10 ways you know you’re with smart people

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1. They don’t talk as much as you, because they know they got smart by listening.

2. They know lots of things other than what they’re specialised in. Theirs is the gift of a broad mind, constantly fed with the stimulant of being interested in what everyone else is doing.

3. They juggle home, work and personal interests with dexterity and never fall back on the tired old refrain about “work life balance”. And when they’re juggling, they somehow manage to seem 100% engaged with what they’re doing, on all fronts simultaneously, even though you know they’re taking appropriate steps behind the scenes to make sure their lives are perfectly, serenely balanced.

4. They probably do social media. Not always, but probably. It is not only another chance to listen, but one they use to ensure they can feed their brains with things they otherwise wouldn’t have come across.

5. Even when things go very badly wrong, they’ll be smiling. Smart people never get ruffled because their smart brains present them with alternatives faster than the bad stuff can happen.

6. They know they are usually the smartest person in the room, but they don’t spend their time dwelling on that. Instead, they take it as a personal challenge to see if they can make everyone else the smartest person in the room too.

7. If they are managers, they will make every effort to get people smarter, more connected and more popular than them in their teams. They’re not threatened because they know that smartness is synergistic. They also make sure that their smart people get to look smarter than them for the same reason.

8. They have hidden skills that never get rolled out until they’re needed. They don’t have any need to show their full capabilities for reasons of proving they’re better than others. 

9. They may or may not have expensive educations. You’d never know, just by being with them unless you had their CV in front of you.

10. They never, ever, under any circumstances, make you look stupid, even though it would be easy to do so. They’ve learnt through bitted experience that the only thing that happens when you make someone look bad is you look bad yourself.

Comments

[Make Money Online]

I agree with you on these things. I fit many of them but I know people who's personality fits even more with them. Those people are very smart. However, this can be seen as autism/asbergers as well if they are verry obsessed with one thing.

[Justin C]

learnt is a perfectly acceptable spelling of the word.

[AC]

What an idiotic list. "Smart people never get ruffled"? Really? It's pretty clear that the author of this list is not writing from experience.

I called the author stupid. That's what that meant, everyone.

[hello]

Useless. There were/are so many famous names that would disagree with this that it was not even worth listing. Sounds really pretty, but in the end most smart people want to impart their knowledge on others. This article is more for people who believe they are the smartest in the room.

[John]

Don - you should hang out with Tim

[Nat]

Please, translate it for France. I'm french...and i need to read this everyday and show this to all the people around me.

[James Gardner]

Thanks so much for these comments. I would love to translate to
French.. but of course I don't speak French. I will try to find
someone though, and of course, there is a Google Translate box in
the sidebar.

[Daniel O'Loughlin]

Most of what is said here is describing character traits of an outgoing person, rather than someone that is smarter than everyone else. There's really no way to tell if someone who is intelligent is going to be reserved or in your face about the fact that they're smart. What are you basing these statements and assumptions off of?

[sean]

These are people you described not only smart, but nice. There are plenty of people who are smart but are not nice people who know how to make people around them look bad. They are a rare breed, and you are fortunate if you are one of them or you have one as a friend.

[Prairiefire]

That third item does not actually describe 'smart' people; it describes 'magical' people. Look at the word choices: "somehow manage to seem 100% engaged with what they’re doing, on all fronts simultaneously, even though you know they’re taking appropriate steps behind the scenes to make sure their lives are perfectly, serenely balanced."

Dismissing "work life balance" as a "tired old phrase" reveals naivete or calloused sensibility on the part of the writer--any working mother of young children can tell you how very real, difficult, and compelling that challenge is.

That magical thinking is typical, I think, of managers who, deep down inside, would simply like to be able to wish their employees' families away, who would like a workforce that has no families to distract them from pure commitment to the workplace. Fine for the company (if the employees do not quit), but not so fine for our nation as a whole.

[Stephen]

10. They never, ever, under any circumstances, make you look stupid, even though it would be easy to do so. They’ve learnt through bitted experience that the only thing that happens when you make someone look bad is you look bad yourself.

So I suppose we're both looking quite silly now. Because to point this out does the very thing I'm trying to show fault in. I just don't like when nonconstructive criticism tops the comments.

Cheers!

[Dr. Rouso]

I disagree with most of this. Such as the always smiling. Research has shown people who are sad on average have a higher intelligence; mostly due to the fact is that being sad causes you to think things out more.

[ray]

10. They never, ever, under any circumstances, make you look stupid, even though it would be easy to do so. They’ve learnt through bitted experience that the only thing that happens when you make someone look bad is you look bad yourself.

So true. Probably the item in the list that you don't see that often unfortunately.

I would probably add

11. They are respectful towards people of different ethnicity, social background, country, language, political view, sexual orientation.

[dd]

yea well the tide goes in and out u cant explain that

[Victoria Elois]

I absolutely loved your reply to this comment. Now thats adult! Taken constructive criticism and not seeing your self as short sided. Good for you! We all need a lesson on taking good information with criticing how it may be wrong.

[Jeff]

Spelling and grammar is nothing more than a set of rules... Do you really think that being able to look something up in a book and finding the answer makes you smarter? People should not judge someones intelegance by if they can follow a rule book. The smart ones change the rules while keeping it understandable. As an aside I too am dyslexic and dysgraphic.

[David]

Can't believe after reading these 10 bits of positive advice that folks chose to post feedback criticizing your "grammar". How smart is that? At the very least they ought to have built on what you started rather than pedantically tearing into it.

[anb]

This is actually not true. Such things have more to do with background and education than smarts. Interestingly, you're proving James correct. It's unnecessary to say how.

[James]

Stop being such grammar police. I read the entire article without once stumbling over a word, understanding and enjoying the entire thing. The purpose of language is to convey thoughts and that purpose is achieved here. There is no need for perfect grammar, as long as what you are writing properly conveys your thought it is correct. Writing their instead of they're is technically wrong but you have to be rather dumb to not be able to get it from context. Leave this guy alone and maybe just congratulate him for writing such a insightful and funny article.
P.S. I know it should have been "an" but if you couldn't understand this comment for it not being correct you might need to go back to third grade and if you could then it doesn't need to be changed because it accomplishes the goal of all language.

[Charles]

Built = Builted

Keep trying, maybe you'll get it next time.

[Riyaj Shah]

I must say each and every comments posted in this blog is very good and I also liked it. Everybody who have visited this page might have learn more or less something as I did. I have come across many new constructive lessons and vocabulary.

Thank for publishing this page in the interest of the people. If possible Come up some more new story.

[Landon]

Mildly irritating,

not trying to start a fight but...

Here we have a person, entrenched in what he does for a living, spending his personal time intentionally adding value to many people from many backgrounds and has been doing so since like 2006 and some one kind of attacks him about grammar? In public, on this mans stage?

I know, a run on sentence, someone please point it out.

My wife is an editorial director and I totally agree with being 100 spot on with grammar, especially in public forum.

this is one of the many things wrong with our race, give the man some courtesy, email him in private.

too bad the EGO doesn't slow with intelligence. I know, missed a capitol, and I didn't use the "reply" button... must be trying to bee sumthink im knot.

[Tom]

see point 10 ;)

[Nick]

what a load of bullshit, trying to make excuses for why YOUR quiet and why YOU did social media studies. This probably applies to far less people than you think. Then again maybe you don't...

[Rubén]

creo que todos los que comentamos a ésto nos creemos del lado de los inteligentes. jajaja.