All my life I heard from people "you're so smart, you have so much potential, but you need to try" while I failed through school due to challenges focusing, and, frankly, giving a shit. In the end, I carried this "you're so smart, but" attitude around with me to both my benefit and detriment.

I have no CS degree but have elbowed my way (often with a distinct lack of grace, in retrospect) into the industry as a software developer. I now somehow work at a place that prides itself on intense meritocracy, famous for its grueling elitist interviews .... and the impostor syndrome is intense. But when I look around, most of the people around me do not seem so much 'more intelligent' as 'more adapted for the school-grades / work-politics system' which the interview process / promo process selects for.

To me intelligence and smartness are clearly cultural phenomenon. Yes some people are more adapted to certain types of intellectual activity, but whether those things are 'smart' or not is questionable to me.

As a parent I often get frustrated with myself when I instinctually reward my children with comments like "you're so smart". Unfortunately they struggle with focusing, behavioural compliance, etc. in similar ways to me, while their intellectual and artistic curiosity is intense -- I know they have a long uphill battle ahead of them.