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Intelligence Has Way Less to do with Success Than Other Factors

I wrote a post with basically the same title and premise back in January 2019 and, funny enough, I just read it as part of my regular review of old posts.

Today I’m going to present a bit of a different perspective, though it’s the same at heart.

I don’t want to give away enough details to identify this person, but I recently was thinking about how hard it is to work with someone in my life. And I put some thought into why that is.

This person isn’t dumb and isn’t unfriendly, but they are incredibly ineffective in a lot of ways. The primary reasons seem to be:

  • Lack of accountability
  • Lack of a system to organize tasks that need to be done
  • Inability to think critically and develop novel solutions
  • A sense that things outside their normal scope of care are either unimportant or outside of their control
  • General lack of initiative
  • Total lack of follow-through

These are all things that most people struggle with at some point or another. And none of them really have anything to do with intelligence (though it can help a bit).

But in the case of this person, I would say that these are the reasons they are difficult to work with and also are likely causes for any failures or lack of success they’ve had elsewhere, as well.

It could be totally different for everyone, but these are the main things I’ve seen with this person.

Everyone starts out with tons of weaknesses. Some affect them more than others. Intelligence might help solve some of those problems or improve those weaknesses, but by itself, it won’t accomplish anything.

I’m thinking now that the single most-important traits (or group of traits) is probably the ability to accurately reflect on one’s own weaknesses and to effectively improve or compensate for them.

Essentially, it’s the ability to accurately answer the question, “what’s holding me back?”

And then, of course, to figure out a way to overcome whatever the answer is.

More broadly, this could really be described as having a “growth mindset,” though I generally think of a growth mindset as being entirely internal, whereas external factors could also be holding you back and you still need to be able to overcome them.

A related trait that may be just as important is the ability to effectively identify and take advantage of the right opportunities. Sometimes there may not be anything holding you back, but you still need to be able to figure out which opportunities to pursue, and how to stick with them and pursue them effectively.

That last part is where I feel I’m weakest right now and where I really need to push forward. I’ve identified some excellent opportunities and feel I have everything in place to go after them.

I just need to do it.

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Ignoring Things to Give Them Time to Resolve vs. Being Proactive

I’ve heard two approaches to dealing with all of the tasks work and life through at you. Both seem to be championed by modern thinkers and yet they are diametrically opposed.

Supposedly Napoleon would wait a week or two before opening any letter he received. The idea was that most problems would resolve themselves, and there’s no sense wasting time on something that doesn’t actually need your help.

It makes sense when you think about it, and in my experience is absolutely true.

It’s easy to assume it’s just a terrible idea and that Napoleon happened to succeed in spite of this poor strategy. You’d think that in war, particularly, having rapid knowledge and acting on it would be a game changer. And my understanding is that it was once it was possible.

And yet, there’s some logic to it.

It is completely contrary to what I’d consider to be a considerably more popular idea among efficiency experts and self-help gurus. The idea that you need to proactively manage everything so that you avoid ever having to put out fires.

This is certainly more of the approach I’ve attempted to adopt in my life, and it does seem to be effective at making things calm and predictable and also allowing me to be as productive as possible.

It’s one of the primary components of “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” and basically every clone of that book ever released. Supposedly most people are just flying by the seat of their pants and simply react to avoidable emergencies as they come along.

So what do I make of this?

I want to believe there is some kind of middle ground between the two concepts. However I think the reality may be a bit more nuanced.

I’m not sure you have to be one or the other.

Something tells me that it’s more an issue of figuring out the things that are in your control, important, and also your responsibility.

Napoleon choosing to remain ignorant of problems within his empire sort of feels like procrastination. He could have simply read the letters right away and determined that he could ignore them. Or had one of his people simply respond and say that it’s their responsibility to solve it.

Or perhaps, had he delegated and established roles and responsibilities better from the start, he would have never even received the letter to begin with because the issue would have been dealt with locally.

I think there is a very small amount of middle ground for some things, however. For example, my recent post suggesting that responding to emails within a day is just fine, and that responding in an hour is totally unnecessary.

I receive emails several times a week with people having issues with their devices or their website that they quickly resolve on their own and let me know they don’t need me.

I think there’s room for that.

But for the most part, if I’m focusing on things that are important, in my control, and my responsibility, I shouldn’t be wasting too much time on other tasks regardless.

I suspect that people who employ the Napoleon strategy really only benefit from it because they end up only putting time towards the really important things, and end up ignoring most of the distractions.

That feels like more of a side-effect than the actual intention.

I have plenty of posts discussing more about that.

So overall, I’d say I can safely ignore the Napoleon approach and focus on being proactive.

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The Importance of Responding in 24 Hours, but Not 1 Hour

In my business, I consider it very important to respond to emails within 24 hours. Sometimes this gets stretched out a little depending on when emails are sent, but I always respond within the next business day.

That’s important, and it is sufficient to make my clients feel like I’m on top of things, I’m responsive, and it’s also fast enough that I don’t miss out on things or have other major problems crop up because I didn’t address something soon enough.

I also do tend to scan email more frequently, and if there’s ever an emergency, I can deal with that right away, but it’s not usually a problem.

But what’s important to note is that it is absolutely not important to me to respond within 1 hour.

I think tons of people make it their goal to respond to things immediately, and it’s just entirely pointless.

Sure, it will impress some people, but it doesn’t typically provide very much additional value, and more importantly: in order to achieve it, you have to be willing to give up a ton.

The only people I know that do this are the ones who get notifications – often audio – every single time an email arrives.

In my opinion, nobody who is doing that could possibly be producing quality work. Just like a distracted partner scrolling through Instagram ever 3 minutes on a dinner date, they simply aren’t present enough to put serious thought into things and do a good job at anything other than responding to emails quickly.

So I think 24 hours, in this case, is the sweet spot.

But this makes me wonder: what else is like this? What are some things that people (or, more relevantly: I) do that that maybe take a lot of extra work and provide little additional value?

Are there any other notable areas where I may be well outside the sweet spot?

The answer has got to be “yes”.

Some categories could be:

  • When I’m working and/or available during the day (or week)
  • The level of detail in my communications
  • Pursuit of marketing opportunities
  • How much time I spend working on the business

And the list goes on.

Of these, it’s a bit of a mixed bag. I think I’m happy with my work hours. I’m available enough but still retain flexibility for other non-work opportunities.

I perhaps do communicate a bit too much, but I do almost everything via email and I can type really fast, so I don’t feel that it takes up that much of my time.

I’ve been slacking in marketing opportunities, for sure. Writing in this blog has essentially been all I’ve done. So that one is nowhere near the sweet spot.

Likewise, working on the business has probably been slacking a bit.

There are many things I’m aware of that I could and should be doing more with. But I think I’m more curious with this blog post to determine if there’s anything else I’m actually being too aggressive in.

Nothing comes to mind, unfortunately (fortunately?). But now I’m thinking about it, and if I figure something out, I’ll write about it.

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I Feel Silly Writing About Things that Later Seem Obvious

Much of what I write here in this blog seems pretty obvious after I’ve written it. To the point where I often feel silly even saying it. I imagine others reading it and thinking, “how could you not have already realized that?”

And yet I believe it’s absolutely critical that I keep going. Maybe even more so for things that may seem obvious.

If I didn’t write about it, I may not ever figure it out. And then I would be stuck not realizing or understanding something that many deem ‘obvious’.

Presumably, that’s what most people do.

And it just makes me think… How much progress and personal development are people missing out on simply because they are too afraid to confront something that they should have known?

I’ve said before that I think most people have a tendency to be far more motivated to avoid bad feelings than to seek good ones. It’s a good recipe for getting into a comfortable situation, but not one of growth.

Self-reflection can be painful, including times when you have a revelation that makes you feel guilty or ashamed for not having it earlier.

An easy way to avoid that is to not have any revelations. To simply ignore avoid serious self-reflection of any kind and build a protective wall around yourself so that you never have to be confronted with your own inadequacies.

So even if my thoughts might not seem that novel to others, or if I feel guilty or ashamed for not having figured something out sooner, that’s okay. It’s still important progress.

After all: better late than never!

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I Need to be Having Fun & Enjoying Life OR Working Hard to Maximize Income

I’ve been in the Los Cabos area of Mexico for over a week now, and a though crossed my mind as I was swimming in the ocean near where I’m staying.

I need to basically either be enjoying myself, trying new things, and taking advantage of everything my area has to offer, OR working as hard as I can to maximize my income at all times.

It doesn’t mean I have to pick one forever, just that I need to completely eliminate everything that’s not one of those two things.

Why?

This was the first time in 4 or 5 days that I actually swam in the ocean, despite it being extremely close. I’ve barely taken advantage of this place I’m in. Mostly because I’ve been working.

But I’ve wasted a lot of time, too.

When I’m working, I need to be working hard. And I need to constantly focus on how I can maximize the financial return for my time.

The reason for that is because I want to retire as soon as possible. The faster I can increase my net worth, the sooner I can retire and then it will be much easier to take advantage of everything around me.

And more to the point of this blog post: I need to eliminate things that are just a waste of time or that are just going through the motions.

I can’t be wasting time on things that aren’t important, and I can’t get complacent in my business and simply continue with the status quo.

I need to constantly be growing and expanding. I don’t want to work more hours, but I want to get way more out of the hours I do put in.

My goal is to retire by 50 but I would greatly prefer to do it much earlier, or at least be able to reduce my hours or increase flexibility before that.

Certainly I have improved in everything I’ve described here over the last several years and certainly the last decade. But I can’t get complacent with that. I need to continue improving, ideally at a more rapid pace.

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Getting the Clients I Want OR: The Law of Attraction?

The thought came to me just now that my business has continued to grow quite well, and almost all of the business that I’ve gained is for new hosting and maintenance clients, which is actually what I want.

While we still regularly have website design projects, they are becoming less and less frequent.

Now, it doesn’t feel like I’ve actively gone out of my way to avoid website design projects. My processes are all pretty much the same for website designs and I always tell people that we do it.

If I didn’t put any more thought into it, I’d simply say that it’s the Law of Attraction. You put what you want out there and it will come to you.

And I think there’s some truth to that, but if you break it down, you can see why it works. It’s not just some mystical thing that works magically.

I put a lot of thought into how to get more hosting clients. I’ve been actively tweaking my website and marketing to better reflect that we do that. I’ve been pushing hosting and maintenance services for years, while probably downplaying design.

Meanwhile, I haven’t updated my website design portfolio in quite some time, and it needs it. That just hasn’t been a priority.

I also put a lot of work into improving our hosting services and making them as good as possible. I don’t put as much thought into design.

Little by little, both the services I provide and the quality of my messaging and marketing improves. Little changes stack up over time, to where I am now getting way more of these clients.

Maybe nothing has slipped really for website design, but all of these little things add up over time in a huge way.

And this got me thinking: just imagine how all the other little things in my life can add up over time?

The power of gradual change cannot possibly be overstated.

As long as I continue progressing and putting work into the things that are important to me, they will work out.

I just need to keep going.

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Update on Fixing my Sleep Schedule – It’s Working?

I finally have some good news about my sleep schedule. I’m doing it!

I can’t remember exactly when I most recently decided, for the nth time, to try and fix my sleep schedule, but my gut says that’s been something like 4 months, maybe more. (Update: it was September 21st, so less than 3 months ago as outlined in this post)

My main enemy is the snooze button. And in that time, I think I’ve only gone back to sleep after my alarm went off a single time, and that was because I was sick and made a conscious choice to sleep more.

I’ve been consistently getting up early, often before the alarm goes off. I’m far more productive and things are going well.

I’ve found, though, that it’s very closely related to how much I drink, which has also been much lower in that same time frame. Making sure to avoid heavy drinking days entirely seems to be fairly important to the success of this effort.

But it’s been good. In total, I’m spending way less time in bed, which gives me an extra hour or more each day to be productive.

But I also have way more energy and am just generally more productive in every way.

I’m hoping I can just keep this up and never have to go back to the way things were. I sort of feel like this has been my biggest obstacle for a long time and now I’m finally making good progress on it.

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The Eccentric Part of the Lift is Everything

Some new research has come out which has confirmed what many have been saying a long time: that the eccentric part of the lift in weight training accounts for nearly all of the hypertrophy and strength gains.

Now, it’s possible that other research will come out and show that this isn’t quite true. But what’s there seems very convincing.

If true, it means that I’ve really been doing my training wrong. I really haven’t put any effort into the concentric portion, especially for bigger lifts like bench press.

On bench, I basically just drop it on myself and put all the focus into pushing it back up.

I could be much more productive with my lifting if I put all of my effort into the eccentric portion. So for bench press, that means a very slow, controlled descent. Which is what I’ve been told to do anyway, but I’ve just ignored it for some reason.

For other lifts, like overhead press for example, I maybe don’t even need to worry that much about form going back up. I just need to be able to maximize reps coming down, and specifically the quality of them.

It’s nice to have this kind of clarity, and thinking back, I think I’ve actually really been lacking in my lifts because I haven’t been doing them this way at all.

I’m looking forward to trying this out and will post back results.

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I Need to be Mindful of What Activities I Truly Value

This thought crossed my mind and it was a bit shocking to me that I had never really considered it before.

What activities do I actually value? How do I want to spend my time?

It’s easy to just assume that you are always considering this and that the manner in which you spend your time always reflects what you value.

But the more I think about it, the more I think that’s a foolish assumption that also happens to be incorrect.

It’s easy to get stuck in the same old routine and do things simply because it’s what you have done.

Without a plan in place and some conscious effort, you’re also way more likely to simply choose easy things versus good things. You may even subconsciously justify it by convincing yourself that the easier thing is what you really wanted.

In my own life, I think there are obvious examples of things that I do that I don’t actually value that much. While I’m certainly not bad at all compared to the average American, I still spend a fair amount of time watching movies and TV shows.

And I really don’t find any of that time fulfilling. Even simply reading a book is virtually always a better use of my time. So in most cases, I feel that I should be doing that.

I’ve had the thought lately, too, that something like disc golf is actually surprisingly rewarding, and something that I value a great deal. It’s outdoors, it’s active, it’s social, it’s fun, and I really enjoy an activity that I’m always trying to improve at.

I think it’s really important to be aware of things like that and to plan accordingly.

I think it’s also important to be mindful of specifically what it is about an activity that I enjoy, so I can focus on what’s important.

For example, as a 30-something that spends time with lots of other 30-somethings, activities like going to breweries are quite common.

But what is it I value about those activities? Is it trying new beer?

No.

While that can be mildly enjoyable, what I value is spending time with my friends. That’s it.

If I keep that in mind, I think I can focus a lot more on what’s important and simply enjoy that.

But also knowing that the brewery part of things simply isn’t important to me, I can suggest other social activities that I do find more rewarding.

Going on hikes, kayaking, and doing other outdoor group activities have always been great experiences for me, and I should continue to try to emphasize those and try to plan plenty of events to do those things with my friends.

As I’m writing this, I can’t help but feel like everything I’m saying is common sense and it should always be in the back of everyone’s mind at all times.

But I’m not sure that it actually is.

In this case, I think it’s far better to state these things explicitly and make a conscious effort to determine what’s important and then focus on that.

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The “Managed” Part of Our Hosting Really Is the Selling Point

It’s become abundantly clear to me within the last 6 months or so that what people value most about our website hosting is that it is “managed”.

Sure, they are happy to know that it’s fast and has all these features, but at the end of the day, they don’t really care about that. They just want someone to take care of it for them.

Maybe that doesn’t seem like a great insight to others, but right now it’s a big deal.

I have been a bit shocked to hear that, when offered a faster service for a bit more money, almost none of my clients have been interested at all.

They just don’t care.

What they want is for someone to handle all of this for them.

And I do! I do a good job, too, so they tend to stick around.

And while some are price-conscious, most are not. As long as it’s reasonable and we are doing a good job, they are happy to pay it.

Because they see the value.

Most have been in business a while and probably remember what it was like to work with non-managed hosting. That fear of being totally lost and having to sit on the phone with support drives them to work with us.

And I’m only just this moment realizing that I probably should try to control people’s domains, too. I’ve had some clients lately whose sites went down due to things within their hosting account that I could have easily dealt with.

So going forward, I should recommend that they transfer their domains to me.

I could even charge a premium for “managed domain registration”.

I don’t think much more needs to happen right now. I just need to always keep in mind why people work with me.

It’s not the speed. It’s not the features.

It’s our service.