Why Do Some Intelligent People Fail To Achieve Their Potential?

The problem is not with them. The real problem is that success means different things to different levels of intelligence.

1. For a person of average intelligence, graduating from college, having a home, your own lawn, a job, a spouse and children is considered successful. And it is. But somehow, when someone with a high IQ only does these things, somehow this is considered “not successful.” But why should the two be different? People with high intelligence are not a different species. They still have emotions and physical needs. They still go to the bathroom as anyone else.
2. Normal people consider “success” to mean being rich. If someone has a high IQ, then they should be rich, right? Actually it is the opposite. To make a lot of money you have to produce a product or service that pleases the majority of people. But being smart would actually make this harder for very intelligent people, because they are so different. In fact, the richest people tend to be average or only slightly above average intelligence. Someone like Chris Langan with an IQ of above 200 isn’t going to be interested in making sales quotas or climbing the corporate ladder. He is interested in developing his theories of metacognition, which requires being alone and undisturbed.
3. Social status is also considered “success” by average people. But again, this would involve joining the rat race, which highly intelligent people see as being shallow and mind numbingly boring. These people also have difficulty being happy around people who are more than 30 IQ points below them. It is tiring to dumb yourself down so others can understand you. It is draining.
4. School is designed around your average IQ student. So for very smart people it is boring. Plus school requires conformity, which smart people don’t like, because this is designed around the mediocre expectations of the average minded masses.
5. Smart people are happy being left alone. They like to read, write, think, and not be bothered. But to your average minded person, this is boring.