The Intelligence Trap

The Intelligence Trap looks into a variety of different intellectual pitfalls, but one that stands out to me was the idea of self-distancing. If you’ve ever felt quite emotional about something, self-distancing is a way to look at the situation more objectively. If you think back on certain memories from a first-person view, self-distancing is almost like taking a third-person point of view. A popular example would be asking yourself “what would Batman do in this scenario?”. By removing yourself from the situation it allows one to look back without bias. It has helped me be more accepting of feedback.

Which in turn has made it easier for me to grow. The Intelligence Trap also makes note of the “growth mindset” where one believes that they will get better with practice. Being able to accept failure as a natural and even beneficial part of learning through self-distancing has made it easier for me to achieve this mindset and grow. In some ways, I still have a fixed mindset, which can be characterized by my belief that I should be able to do things more efficiently than the average person. Struggling with difficult work hasn’t always been the easiest for me, but over time I have gotten better by understanding that sometimes mastery requires effort and practice.

“For some people, failure is the end of the world, but for others, it’s an exciting new opportunity”

I enjoy cultivating a large variety of interests and skills and I believe over time this has helped me become more confident and comfortable with my capabilities. Being okay with what I know has made it easier for me to learn new things because it doesn’t feel like I need to learn it to be good enough, I’m learning it for fun. Approaching new topics with this mindset has also allowed me to feel better conversing with those who are more knowledgeable than me in certain topics. Sure, I still want to believe I’m the best at cooking, but when it comes to other things I am more than happy to defer to experts when necessary.

Something I heard from a venture capitalist is that “I should be the dumbest person in the room”. It’s a sentiment I’ve heard plenty of times, but this was the most recent. I do approach conversations with that kind of mindset, but often to the extent where sometimes I fear that I’m not thinking critically enough. For example, does someone have an agenda that they’re trying to push onto me, where might their knowledge be lacking or biased? I find this is especially the case with books, where I take the author’s writing as fact. To an extent it is, but they also omit certain things which is something I will need to be more aware of in the future.