Is intelligence something you are born with or can it be ‘picked up’? I’ve found i am awful at comprehending and acting on complex information. Will be having a discussion with a team and it takes me so much longer to ‘get it’ and contribute to problem solving. Maybe I’m just dumb and it feels terrible because I feel others see right through me. How to improve?

likefunny
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I feel that in consulting most situations or issues that you have to solve have components that are recycled from education and or past experience. The more you experience or learn, the better you are at connecting the dots faster. There may be an innate advantage to being able to absorb quicker or put pieces together faster, but with relevant and consistent exposure to scenarios you develop that skill.

Just make sure that you aren't merely REACTING to scenarios but being PROACTIVE in taking away the key points and component ideas so that you start building that mental map to leverage.

likesmart

This: pattern recognition is so important in almost all careers, hobbies, sports, etc. Might not make the difference between very good and best, but gets you a lot of the way there.

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The left likes to believe it’s acquired, the right likes to believe it’s innate. Reality is that it’s both.

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I feel the same way. Often I’m clueless in PS session. Reading nor listening are effective for me and it seems that I have to learn things through osmosis. It’s truly a miracle I survived this far...

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Unless you were born with defects or were diagnosed with learning disability, you are not any less intelligent than others. Some people take a bit longer to pick up and process new information. Practice helps.

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This is not true and no respected psychologist would agree with it P1. General intelligence is a testable and provably heritable trait. We know this based on things like the Minnesota study that found correlations between intelligence of twins that were raised separately (after controlling for other factors)

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Intelligence is part genetic and part determined by your early environment. Lots of research to show this, but exactly how much of each is not settled (and is controversial for political reasons). Point is, there is not much You can do about it. For any single individual their level of intelligence is largely down to luck. Which is why we shouldn’t attach any moral superiority or inferiority to intelligence level.

That said, practice helps with everything, whether you’re talking about basic math and reasoning (think the GMAT test), or more industry or functional specific activity (think marketing or coding). So keep at it!

likesmart

I would agree with this. I have two daughters. Raised in the exact same environment. But one clearly processes advanced concepts and emotions quicker than the other. Consistently retests into the GT program; the other consistently misses by a significant difference. She gets stuff once you explain it to her *and* she experiences it. The other one just gets it.

It is a trained skill and also developed through experiences. I played a lot of chess and focus games growing up. Can’t say I am smarter, just see things differently. Pair that with being in client workshops dealing with issues and absorbing thinking patterns and how people navigate a variety of challenges. You start to create your own style of problem solving. After a while you call on experience as you know what works and doesn’t. To others it may come off as brilliant, but in reality it is a series of failures or missteps that gets you to the best path. Keep going grass/hopper 🤙.

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There are different types of intelligence and learning styles. For the longest time, I thought I was unintelligent, yet a month or two into a project, I always came up with the solution that no one else could. Many institutions are designed with a masculine approach to critical thinking, which is very structured and process oriented. A more feminine approach is thinking with a more fluid approach, where one molds an answer over time with input freely coming in from many data sources.

I was with you until you brought gender into it. Was it not possible that you just brought intellectual diversity into the solutioning did it have to be a feminine vs masculine thing ?

Frameworks for breaking down problems help. I learned in grad school .

You may be less intelligent but you can still succeed as a consultant. Just keep going and you will improve. Figure out your style.

OP you need to develop a coping strategy:

1)work on your confidence & eradicating insecurities - the easy button here is working with a psychologist

2)figure out what else you are naturally good at if not raw intelligence - is it memory, is it people skills, is it organization, is it drive ? Many of those attributes will compensate to an extent for an average iq because consulting and many other professions reward a combination of talents & effectiveness instead of just pure intelligence. Not going to repeat the tactics of how to improve these but there's plenty of really good advice from the others.

3)and...finally, be kind to yourself - many of your peers have the same exact insecurities, you are not alone - most just don't talk about it - but I guarantee it there are lurkers who are read your post and the responses and are thankful you brought it up because they feel the same and will benefit from the discussion.

Also, know that EQ is more critical to success in biz than IQ!

Maybe my colloquial use of EQ isn’t representative of the actual definition? I’m talking like, charisma, rhetorical prowess, ability to act as a connector/social conduit etc. Now that I write it out, that seems to be the case haha

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