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Are You Too Smart to Succeed

Written by: Susana Lange

Article Overview: When we worked in our educational consulting business in Germany many years ago, parents came to us because their kids were not able to get the grades they wanted. When working with these children we saw the following scenario played out over and over again. These children weren’t slow learners or stupid, they were actually too smart. When taking an exam these brilliant students would see so many complex ways to answer test questions that their answers were far too complicated. The teachers who evaluated their test could not make sense of these advanced answers and the students received failing marks as a result. Similar to these children many business owners do not realize how much more they can accomplish when they simplify their thinking and focus only on one idea at a time.

Are You Too Smart to Succeed

When we worked in our educational consulting business in Germany many years ago, kids came to us because they were not able to get the grades they wanted. When working with them we saw the following scenario played out over and over again.

These children weren’t slow learners or stupid, they were actually too smart.

When taking an exam these brilliant students would see so many complex ways to answer test questions that their answers were far too complicated. The teachers who evaluated their test could not make sense of these advanced answers and the students received failing marks as a result.

These kids needed to learn how to simplify their thinking and how to answer questions the way teachers wanted them to.

When Working With Entrepreneurs and Business Owners We Wee the Same Phenomenon Repeated.

A very smart client thinks up a brilliant business idea. Then another one and then another one. Ideas just pour from their mind.

When they begin implementation they have even more ideas and all of a sudden they have hundreds of different directions they could potentially follow.

The list of to do items in their head increases. Sooner or later they feel so overwhelmed that they decide this business idea wasn’t good after all and they don’t further pursue it.

Brilliant school kids need to learn how to relate to the simple way a teacher wants certain questions answered.

Genius adults need to learn how to simplify their thinking too, so they can create structures that make their business successful too.


If Your Smartness is Getting the Best of You Try This Exercise

One exercise that is very effective in slowing your thinking down is an exercise taught by BrainGym® called Hook-Ups. Here’s how it works.

Stand up, cross your left ankle over the right and extend your arms. Cross your left wrist over your right wrist and interlace your fingers.

Draw your hands up towards your chest and hold that position for one minute. Breathe deeply and relax.

Do this exercise for a couple of minutes and you will find your thoughts slow down.


We See the Same Thing Over and Over Again

People use their smartness as a disadvantage rather than making their brilliance work for them. They often have no idea how much more they can achieve when they simplify their thinking and focus on implementing only one idea at a time. They completely under estimate their capabilities.

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Article Tags: brilliant business, brilliant school, brilliant students, business idea, business in germany, business owners, consulting business, educational consulting, exercise one, fingers, genius, hook ups, left ankle, phenomenon, school kids, slow learners, smart client, smartness, test questions, ups



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Re: Books for Business Owners - Hi DougSchadle, Thanks for sharing your favorite business book with us! A good book I'm reading now is "Maximum Achievement: Strategies and Skills That Will Unlock Your Hidden Powers to Succeed" by Brian Tracy as it was a birthday gift from a friend. Tracy's book is helpful in identifying what's important in your life and then setting an action plan to achieve it.
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Pitch Like A Girl: How a Woman Can Be Herself and Still Succ - Pitch Like A Girl: How a Woman Can Be Herself and Still Succeed Ronna Lichtenberg 2005 From the inside cover: "As a woman, you probably feel uncomfortable when it comes to promoting yourself and asking for what you want." WHAT IN THE HECK IS THIS, I asked myself when I read that. Women are the fastest growing business owners in the US and Canada, there are t housands of women executives and CEOs - though not as many as might be expected, admittedly, yet the book opens with this surely out of date stereotype. However, as she continued to give examples of women who had high paying jobs but were routinely not paid as much as men because it hadn't occurred to them to ask for raises, etc., I decided it was probably true for a majority of businesswomen... Anyway, more of the info from the jacket: "Other books have told you how to get what you want by being more like a guy. Pitch Like A Girl tells you why its an advantage to be who you are and how to do better by bringing more of yourself to work." The TOC: 1. Pink and Blue 2. The Quck-dry Chapter 3. What's In your head that's not in his 4. The Me, Inc Mindset 5. Visioning: Discover What You Really Want 6. Identifying Prospects 7. Pre-pitch homework and heartwork 8. Crafting the pitch 9. Pricing the pitch 10. Packaging the pitch 11. Delivering the pitch 12. Closing Conclusion A Word to the guys The Empathy Quotient The Systemizing Quotient Bibliography And on a side note - non-fiction books without indexes - of which this is one, annoy me.
Why women don't charge more - I just read a chapter in Pitch Like A Girl: How a Woman Can Be Herself and Still Succeed, by Ronna Lichtenberg that deals with this. THe chapter is called Pricing the Pitch. "In a WAll Street Journal article about what might be holding women back from corporate success, Terry Dal, a former vice president at Wells Fargo bank, said, "Good girls don't advertise; only prostitutes advertise. We feel dirty promoting ourselves." The author's advice: The first step in getting the money you desserve is to understand the market rate for your offering. Not what you think you need, not what they're willing to pay, but the going rate for similar goods and services offered in your area by someone with your skills and experience. Then, seek expert advice. "Men routinely consult lawyers, financial advisers, exxecutive recruiters and any other paid counselors to help them assess what constitutes a fair fee." Your research into going rates should not lead you to a single price for your pitch but rather a range of prices - both a market range and a personal range, which should overlap but won't necessarily be identical. In pricing, one size does not fit all. The final step in determining your price is to consider what you think you'd be paid for the same job if you were a man. The author also discusses why women usually discount their prices (must'n't appear too over-confident), the difference between discounting and "giving a discount", and other issues. I'd advise every woman wondering about what to charge to read at least this chapter of the book.


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