How to Know You’re Dealing with Someone Really Intelligent

It has nothing to do with politics or religion.

Steven Yates

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Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash

You can know, with reasonable certainty, that you’re talking to, or dealing with, someone really intelligent. Here are the signs:

(1) He, she, or they, don’t shoot from the hip when making judgments. They gather information, generally from more than one perspective. They may decide that being judgmental isn’t useful and won’t do it.

(2) They admit it when they get something wrong. They’ve trained themselves not to get defensive. They’ll analyze failure and try to learn from it.

(3) They’re confident enough to admit it when they don’t know something but will try to find out for you.

(4) They’re not afraid of looking like a beginner. They ask well-focused questions, because they listen and actually hear what you said. They aren’t just waiting for their turn to talk. As the Stoics observed with wry humor, we have two ears and one mouth so we can listen twice as much as we speak.

(5) They’re observant and pick up on things quickly. They ‘read the room.’

(6) This is because they are emotionally intelligent. They know you’ll be more effective if you take the feelings and perspectives of others into consideration before…

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Steven Yates
Steven Yates

Written by Steven Yates

I am the author of What Should Philosophy Do? A Theory. I write about philosophy (especially the Stoics), health and systems, and the future if we have one.

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