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My old therapist (who literally saved my life fwiw) made me go through a series of IQ tests and I also received a similar score (141). At the time, he was attempting to prove that I had intelligence, and that I was smarter than I gave myself credit for. But the thing that I noticed was that it actually spun me in the opposite direction - when I thought I wasn't smart I could explain away the lack of motivation or success or whatever. When it was "proven" that I was "intelligent", I just felt like more of a failure. I had this big brain that I was barely using.

I'm glad I know, because it feels good to know I guess. But I don't think that making me take that test really moved the needle for me in terms of self worth or success or anything like that. I had to figure my shit out via other methods (while working with that therapist). I suppose the point of this message is only to say that I empathize with your situation.

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A lot of my teachers... and one of my parents... made this mistake with me. "You're so smart, why are you unable to do X ??". Which only made me feel as if I was dumb.

Obviously, my teachers and parents were raising me the best they thought was possible, but I think they were mistaken with this strategy.

I read a blogpost that really spoke to me: NEVER tell a child that they are smart, or dumb. Frankly, it doesn't matter. If they are unable to do X, tell them "You are unable to do X", no if-and-or-buts about it. Tell them you expect them to be able to do X, but in a way that doesn't bring up "intelligence" or "general performance".

Its something I strive for with the next generation: my little cousins or nephews (no kids of my own yet) will be told what my expectations of them are, but I try to avoid the "intelligence trap" when talking with them.

You're totally right.

"Mindset" by Dr Carol Dweck is probably the most important book (research) on this topic. A must-read for anyone pretending to educate kids, actually to anyone period.

funny you say that because growth mindset seems to be one of the clearest examples of modern feel-good science.

invariably when a topic about intelligence gets posted we need someone to come around with an IQ around the 140 mark (I have no reason to doubt they are being honest fwiw) to tell us how because they personally failed, genetic intelligence is really unimportant (smarter rebuttals acknowledge that genetics plays a major role in intelligence, but that IQ is a really poor proxy of this, which is debatable).

this ultimately culminates in Almost Everyone Can Be Good At Almost Everything If They Try Hard With A Good Minset, The Growth Mindset. the science is weak. it's baffling how her book can be a "must-read".

https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/04/08/no-clarity-around-grow...

https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/05/07/growth-mindset-4-growt...

https://www.buzzfeed.com/tomchivers/what-is-your-mindset

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Dweck#Criticism

edit: this article only addresses MENSA members, so i think this submission is bad. most well-adjusted intelligent people want nothing to do with MENSA. so even the claims of the submission are questionable.

Credible sources, please? Buzzfeed and a Wordpress blog don't lend much credence.

judge the articles based on their merits. they're not hiding their sources, you can go check the study of 5,000 british students if you want to read it yourself.

ironic because you'd think that if buzzfeed was as bad as its reputation, being a left-leaning outlet, it would be reasonable to assume they'd be in favor of growth mindset.

Imagine two worlds. In one world all people are completely and absolutely identical and unable to change themselves in any meaningful way. In the other world people are all completely identical, but able to radically reshape themselves as they see fit.

In one world an individuals actions and decisions would largely determine their outcome. In the other world things completely outside of an individual's control would be the primary determining factors in their outcome.

One of these worlds would imply the need for systems directly subsidizing those who fail to achieve. In the other world, poor outcomes would be attributable in large part to poor decisions. The latter scenario doesn't necessarily preclude a subsidization of those who fail to succeed, but it makes it a much more tenuous proposition.

Oddly enough, slatestarcodex is considered a highly reputable source.

I reccommend checking the sources given in the blog post.

I had no idea the book was so much of a "thing", its name and principles are basically inexistent here (France and nearby countries). People either feel they "are" smart or not, and believe it's forever. More strikingly it's about logical intelligence (IQ), as if that was the major deciding factor for success (it's really not). Hence why I always try to mention Dr Dweck (especially for kids).

I trust you've done your research so this isn't a rebuttal — merely a surprised observation. You probably have too much of it in the US (and indeed too much of even a good thing can hurt) whereas we have way too little of it in the EU (at least the "Latin" world).

100% agreed on Mensa (we don't have that here but even I know it's almost a scam).

Most interesting people I've ever met.

I would almost suggest Josh Waitzkin’s book “The Art Of Learning” instead of Dr. Dweck’s as his speaks through first-hand experience of the two mindsets while being a child prodigy.

I'll definitely check it out, then. Thanks for the pointer!

I would argue the contrary. France is heavy imprinted with socialism and ideas such as "everything is cultural". There is strong social backlash for even implying that intelligence is (mostly) genetics. The political implications are too strong, in particular for the "vivre ensemble" fantasy.

The whole education system is built around the idea that everyone is the same and could success if they work hard enough, which has seriously bad consequences such as universities filled with people who don’t belong there (this is becoming worth and worth as the bar is lowered constantly in lower education). There is shaming about trade schools in most of the country, despite it being a way to succeed and filling jobs needed by society. There is specialized schools and sections for low IQ people but not for higher ones. You better be average to fit and "succeed" at school.

> France is heavy imprinted with socialism and ideas such as "everything is cultural". There is strong social backlash for even implying that intelligence is (mostly) genetics.

As a french, I would argue that there is "public" backlash - e.g. in newspapers, etc. - but in private life most people would agree with OP. France is by far not a socialist country - here are the last (2015) regional election results : blue is right-wing, black far-right, pink and red, left-wing :

http://referentiel.nouvelobs.com/file/13820492.jpg

For Americans it could be called a socialist country, take into account that the parties we call right-wing in most European countries propose economic policies that are to the left of America's mainstream left. In fact, probably even Le Pen is to the left of America's mainstream left in terms of worker's policies.

Exactly. The political landscape is really skewed towards left, but to realize that you need to live abroad and expose yourself to other ideas. All political parties basically are 50 shades of left. Marine Le Pen ideas are qualified as the absolute evil in France while far stronger ideas (the one held by the real far-right, represented by Zemmour & MMLP) are totally normal in other places of the world. Take Japan for instance, where death penalty is approved by 60% of the population, criminals are actually sentenced to jail and immigration is severely restricted. This doesn’t make it a fascist state and it’s actually a really good place to live.

I didn't actually mean to discuss what's normal and what's skewed, and much less what's better or what's worse, but just to state a quite objective fact (that even the rightmost parties in Europe are to the left of American mainstream left) without sparking controversy. But I'll bite.

The Japan example is true (although they do have serious social issues), but the fact is that European countries utterly dominate most list of the best places to live. See for example

http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/best-countries-to...

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/quality-of-life-r...

https://ceoworld.biz/2019/04/11/best-quality-of-life-2019/

where most of the countries in the top ten are European, with special predominance of particularly leftist countries like the Nordic countries. And at least the first two are American sources (not sure about the location of the third one).

> Almost Everyone Can Be Good At Almost Everything If They Try Hard With A Good Minset

The thing here is that many people are convinced that "I just cant learn X at all", so they wont even try. And when they do actualy try, they can become at minimum alright, probably decent and maybe good at X. You see that on both kids and adults.

That is where growth mindset comes from.

Will everybody be next Beethoven, Michelangelo, Knuth or win the olympic? No. Can healthy person learn to play piano, draw a portrait, write a python script or learn to swim? Absolutely yes.

The article does mention that point about MENSA:

"It’s also possible that people who join Mensa differ from other people in ways other than just IQ."

That’s probably quite true, too. I personally found the idea of Mensa the organization unattractive at best, and haven’t much enjoyed the little time I spent with its members.

You weren't dumb, you were ignorant and ignorance can be overcome and more likely so if you are high IQ. In asking, "why can't you do x?" what they were really saying was, "I know this child has the capacity to understand this material but I don't have the power to help them do that." It wasn't about you. It was about them.

Children don't understand that. Children internalize everything. They blame themselves and you blamed yourself.

I would say that compliments can cut both ways. If a gifted student or child is encouraged in a productive way it can have a magnifying effect on outcomes but I think that has to be balanced with the understanding that social, emotional, and physical skills are completely orthogonal. Work ethic is also completely orthogonal.

But you know, we do this too with other natural gifts. My exceptionally tall friends were constantly encouraged to enter sports like basketball. Tall people are built up emotionally through compliments that they receive on a daily basis from people. I would say it's not necessarily bad to compliment smart people for being smart.

I was a short scrawny kid growing up and I was bullied but I definitely took solace in the fact that I had a higher IQ than most people.

Anecdote is not the singular of data and all that, but I am exceptionally tall as well (would be in at least the top third or so of most NBA rosters) and yet was not encouraged to play sports as a child, largely due to my anxiety exacerbated at least somewhat by not having any extra money for luxuries like joining sports teams.

That is to say, I fucking hate having to say "no" every time (and it happens at least once every couple weeks) I am asked if or where I played basketball.

I'm also somewhere around 3 std dev above average IQ (mid 130s if I look at SAT equivalents, ~150 if GRE) and experienced the "but you're so good at school, why don't you like it" stuff.

In both cases, physical and... mental feels wrong, but it's the best word I've got, I feel as though I have wasted huge gifts. I don't take solace in any of it.

And since I'm full of anecdotes tonight, your bullying comment made me remember another. I had a target on my back for bullying due to my size I believe, everyone wanted to take a shot. I once got gang tackled by about 5/6 football players when I was 16 - the resultant slamming of my right knee into the tile floor means it will be my "trick" knee for the rest of my life. So, the size didn't give me a pass - if anything it made me stand out more. YMMV and all that.

Nobody asks me if I play any sports at all, ever. Because I have unremarkable physical traits.

A lot of people will just stream their consciousness in the case that they observe a trait that they wish they had. It's a projection, but it's also a tell.

Is it the anxiety that makes you feel wrong for receiving compliments?

> I would say it's not necessarily bad to compliment smart people for being smart.

Why? Why to do you think this? Could you provide your sources. Here's a source for the opposite: https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/06/the-s-...

Not on something completely subjective like this, no I'm not going to provide sources. It's my personal opinion from my own personal experience. And no, the existence of an alternative point-of-view in a blog post does not invalidate my personal experience.

If you excel in any other trait, people will acknowledge it and praise you for it, especially visual traits. Beauty, height, strength, speed, endurance, etc. Intelligence, by contrast, is rarely acknowledged. It's not as easily discerned. Confidence is an important part of achieving your best potential. Learning to accept compliments with grace is an important skill for life. Giving yourself such compliments is even more important.

Obviously smart people need to understand that their intelligence does not protect them from being wrong or delusional or failure. That's an important part of growing up and maturing for any human though.

The use of language extends beyond smart/dumb and includes concepts of good/bad.

I found that a lot of concepts of child-rearing overlaps with management, but with different labels. My grad-level Nursing Ethics class discussed qualities of a nursing leader, that employees need to made to feel personal worth. I made the link with ideas expressed by Mr. Rogers and on Sesame Street.

I never got my IQ tested or if I did I never learned the result or didn't care enough to remember it, but I did pretty well on standardized tests (e.g. great scores on SAT and ACT with no prep) and people were always saying I was smart. Usually it was something like this: I was obviously capable of doing the work, so why didn't I? I was an absolutely abysmal student all the way through college, though I did graduate.

To be honest I have been pretty successful despite that, but I don't feel like I'm as smart as people were always trying to convince me I was, or at least I have a different sort of intelligence from the sort of thing they were implying, and I definitely have a complex now where I don't like to expose myself to failure. I guess there was not much else to praise about me except for my apparent general intelligence, but I wish they'd come up with something. I was, I think, a friendly, creative, thoughtful kid? But that's not enough, is it?

You probably have ADHD. You should look into it, it might help you understand yourself.

That's a good thought. ADHD's an executive function failure and does not necessarily come with hyperactivity.

This thread made me think. Some of the symptoms of ADD seem to describe much of my behavior to a shocking precision, mostly lack of executive function. But I wasn't hyperactive so I wasn't sure it applied to me. Still, I lose track of time when working on projects I enjoy. That doesn't even invalidate the progress I make on them, but the act of me deciding to work on them on a whim and forgetting everything else until I'm too tired to go on is a very common occurrence for me.

At a young age my parents were told by someone I did not have AD(H)D. I believed them. But later when I was living on my own I felt his methodology lacked credibility. (He was a person who called his treatment "turbo-drive psychotherapy" and dismissed questions about its effectiveness, calling them "pooh-poohing the next generation of technology". Not really someone who would want to hold an intellectual dialogue).

Looking back on it in the present I realized that if my parents were going to tell me I was or wasn't X or Y at that age, I was going to believe them - for as long as they were physically around to assert it. It had always felt wrong to disagree. For various reasons I had internalized that argument was not a means to find truth but instead an unreasonable risk when you could be locked in a closet for it.

I'm not sure what being diagnosed today would do for me since it wouldn't change any of that. Though it could give some more clarity to my past.

I think if I were going to be diagnosed with a mental disorder it would most appropriately be GAD, though it's said to be a common comorbidity of ADHD so who knows. I practice mindfulness, which helps a little when things get bad.

I go back and forth on it, though, because (as I mentioned) I've been successful in "real life" without any kind of psych treatment and looking back on my childhood "bad" decisions that were held up as evidence of my badness and the necessity of medicating me, e.g. neglecting my summer homework in favor of playing outside every day, I have to say that a lot of them (including that one) were great decisions. The worst thing was that the world was unwilling to let me be a child, and the best thing was that I said fuck you to the world and was a child anyway. Big thanks to mom and dad for not normalizing me with psychotropic drugs—I truly believe a lot of people can benefit from them, and I also believe they would have stolen something from me that could never be repaid.

What if the world had simply accepted me for the person I was? There would have been no need, then, to engineer some misguided praise in the hope of turning me into something that I wasn't. I don't practically expect the world to be fair, nor to supply a weirdly-shaped hole for every weirdly-shaped peg, but I'm not sure it's best to reach for the DSM-5 whenever such a peg appears.

   Big thanks to mom and dad for not normalizing 
   me with psychotropic drugs—I truly believe a lot 
   of people can benefit from them, and I also believe 
   they would have stolen something from me that could 
   never be repaid.

Amen. Medication would have made some things easier but would, I think, have robbed me of some things as well.

I had to come up with tons of strategies to work around ADHD and/or anxiety or whatever the hell it was. Because I literally didn't know what those things were, and I went through school before ADHD diagnoses started to really boom. Would I have used ADHD as a crutch? I honestly don't know. I can honestly say I'd have been tempted to.

I wish that childhood had been easier, and I had known that I wasn't "lazy or crazy."

Frankly I wish I could have just had therapy and a life coach for that stuff, rather than meds. Teach me to fish, don't hand me a fish.

I think we're very similar. I've been pretty successful in my life (I'm only 29 so there's plenty of time for critical failure), but the way I observe the value that I add to my workplace and peers is totally different from what I see others doing. I know that I'm smart, that I'm creative, and that I can solve complex problems. I struggle with a lot of "basic" things, like reading a whole paragraph before diving into solving a (the wrong) problem, or speaking so fast I mix up or jam words together.

I also have just a crippling fear of failure, so bad that I just never do anything that really tests my abilities. I failed an Amazon interview 10 years ago and I can't bring myself to give a fair shot to most tech companies.

It's also rough knowing as I type these words on this website that they may come back to haunt me, but I suppose in this moment I'm willing to commit to being honest.

> I also have just a crippling fear of failure, so bad that I just never do anything that really tests my abilities. I failed an Amazon interview 10 years ago and I can't bring myself to give a fair shot to most tech companies.

Let me give you a kick in the ass. You failed an Amazon interview when you were 19? For me, the difference between 19 and 29 was the difference between being a kid with literally zero practical skills, in college but not studying anything with "computer" in the name, and being an adult with the ability to walk into FAANMG^[1] interviews, pass them, and survive mostly-happily in the caustic environments therein.

Though it will be work, and you may encounter setbacks, you are ready for your next step. I completely relate to the feeling that despite knowing you are smart, creative, and able to solve complex problems, you're somehow still not good enough to get hired, but it's all in your head. You should not be worrying about whether you can get hired, but rather where you want to get hired, if getting hired is even the thing you really want to do.

> It's also rough knowing as I type these words on this website that they may come back to haunt me, but I suppose in this moment I'm willing to commit to being honest.

I've found that "being vulnerable" can be an effective tool for building rapport, as long as you don't get too weird. Anyway, I certainly wouldn't worry about anything you've said here.

^[1] Not to say I attach any particular value to these companies, but their interviews are generally accepted to be on the challenging side.

Hey Alex. I'm starting a YouTube channel where I do mock tech interviews and then provide feedback afterward, the goal is to show everyone what a hiring manager is looking for and to help you see a clearer perspective about how you present during an interview. Is this something you're interested in? I'd love to set you up with one.

Hi, I'm not Alex but I posted earlier up this comment chain. I'd be interested!

    I did pretty well on standardized tests (e.g. great 
    scores on SAT and ACT with no prep) and people were
    always saying I was smart. Usually it was something 
    like this: I was obviously capable of doing the work, 
    so why didn't I?

I experienced this as well. I think many did!

Two explanations come to mind. I think both of them are probably true to some degree for many people.

1. High intelligence does not always equate to high executive functioning. Lots of smart people have trouble focusing on things they don't want to do, and that focus is generally a requirement for people who become "high achievers" by society's traditional standards.

2a. Those standardized tests only cover certain sorts of intelligence. My brother did well on those tests, but I did quite a bit better. Yet I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is at least my equal if not my better when it comes to smarts. It's just that those tests tended to cover things that weren't his strengths. In my case I feel like perhaps those tests may have painted a too-rosy picture of my intelligence since they catered to some of my strengths.

Look at inattentive ADHD, a.k.a ADD. Lots of adults going around undiagnosed

I'd like to add to not saying "you're so smart," you should say "wow it looks like you worked really hard at that." Makes the kid realize that's what's important, the effort.

But is it the case in life that effort is always rewarded? No. Look you can invest an incredible amount of effort into constructing a bridge. If it collapses and kills people, nobody cares about how much effort went into it. It was a faulty design.

Human civilization is advanced by working smarter, not harder.

I disagree on "effort counts".

In practice and in the work place, the only thing that matters is if you get your work done or not. You can spend a lot of effort on things and get almost nothing done... I know programmers who spent 2+ years on custom unit-testing solutions (and I guess management never noticed this guy was spinning his wheels on something that has been solved in multiple github projects or something...)

Just because he put a lot of work in doesn't mean that other engineers respected his work or even he got anything done. All it means is that he wasted 2-years on the project.

That's real life.

This therapist had some interesting methods, most of which I think did me a ton of good. We talked a lot about the fallacies of "motivation" and "discipline", which are both just carrot-sticks people use to beat themselves up for not doing things they don't _really_ want to do, but wish they did.

We talked a lot about how literally no one on earth is capable of seeing an understanding your flaws as well as you, but also most humans on earth are infinitely less interested. The lens you view yourself with is totally unrelated to the lens with which the rest of the world sees you; you'll drive yourself insane if you think you and the world interpret you the same.

The point is, I think he did a phenomenal job at blasting my self deprecating brain into reality, but his initial spin of "Stop treating yourself like you're an idiot, because you're not and I can prove it" was just a slight misstep.

After reading both of your posts, are you sure it was a misstep? Maybe realizing that you were intelligent did hurt in the short term, but was a necessary step towards improving your attitude in the long term?

Obviously I'm just theorizing from my armchair and don't know more than you about this, or want to be agreed with, it's just that your post sparked my interest and I'd like to know more because my hunch is that removing excuses to not change oneself is generally a reasonable thing to do, even if it can hurt in the short term. In fact, it kind of worked for me to improve myself in the past (not regarding intelligence or academic/professional achievements, but other aspects of life). Maybe it depends on the particular person and situation?

I'd love to believe it was the right move because I'd love to continue giving this therapist more credit, but I'm not sure.

It' might've helped things looking forward, but looking backward I think it wasn't great. As in, "I am so smart and yet thus far have accomplished nothing." So, maybe that's a debt to be paid, and once paid a person is able to move forward at a better trajectory than before? That might make sense to me.

>We talked a lot about how literally no one on earth is capable of seeing an understanding your flaws as well as you, but also most humans on earth are infinitely less interested. The lens you view yourself with is totally unrelated to the lens with which the rest of the world sees you; you'll drive yourself insane if you think you and the world interpret you the same.

What was the lesson you learned specifically from this?

I would describe myself as destructively critical of myself. My body, my work performance, the things I say, the way I say them, pretty much everything. So, as an example, if you misspoke while talking to someone, the lesson was "Don't spend two days destroying yourself about one minor slip up, for certain nobody noticed and if they did they didn't really care."

You're aware of your flaws because they're a part of you, but that doesn't mean that anyone else notices them.

> you misspoke while talking to someone "Don't spend two days destroying yourself about one minor slip up."

Thought this was just me...

However good at a given thing you are probably depends on whether you form custom internal imagery or audio that helps you be better at that thing. Maybe a way to think about it is that analytical thinking can do a lot, but it can't do what someone can do when they are visualizing with imagery, internally.

If anyone is into Yoga, or Yogachara, the way they put it is that internal formations (imagination or historic image/sound data/logging ala Parakalpita) represents one type of thinking (which everyone does not necessarily do) and analytical or "thinking mind" represents another type of thinking which everyone does, but may not be their primary mode.

From a few of my interviews about this topic:

- Old business acquaintance can visualize 2D seismic data in augmented reality 3D. He can literally see underground in his mind in front of him in his office.

- Musically inclined acquaintance (singer) can hear all the accompaniment music for performances in her mind.

- Guy who designed my kitchen can see my kitchen in his head.

    "You're so smart, why are you unable to do X ??". 
    Which only made me feel as if I was dumb.

Yeah, I got this a lot. It reflects such an outdated way of thinking about intelligence - that it's just a single number.

You can be superintelligent in general, and bad at lots of specific things. Or even bad at most things! It's not a contradiction in the slightest.

I think that IQ has become less and less emphasized over the years, and that's a good thing. It has some utility, IMO, but a lot of care needs to be taken when it comes to applying it to... well, anything.

My own theory is that really bad decisions often require a degree of intelligence as they are often driven by sheer hubris rather than calm logical thinking.

Just because you're intelligent doesn't mean you're not irrational. Having intelligence is pretty meaningless except in IQ tests and similar puzzles. Applying your intelligence effectively is what it's all about.

Having intelligence is quite important. Otherwise you have a higher propensity to react with emotions and do irrational things.

See : Modern society

Having intelligence in most cases just means you're better at post-hoc justification of your emotionally-driven decisions.

Agreed, however those who arent intelligent repeat the same emotional responses over and over. Intelligence gives you the possibility of changing that, unintelligent dont have that possibility.

I'm not so sure high intelligence really protects you from reacting with emotions or act irrationally. Plenty of intelligent people can still react very emotionally or even irrationally. Though I suppose reacting intellectually has a higher pay-off for them than for most.

This makes sense. You can make terrible personal decisions (ie, starting a meth habit, fighting a bear) at any intelligence level.

But to make poor decisions on a scale that affects many others, you generally need the intelligence to rise to some level of power.

(There are of course exceptions, like starting a brushfire, etc)

I liken it to being tall. Some people are tall. They can do things more easily than others. No one says that height is a myth.

People get really defensive around intelligence though. Everyone wants to be at least average if not above average. If they can't claim it in one area, they'll try to redefine intelligence to include themselves. And we do have the habit of mistaking institutional knowledge for intelligence.

I can't agree with this at all.

Height is an objective and one-dimensional measure. It measures your ability to do a single thing: reach objects that are farther off of the ground.

I think we really do humanity a disservice if we define intelligence that way. The brain is capable of so many other things.

Surely you have known people who were bright (or brilliant) in some areas and lacking in others.

I've met people who were more or less knowledgeable in certain areas, yes. I've met people who were more or less skilled in certain areas, yes.

But for people who I would consider as intelligent, it's not a result of just knowledge. Or just skills.

I would trust their ability to "get" concepts they've been previously ignorant of relatively quickly. The wheels just spin faster.

And a lot like height, there's diminishing returns and what not. I can get a step ladder, then being tall is just a fact. Being intelligent can help you get a concept quicker, but once we both understand it, there's no effective difference.

But no one gets defensive about height. Or strength. Or anything with visible qualifiers. Which is funny, because intelligent people are better at thinking in the abstract and intelligence and the results of it are abstract.

I have a stepson who is bright like I sure many of us where.

I try never to reward results directly, only effort.

If the results are reward for effort then they are earns.

It too me a decade to undo the damage from always been told I was bright and never learning good habits for studying/persistence.

It’s just damn lucky that I enjoyed programming enough that I stuck with it and it became a career because otherwise I’d be earning a lot less.

> If the results are reward for effort then they are earns.

Too much of that "focus on the effort" and you end up with a generation of bureaucrats - people that are good at miming processes and posturing but not capable of producing anything of actual value. Society doesn't care about the efforts, it cares about results. No matter how much neurosurgery you studied, if a patient dies at your table no family member will reward you for your "effort".

> It too me a decade to undo the damage from always been told I was bright and never learning good habits for studying/persistence.

The issue is not then about being result-vs-effort focus. The issue here is that unfortunately you didn't get people to push you for your best and to get out of your comfort zone.

> Too much of that "focus on the effort" and you end up with a generation of bureaucrats

The best things in life typically reward effort spent with incremental results, which come with their own dopamine rush. It's something I wish I had been made to understand at a much earlier age.

Here's a short list: - Cooking - Playing an instrument - Singing - Painting - Drawing - Writing - Learning (..a language, a new skill, etc) - Developing and maintaining valuable social and romantic relationships into adulthood - Any and all sports - Crafting - Raising children

The goal obviously isn't to maximize effort, it's simply to reinforce the link between effort and results and help the child understand that they can coast off their natural abilities (as we all have/do), but if they want to improve or excel in something that they enjoy then it will take real effort.

I don't want us to talk past one another. My only issue with parent's post is that "focusing on the effort as its own reward" is going too much to the other extreme. "Rewarding for the effort" seems to me just as misguided as "praising for being smart", that's all.

I don’t see much wrong with rewarding for outcome. That’s how adults seem to work - your boss praises you for getting stuff done, not for being bright or putting effort in. You have to avoid the trap of only praising for PERFECT outcome, rather than incremental steps towards perfection, but I know I feel best being praised for a tangible thing I achieved rather than intangible intelligence or effort.

(Well, some bosses try to praise for effort but I’ve always found it to be really patronising or a barely-disguised attempt to get you to work overtime.)

> A lot of my teachers... and one of my parents... made this mistake with me. "You're so smart, why are you unable to do X ??"

Maybe I was fortunate that my parents are also smart. My dad once shared that he completely understood that we (his kids) struggled so much with finishing university and finishing the stuff we worked on. He had many of the same problems (though he did finish his PhD). He never managed to teach me that discipline to follow through and get stuff done, though. But at least I wasn't judged and made to feel dumb for it.

My oldest son again has the same traits of high intelligence and extreme laziness. I'm trying to teach him better ways to handle this. I try to emphasize the importance of doing the work, doing homework, finishing projects, focus, and sometimes just doing what is necessary whether you like it or not. I try to de-emphasize intelligence without making him feel dumb. He knows he's smart, and he knows it a little too well in my opinion, but I try to praise him for the things he does, rather than for how smart he is. I try to challenge his intelligence, but also try to steer him towards things that aren't about IQ, like art or sports. (He's not interested though; he mostly just wants to play Minecraft and build beautiful houses and complex machinery there. Close enough, I guess.)

Make sure he has "long" minecraft machinery projects then.

Similar boat for me, but in my case it was that everyone else then raised their expectations. Because if you're "gifted" or whatever term they use these days, clearly you should be accomplishing amazing things constantly and if you don't you're a disappointment to the world at large. That kind of burden is pretty awful for most kids to grow up with.

I was in gifted classes growing up, but it felt like a big fraud. I never really did any of the work, so my grades were always mediocre at best. But then testing came around and I'd score in the top %s, and continue to get placed in classes I wasn't willing to work hard enough to succeed at. It was this treadmill of failure and shame. It was really really awful, but my mom always said if I placed that high I had to take those classes, so I just kept going. It was definitely a pretty damaging process.

This is me. Did you at least become a software engineer?

I did. I've been employed as an eng for 8 years.

It had the opposite effect on me.

I began to feel guilty for wasting my intelligence. I knew my older brother was at least as smart as me, and fell into an addiction cycle early on, so I was determined to not follow in his footsteps.

Granted, I still went on to slack off and spend 7 years as an undergrad, but it payed off in the end.

> When it was "proven" that I was "intelligent", I just felt like more of a failure

Sounds like you're smart enough to always find an argument for hating yourself :)

There is a reason I am in therapy :)

To be fair, I work in finance and the people who are successful are often pretty "stupid". (CAs, I am looking at you.) Whatever it is that an IQ test scores, it doesn't score for success in business or in "life".

In order for this not to be a useless post, FWIW: most mathematicians that I know and that are highly regarded would not do well in IQ tests, I would think. The clever ones solve problems and move on; the pioneers are less clever, more committed and more random, idiosyncratic.

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