Mona's Soup

Some thoughts I've been pondering regarding smart people. In the law profession there are many people who have large degrees and in very important professional positions. Working with these people has been a challenge and very educational.

Transitioning from over 20 years as a Mother and housewife into the world of law in Chicago has been a cultural change. Added to the stress of change the need to learn an unspoken language defined by networking, appearance, and position. Going back to school, learning new ways of thinking and looking at the world has made me question the foundation of my reality.  People I come in contact with on a daily bases have high end degrees, tons of education and work experience, plus positions of power within their field of work,  however they do not function well with others or themselves. This duality in education and power with the lack of virtue and emotional maturity has been interesting and a challenge to deal with. My emotional maturity has been challenged along with the struggle to learn how to live in a large city within a culture that is very alien to me. I did some research on smart people because I want to be smart. I found out that what our culture thinks smart is may not translate into practical daily living or living smart. I thought this little note would be funny and instead it turned out kind of snarky. <a href="http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/snarky"&gt;Define: Snarky</a>

1. Smart people do not think they can be fooled because they are so smart. If you tell them how smart they are and use lots of smart ideas and words you can sell them just about anything. You know, like the war on terror, lots of cool terms being thrown around on that deal. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence"&gt;Define: Intelligence</a>

2. If I sound very clever around smart people they think I am smart as well. I'm not very smart, I just memorized some stuff that sounds really cool.

3. I can use lots of technical jargon, throw names and dates around and have a couple really cool communication gadgets in my purse smart people really think I am cool and really smart.

4. Smart people do not like to admit they do not know anything about a topic that may be under discussion. If smart people are not saying anything in our conversation it may not mean I am boring them. The smart person may not have a clue what I am talking about. So instead of asking questions they tune me out, run over me in a conversation, or walk away. I catch myself doing this as well. Maybe I am a smart person too!

5. If it sounds clever it must be true!

6. Really smart people can do really hard things but that is not always a good thing. Smart folks can put to much emphasis on their intellect and forget about their virtues.

7. Smart people can talk themselves into anything and they used to be able to do the same with me. I've inoculated myself, I know smart people may not make the best choices in business, projects, or relationships. I am not that smart so being persuasive has not been a strong point for me. However, I can slow the overly intellectual group or person down because I simply can't think very fast or come up with ideas quickly. I act kind of like an anchor for a group of really smart people. They can't fly off on all sorts of smart ideas and get lost because I can't fly as high or fast as they can.

8. Smart people think they are smart because that is what other people have told them. Maybe they are not as smart as they think they are. <a href="http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-secret-to-raising-smart-kids&amp;amp;print=true"&gt;Smart Kids</a>

9. Smart people can come up with solutions to conflicts, diseases, concerns, and problems you don't actually have yet. It is really easy to think about all the things that could happen and then resolve them even if there really wasn't a problem to begin with. Although there may be issues that are real, stopping to address these problems may cause loss of control and or stop them in their tracks.

10. If smart people don't know there is a problem it means there is no problem. If you try and give a solution to what is obviously not a problem, the solution will never fly. It is literally impossible to solve a problem with someone who does not think there is a problem even if the problem is very real and in their face.

11. Use statistics, they can be tweaked to support your point of view, smart people do this all the time.

12. If smart people think someone is not as smart as they are, it is hard to work on problems together because they always have the best solutions because they are so smart. There may be alternative solutions, however if these solutions don't measure up to a smart persons analysis your solution will never fly, even though it might be the best way to resolve the problem.

To be continued