Rising Star
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Always watching me. Charlie, my stalker
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Always watching me. Charlie, my stalker
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Chief
If you always find yourself to be the smartest guy in the room, it's time to find a bigger room.
Chief
If you're a fish that purposely moved from the big, bad ocean to a small pond, then this phenomenon shouldn't surprise you.
You're likely not as smart as you think you are.
When they told you that were they being sarcastic?
Chief
People more likely understand that you like your ego stroked.
Rising Star
Yeah, I don't work on the kind of team where that would work.
That's also not the point of the question.
Chief
After all of OPs responses, this seems more an issue with narcissism than intelligence.
I'm smarter than OP (confirmed) and he is being serious.
Enthusiast
Say something smart so we can judge for ourselves. I mean, if you’re often the smartest person in the room shouldn’t you know the term to which you ask?
Rising Star
There it is
Very often I find people who view themselves as the smartest person in the room rarely live up to their own egos.
Rising Star
Acknowledged
Those people in the room often consider me smarter than OP. Is that weird?
What’s impressed on me is that you’re as juvenile as OP
Rising Star
Are you more senior than others you are dealing with? If so it may be less their view that you’re the smartest person there and more their discomfort with disagreeing with you.
Rising Star
No, not usually. I feel like I'm pretty good at empowering people that work for me.
The awkward situations usually come from senior people publicly asking others to defer to me / my analysis.
But point of this post is more about wanting to be challenged. So far, "intellectually curious" seems to be the suggestion.
There are different kinds of smart—
Book smart.
Clever smart.
Street smart.
Socially smart.
And more
Chief
Maybe youre lacking in social intelligence to make that assertation lol
Chief
OP it's called being intellectualy curious and honest. My parents hate being challenged and even when I use facts, they dispute them because thats not what tbey were taught. Theyve said I am smart but also told me for me not to call myself smart. But they dont listen to me even though they say I'm smart
Might be better to be Socratic (ask questions for them to analyze their views from a different perspective) rather than giving an actual explanation of your view. After a while I think they will be able to infer where you stand without you directly stating it
I genuinely see both sides here. The reality is that some people can more efficiently/creatively solve problems than others (that's why we have case interviews, right?), some people are more intellectually curious, and some people have more well-grounded intuitions. You prove your intelligence by seeing whether others recognize it, and when it happens, as in OP's case, there's maybe something there.
The whole discussion on intelligence these days is bs. These days, people talk about how people can't be smarter than one another or how there is *always* some truly valuable way person B is intellectually better than person A even if person A is more successful than person B in every respect from career progression to everyday problem solving. Or that there is no proper way to assess intelligence and every test we have is bad (laughable virtue signaling tantrum there)
False equivalence between people is popular because less smart people feel bad and they take advantage of 1) some smart people's empathy and 2) the remaining smart people's rightful willingness to play along with the politics. And this can lead to worse outcomes, because when institutions have a hard time accepting that some people are smarter than others, that leads to people pleaser policymaking and bad hiring decisions.
That being said, usually when people think that they are the smartest people they're not. And even if it's true, when it gets to them, it can often (but not always) shut down team dynamics and lend itself to some t0xicity. That's why people don't like people who call themselves smarter than others. The arrogance it can signal - even if the view is totally accurate - can portend bad dynamics down the road.
^Consultant 1 gets my vote for smartest person on this thread.^
If you’re the smartest person in the room then you’re in the wrong room
Many people have inferiority complexes and feel contempt towards those more intelligent than themselves
I actually understand exactly what you are talking about. I often try to wait until others speak first in order to hear what they have to say because I find that after I talk everyone just agrees with me instead of challenging or engaging in any sort of banter to grow and develop deeper or better ideas.
Rising Star
So food for thought … my dad would say the exact same thing: I just want to learn more and understand the different viewpoints. But in reality, as soon as he explains his own viewpoint, it’s usually a conversation ender because he talks a long time, and only asks questions of other people in order to challenge them and convince them to accept his position rather than their own.
If you really want to engage in conversation and discussion, you need to ask more questions than give opinions or share stories. That’s the best way to get people talking to you to hear their ideas.
*to
I have to ask - are you a man or a woman? In my professional experience, I have worked with plenty of men who assume that everyone thinks they’re the smartest person in the room but women don’t typically identify this way. If you’re engaging in a collaborative discussion, entering into it with an attitude of superiority (and let’s face it, you gave your hand away by even using the “smartest person in the room” trope) you’re doing it wrong.
That being said, I’m a woman and I also enjoy a challenging debate of ideas and have gone toe to toe with some of the best and held my own.
OP, Google the Socratic method. It's not a personality trait but a method/school of thought that aligns what you're looking for.
Although people these days love to paste on the Socratic method label or whatever colloquial equivalent ("listen to everyone in the room" or whatever) to elevate/give air to dumb ideas that shouldn't be entertained. Like with any collaboration method, it's a double edged sword used more often when it's convenient than when it's effective.
Conversation Starter
Honestly, my favorite thing is to be wrong about something. It's a learning opportunity, and a way to continuously improve myself.
I encourage even my analysts to challenge me when they think I'm wrong or missing something.
And I'm many instances, they are right - I learn something, and the client gets a better result because of it.
I can't imagine not doing things this way - keep doing you, OP!
You’re in the wrong room
Worth in our society tends to come from kindness and generosity. When great minds are celebrated it’s because of what they gave to society, not being self-obsessed. Also an inflated sense of self worth actually hurts your ability to improve because you become unwilling to take criticism and grow from your mistakes or misgivings. I think just the fact that any academic article or finding needs to be peer-reviewed to be taken seriously invokes the fact that globally our culture requires us to be humble and grow from our mistakes to better the world.
Chief
Most intelligent people like being challenged and called out when they’re wrong because it’s a learning experience. Most intelligent people don’t pretend to be less intelligent than they are, they just realize nobody knows everything and there will always be other people smarter than you on some topic(s) even if they aren’t overall smarter than you.