence.”
Quite simply, successfully intelligent people know what they’re good at and they do that a lot. And, they know their weaknesses and make sure their weaknesses don’t kick their butt.
He makes a very important distinction, however. Successfully intelligent people DO NOT spend a lot of time trying to get good at something they stink at. They bring just enough awareness to their weaknesses so they don’t get their butts kicked and they spend all the rest of their time on what they rock at.
Oh, shiznit! We talked about this before. :)
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big ideas
August 2008 
Brian,
Thanks for this and link to your previous entry on same topic.
Successfully intelligent people DO NOT spend a lot of time trying to get good at something they stink at. They bring just enough awareness to their weaknesses so they don’t get their butts kicked and they spend all the rest of their time on what they rock at.
This is great stuff. Ties in with what you said on the Zymposium about moral obligation to get paid for giving your greatest gift to the world. I've just realised the same after spending 18 months painfully trying to be good at something I was crap at. (Doh, I'm a bit slow on the uptake here).
Thankfully I eventually came to my senses 2 months ago, sold the business to people who coud do a much better job, and am now focussing exclusively on my areas of genius. (I think Ken Wilber said something along the lines of “learning thrpough experience is one of the worst / slowest ways to learn”)
Just think, by putting this info out there you are increasing the chances that others will not go through the same grinder that I went through becuase your and Robert Sternbergs words of wisdom will hepl them make a better choice. Now that's cool.
Thanks.
hey james. what an awesome note.
thanks for your inspiration and support.
let's change ourselves, (that's going to be the slogan for thinkarete rather than “let's change the world” here at zaadz :)
-bri
love that wilber quote. gay hendricks says something similar. Much better to learn from wisdom than experience.
Brian - James.
Thanks for the inspirational thought …
I'll pass it to my best friend. We are arguing about this kind of issue, and he gave me the thought like James did.
Both of you really clear my mind ….
fantastic, t!