What makes smart people so interesting sometimes has less to do with their intelligence, and more to do with their weird habits that don’t look smart at all.
Talking to the wall
Listen to them explaining a problem. Chances are, they’ll start talking to absolutely nobody and talk out loud about the issue, like they have an audience. They don’t. It’s just that it makes more sense to them to speak about the problems instead.
An uncertain idea can live in your head for hours without you ever fixing it, but when you say it out loud, you’re forcing it to make some kind of sense. That’s exactly why smart people talk to themselves.
A messy first try
The perfect sentence doesn’t exist, and neither does the perfect plan. Smart people understand that. So, instead, they’ll write out an ugly version of it and deal with creating a better one later, whether that’s a sketch or a plan.
Other people think they’ve got to do things right the first time, but not smart people. They know they’ll be able to fix it later because, really, a blank page is way worse than an ugly page.Â
When winning isn’t the game
Nobody likes losing an argument, least of all smart people. But you might notice that they practice losing an argument before anyone else has started saying anything. What’s going on? Turns out, they’re trying to argue the opposite side and learn about the flaws in their thinking.
They want to know exactly what they’re missing so they can better understand their position. They’d rather figure out alone that their argument falls apart after two questions, rather than figuring it out in public. That’s just embarrassing.Â
No velvet-rope words
They might explain things in a weird way. Not in a wrong way, but just in a strange way, one that doesn’t involve any industry terms or jargon. They’ll test themselves to explain a difficult idea in simple words because they think it’ll show they actually understand it.
It’s genuinely harder than it looks. As long as they can talk about it in a childish way, they’re good. If they can’t, then that means they don’t really understand it, so it’s back to the drawing board until they do.
A page only they understand
Their notes are scruffy. At least, that’s how they seem to be, since there are arrows and boxes everywhere, as well as some stars in odd places. It’s not something anybody can read, and that’s kind of the point, since it’s meant to be a playground for ideas.
Smart people know that experimenting with odd ideas can help them develop more concrete, and better, ones later. It’s okay that an arrow doesn’t make sense right now. It will later, or at least they hope it will, because there’s no guarantee.
Still sitting there
You might see their desk and see a bunch of broken items, like a cracked pen and a dead remote. It’s easy to think it’s just trash. However, the truth is that they’re keeping those items around for a while to understand what actually went wrong.
They want to know what exactly it was that made the charger come loose and what it was that busted the toy. It’s not like they need to fix these things or anything. They only want to know what it was that broke them in the first place.
The ugly sample folder
Smart people have a tendency to hold onto bad work as much as good work. No, they’re not trying to score points by pointing out how bad it is, but instead, they want to learn from those mistakes. It doesn’t even need to be their own work.
Bad menus and confusing signs stay in their portfolios, too, because they know they could easily end up making those mistakes. Better to learn from these errors than end up making them yourself.
The sudden pause
They’re not being rude when they close their eyes during a conversation. It might feel weird, sure, but they’re not doing it because they’re bored with you or anything. They’re simply trying to get the right wording before it slips away.
Any distractions from faces and hand movements don’t exactly help with that, so they close their eyes to block it all out. They’re genuinely making sure they say what they mean to.
Nothing on purpose
Boredom doesn’t sound like something smart people would be interested in. But they are. In fact, they’ll deliberately make themselves bored sometimes by avoiding going on their phone or running pointless errands. They force themselves to sit.
That’s all, just sit, in silence, just themselves and their own thoughts. It makes them start really thinking about things, without anything competing for their attention, and that’s when the best ideas usually come about.
Whatever is nearby
The thought shows up. Immediately, smart people will grab the nearest thing they can write with and start scribbling their ideas down. Doesn’t matter that it’s on a receipt, doesn’t matter that it’s on the back of a bill. What’s more important to them right now is getting the idea down.
Intelligent people know just how quickly a good idea can disappear. That’s why they’d rather scribble their thoughts down when they come, instead of trying to do things the ‘proper way.’
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.
