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• Following the pack - Many smart people often seem to
be followers, probably because they grow up spending so
much time pleasing others via academic and extracurricular
achievement that they never figure out what they really
like to work on or try anything unique. Smart people from
top schools tend to flock into the same few elite fields,
as they try to keep on achieving what other people think
they should achieve, rather than figuring out whatever it
is they intrinsically want to do.
• Failing to develop social skills - Some smart people focus
exclusively on their narrow area of interest and never
realize that everything important in life is accomplished
through other people. They never try to improve their social
skills, learn to network, or self-promote, and often
denigrate people who excel in these areas. If you are already
a good engineer, you are going to get 10x the return
on time spent improving how you relate to other people
compared to learning the next cool tool.
• Focusing on being right above all else - Many smart people
act as if being right trumps all else, and go around
bluntly letting people know when they are wrong, as if
this will somehow endear others to them. They also believe
that they can change other people's minds through
argument and facts, ignoring how emotional and irrational
people actually are when it comes to making decisions
or adopting beliefs.
• Letting success in one area lead to overconfidence in others
- Smart people sometimes think that just because they
are expert in their field, they are automatically qualified in
areas about which they know nothing. For instance, doctors
have a reputation as being bad investors.
• Underrating effort and practice - For smart people, many
things come easily without much effort. They're constantly
praised for "being smart" whenever they do anything
well. The danger is that they become so reliant on feeling
smart and having people praise them, that they avoid doing
anything that they're not immediately great at. They
start to believe that if you're not good at something from
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