2021-03-10 A Highly Intelligent

There are significant reasons to size up a person’s mental acuity. For example, if you are taking advice, interviewing, or communicating, it helps to know what you are working with. Many of the best managers are excellent at reading their audience.

They Practice Intellectual Humility

I worked in finance and mostly hated it. However, one of the few perks was the people. The industry attracts and needs intelligent people. Consequently, hiring successful candidates mandated we get a quick read on them. Interviewing is tricky because everyone is putting their best foot forward and trying to sound smart, as perhaps they should.

Obvious Signs are Often a Valid Data Point

For example, people who refuse to social distance tend to be less intelligent. People who read in their free time skew smarter than those who don’t. Things that smart people tend to do, tend to be done by smarter people.

They are Meta, Literally

There is a newly popular phrase, “That is so meta.” Meta means something is self-referential. For example, a Medium article that is about Medium articles is meta. A video game where you play a character playing a video game is meta. The Onion famously did this with “World of World of Warcraft.”

They Know what Killed the Cat

Intelligent people tend to be curious. They have an itch to know more, to drill down on details, just for the sake of knowing. After all, that’s how we learn, right?