You Don't Deserve Shit Because You're Smart

You don’t deserve shit because you’re smart.

This is a trap I fell into plenty of times in my life.

I’ve constantly had people tell me that I’m smart, and granted that I think I have certain competencies that lead to that conclusion.

I can follow many threads in a conversation, listen intently, learn quickly, have solved cool, complex problems, etc.

But the pure just essence of “smart” is useless and undeserving of anything.

The reason we feel like we are deserving of things because of certain qualities we have like being “Smart” is because in reality, sometimes we get things for exactly that reason.

You probably have experienced where you got by because of your basic competency.

You probably have times where you were given the benefit of the doubt because it seemed like you understood or would understand.

So in reality, you likely have in fact received things or benefits because of how smart you are or appear to be.

And then over time you rack up those small moments and start to convince yourself that because you have a trait you are deserving of a outcome.

Let me give you an analogy: Pretty people.

Pretty people get plenty of benefits in the modern world.

If you disagree with that you, one of the following applies to you:

• You live under a rock

• You’re in denial, or

• You are a pretty person that receives things or advantages because of it and either don’t want to admit it or have deluded yourself into believing that the benefit or advantage was for something other than being pretty.

There’s nothing wrong with being attractive, it’s a good thing, but it does not make a person inherently worthy of a certain kind of treatment or reward, it’s just something that commonly occurs in this world.

Same deal with being smart.

The point is that we get entitled and then we trick ourselves into thinking that it is okay to take our foot off the pedal because we embody some trait when the reality is that it is absolutely not okay both because you will lose that trait and also lead yourself into inaction which will in turn prevent you from getting the REAL results you want and heavily relying on the inconsistent, superficial results you received for simply being a certain way some time in your life.

Because here’s the whole trap in one line: being smart got you in the room, but it doesn’t keep you there, and it sure doesn’t build the thing.

The results you actually want, the project finally shipped, the company off the ground, the work you’d be proud to put your name on, do not care how smart you are.

They care about what you did, over and over, on the days being smart wasn’t enough on its own.

So the real risk was never that you aren’t smart enough.

It’s that you’re smart enough to coast for a while, long enough to mistake coasting for building, right up until you look up and notice the people who lapped you weren’t smarter than you.

They just didn’t take their foot off the pedal.

You don’t deserve shit because you’re smart.

But you can earn damn near anything by being the rare smart person who still does the work.