I Scored Low On An IQ Test, Am I Done For?

How to succeed in life with a low IQ.

Imagine you’re 15 and you are told there is nothing outside of your reach — that the stars are within your grasp.

And you believe it.

Then you take an IQ test and the man behind the glass tells you that you have a low IQ. In fact, you have ‘well below average IQ’.

Can you imagine how earth-shattering that was? How devastating for a young mind? How limiting?

Millions and millions of us aren’t Einstein, Dali, Zuckerberg, Gates, Bezos, Brookes, et al. Do we, the low IQ scorers, have any chance to make our mark on the world? Can we think our way through the complications of this dark universe and find a path to a happy fulfilling life?

The answer is: YES! Goddammit! YES, we can!

Here’s how I lived my life with the weight of that brutal stigma.

Actions Speak Louder Than Scores

Quite a few of us, including my friends, took this test. My best friend scored way way way up there. When he snuck a glance at my number, I lost a lot of his respect.

That hurt, bad.

But fast-forward years, and now I have a family, a meaningful job, and money in the bank. Meanwhile, he’s still just a grocery store baggage boy.

Why is that, you ask?

Because he believed his number and lived his life like everything was just supposed to come to him because he scored so insanely high. But a number is nothing, it’s what you do that defines who you are. I worked hard and persevered through setbacks, while the world owed him a favor — and quite honestly the world never pays favors. The number here, means nothing.

Remember that: your actions (winning a job, making a sale, getting a date, reading a book, writing an article, and so on) speak louder than any number can ever shout.

Hard Work Beats Smarts Every Day of the Week

You can’t beat hard work. There is no substitute. It’s what built nations, won wars, and constructed the ships that put us into the stars. Not smarts. Hard work.

The good thing about hard work is that everybody can do it. You just need to buckle down and keep pushing through whatever wall you’re running up against.

An added bonus for this mantra is that smart people are often quite lazy. I know it’s a cliché, but from my experience it’s true. They don’t know what to do when the answer doesn’t immediately come to them. They don’t know how to work hard to go after it. But you do!

Take this story for example. I worked in a goldmine in the Yukon during the summer while my other, smarter, university friends worked for their parents’ companies in the cities. There, they drank, chased girls, and blew all their money.

When we all graduated (me a year late cause it takes me longer to do everything) they had massive, crippling student loan debts while I had none.

Who is smart there? Who is further ahead? Who worked harder?

Pick Your Battles

You have to figure out what your own aptitudes are. If you play games where other people have the aptitudes and you don’t, you’re going to lose. — Charlie Munger

The lesson here is don’t go up against the smartest, hardest working person in the room. They will win and you will lose. Pick your battles and go up against the lazy guy in the room and destroy him.

I worked call center once, which is dog eat dog. The highest winning salesmen got their bonuses, while the lowest earners were let go. People would always go after the smartest hardest working guy in the room and they would always burn themselves out in the process and lose. Meanwhile, I would go after the bums and destroy them.

I never made big bonuses, but I was never shown the door while hundreds of others — others who were far more intelligent than I — were let go.

Pick your battles.

It’s Not What You Know, But Who You Know

People think IQ is everything — and they are stupidly wrong. IQ tests don’t measure personality and they don’t measure likability. These two things are incredibly important for success in life.

People who build strong support networks at work and at home have massively increased chances of succeeding in life vs those that don’t.

I am kind, I have friends, and when COVID hit and I lost my job, my support network was there to help me find another one. Meanwhile, other smarter friends, without support groups, are still looking.

You don’t need smarts to do this. You just have to be an authentic, real person. That doesn’t take a genius, that just takes effort.

Progress Over Perfection

Smart people fall into the trap of perfection; meanwhile, I’m happy just to keep showing progress. You win through progress, you lose through perfect inertia.

Take this story for example. I was working on a big project with multiple components. My high-IQ peers were working on another part of it. They got bogged down with analysis paralysis and went nowhere, while I kept plugging along and delivered small bits of value.

Eventually, because they made no progress, their half of the project was canceled and they were moved onto mine and under me!

It’s those who keep plugging and make dedicated and incremental progress that wins the race. Remember: 🏁 🐢 🐇

Grit Is Your Secret Weapon

GRIT, according to a number of recent studies, is the true predictor of success. It’s grit, this Sticktoitiveness, that helps us succeed where other more intelligent people give up and fail.

Take my writing on Medium for example. From the time I’ve started, others who are much more talented and intelligent than I have given up and failed. Meanwhile, I keep plugging along and succeed month after month.

The best thing about grit is that it’s not something you are born with. Grit is earned and learned. Here are some solid secrets for growing your grit, This is How to Grow Your Grit: 5 Secrets From Research

Final Thoughts

So to answer the question: NO! You are not done for! You can succeed!

Don’t fall into the trap I did. I collapsed under the weight of a low IQ diagnosis and I cried so hard and for so long I developed an ulcer at the age of 15.

But that got me nothing and nowhere.

You are whatever God made you for whatever reason. You have to put that dumb-ass IQ number aside, grit your teeth, and get to work. There is just no other way.

And so what if it takes me weeks to write a Medium article while it takes an intelligent person 20 minutes. Or it takes me 7X longer to study for a test. Or 8X longer to complete a project at work. At the end of the day, I’ll still complete these things because I have developed the GRIT to complete it. And that beats intelligent people hands down, every time.

So look out smart people, you absolutely lazy shits, cause here comes a bunch of gritty low-IQ achievers that are going to knock you off your pedestals

Good luck smart-assess, cause you’re going to need it!