scshtx:
Do you think you have a high IQ? Why or why not? I don't think I've seen a topic on this; curious to yalls input and discussion.

Uh yeah, because I've been tested three times by three different psychologists.

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 

I had to take the test as part of the recruiting process for a hedge fund and the organization I worked for until a few months ago and apparently, yes.

I don't reach the threshold for ''genius'' anyway. Some of the people I work with do, but they also have a ton of issues that come along with it, namely dyslexia and autism.

Let me also be honest, this famous Simpson episode is not casual. The higher you go the lonelier you are.

Never discuss with idiots, first they drag you at their level, then they beat you with experience.
 

It was merely an observation of the people I work with that have stellar IQs rather than a generalized claim, maybe I should have made that clearer.

I looked up some research as well now, there are some interesting results. Low IQ (79-99) people are unhappier than relatively high IQ (120-29) people. That's the widest most cited research. However it has not data about 130+ IQ people and there are some researches that indeed find a negative correlation, though non definitive.

Never discuss with idiots, first they drag you at their level, then they beat you with experience.
 

I've taken the test and scored high. But honestly if it came down to choice, I'd rather have a high social intelligence. Seems to get you further ahead in the society we live in.

 

I think I'm fairly stupid. Definitely above average, but somehow I can give off an aura of smart because I get called smart not too infrequently. Mostly when I wear glasses.

Sometimes I feel like a genius, but I figure that's some bipolar shit. Also I've been amazed at how diet plays such a huge role, though it takes a week or two to see big changes.

Does anyone else here feel like their IQ fairly drastically swings, not just due to sleep?

 
urmaaam:
Does anyone else here feel like their IQ fairly drastically swings, not just due to sleep?

I wouldn't necessarily say your IQ 'swings', but there are factors that play a role in how you use your brain effectively.

I would say it is more akin to a car having 500 horsepower under the hood, but only utilizing 450, etc. The potential to use 500 is there and just needs to be unleashed. Our IQ doesn't really fluctuate a whole lot unless involved in a TBI (IQ drop due to physical Traumatic Brain Injury). There are things we can do to impair it, sharpen it, and a TBI can cripple it.

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 
urmaaam:
I think I'm fairly stupid. Definitely above average, but somehow I can give off an aura of smart because I get called smart not too infrequently. Mostly when I wear glasses.

Sometimes I feel like a genius, but I figure that's some bipolar shit. Also I've been amazed at how diet plays such a huge role, though it takes a week or two to see big changes.

Does anyone else here feel like their IQ fairly drastically swings, not just due to sleep?

Sounds like Kanye. IQ is immutable

 

I'll just put it out there that it for sure takes me longer to pick up on new concepts than my peers. My 0 to 1 is not great for whatever reason and I basically have to brute force through things (queue frustration montage and me yelling a lot).

However once I can force myself to understand the basics of something, going from beginner to advanced/expert ( in keeping with my previous metaphor, my 1 to 100 ) is absolutely better/quicker/easier for me than my peers. I'm a real firm believer in faking it until you make it though, so I try not to let on that I'm struggling initially (which may factor into my longer lead up time to new concepts).

 
BBDreamin:
EQ > IQ

Definitely. My Excellence Quotient (EQ) is extremely high. I piss excellence when I awake from slumber and generate it on a constant basis throughout the day.

![https://media.giphy.com/media/l1IBkgnfxkTSsNfeE/source.gif][https://med…]

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 

I took an IQ test a couple years ago, and ended up landing in the gifted category (IQ > 130). I think what's more important, though, is a healthy combination of IQ and EQ. It doesn't matter if you're smart if you can't communicate your ideas and understand other people. There are very few professions where solely IQ will lead you to success. Especially in finance, it's as much about being a good communicator as it is about having the best idea in the room.

To the OP's question, do I think I have a high IQ? No, I know it. But I'm also smart enough to know the importance of emotional intelligence.

 
m_1:
I eat paste.

“In third grade all I used to do, was sniff glue through a tube and play Rubix Cube. Seventeen years later, I’m as rude as Jude, schemin’ on the first chick with the hugest boobs.”

 

IQ is a way for puppet owners to gauge whether his new puppets are worth of putting on a (his) show. If you have a real ownership/possessive mindset (as opposed to a labourer mindset), you couldn't care less about IQ and it's pompous indicators.

 

I know I do. I was tested twice, both in elementary and middle school for that bullshit 'Mindstretchers' program or whatever comparable thing your schools have. Safe to say, I'm in the top 5% of IQs. However, working in AM/HF space, this makes me nothing more than average.

Don't expect IQ, past a certain threshold, to give you a meaningful advantage in most high-skilled jobs; you need to find a different source of edge/differentiation

 

It's not about IQ, its about work ethic. I'd say 90% of people are around the same intel, in a very narrow band range. However, some of these people will do great and others will do poorly. It's about ability to focus. Also some people are very smart at some things and not at others.

 

IQ doesn't really matter once you get to a certain point, it's definitely something that abides by the rules of diminishing marginal returns. Is crushing it at a target school and making it to Wall Street going to be difficult with an 85 IQ? Yes, damn near impossible. But does having a 140 instead of a 120 reallllly help you grind out pitchbooks and IC decks all day? Nahhh. Most people aren't limited by their intelligence anyway, it's their shitty attitudes, arrogance or discouragement that ruins them. I've seen smart people change their majors because there was too much public speaking in business or because they got scared of having to take accounting. Likewise there are a lot of brilliant people that just get burnt the fuck out of high-finance jobs and realize that it's not worth it.

Anyway, I had to get an IQ test when I was in High School because my parents thought I was a sociopath so I did the full psychoanalysis and IQ test. Turns out I'm a huge douche with an average IQ. 126, to be exact. Which sounds high on paper, but for someone who was born into the upper 1% and benefited from the best educational systems in the country, it's probably average.

 

My score is 142.

From my experience, unless you are involved in something requiring serious mental horsepower (e.g. physics, math), the marginal benefit is mostly wasted. In most cases, it would be favourable to have a 120 score, as you are sufficiently intelligent, but easier to relate to (i.e. more likely to fit in). Not to imply a higher score signifies “nerd”, but it generally comes with some level of social burden. People like those they can relate to, and this includes pattern of thought.

As others have mentioned, there are other characteristic far more important to success. EQ + hardwork is the key.

 
Most Helpful
Bonds.Aye:
My score is 142.

From my experience, unless you are involved in something requiring serious mental horsepower (e.g. physics, math), the marginal benefit is mostly wasted. In most cases, it would be favourable to have a 120 score, as you are sufficiently intelligent, but easier to relate to (i.e. more likely to fit in). Not to imply a higher score signifies “nerd”, but it generally comes with some level of social burden. People like those they can relate to, and this includes pattern of thought.

As others have mentioned, there are other characteristic far more important to success. EQ + hardwork is the key.

Relating to others while posessing a high IQ is a challenge, but I don't think it is an impossible obstacle to overcome over time. The most gifted people will find a way to learn the language of others. To live isolated in a stratosphere of intelligence without being able to communicate in a reasonable way with others is of little use.

I'm sure Ernest Rutherford was easy to talk to.

"A theory that you can't explain to a bartender is probably no damn good." - Ernest Rutherford (The father of nuclear physics)

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 
Isaiah_53_5:
Bonds.Aye:
My score is 142.

From my experience, unless you are involved in something requiring serious mental horsepower (e.g. physics, math), the marginal benefit is mostly wasted. In most cases, it would be favourable to have a 120 score, as you are sufficiently intelligent, but easier to relate to (i.e. more likely to fit in). Not to imply a higher score signifies “nerd”, but it generally comes with some level of social burden. People like those they can relate to, and this includes pattern of thought.

As others have mentioned, there are other characteristic far more important to success. EQ + hardwork is the key.

Relating to others while posessing a high IQ is a challenge, but I don't think it is an impossible obstacle to overcome over time. The most gifted people will find a way to learn the language of others. To live isolated in a stratosphere of intelligence without being able to communicate in a reasonable way with others is of little use.

I'm sure Ernest Rutherford was easy to talk to.

"A theory that you can't explain to a bartender is probably no damn good." - Ernest Rutherford (The father of nuclear physics)

I agree with what you said, however I think you misunderstand me. My point isn't that highly intelligent people necessarily isolate themselves, its more so that it is extremely valuable to fit in, be it in life or in business. If fitting in is a measure of similarity, even if you acknowledge that certain traits provide an advantage, if the provision of this advantage is diminishing on a marginal basis, optimisation occurs at the point where the benefit (advantage of one's intelligence) equals the cost (departure of similarities). I quite literally mean this as a general model across most of the IQ spectrum. For example, if you had to stick someone to sit with the high-school burnouts/dopes, all else equal, 100 IQ would be favoured to 120 - it better relates, and there is no direct (intra-group) benefit of the surplus intelligence.

In regards to learning to relate to others, I by no means disagree, however relationships aren’t one-way. Building off the bartender quote, he might be able to explain it to a bartender, he might be able to befriend a bartender, but there is a point where you need to acknowledge that “can” and “want” aren’t equal. You can make good-friends or acquaintance with someone, but there is always a glass-ceiling to these relationships, and you would be surprised how easily people can identify this with even a modest EQ. In the bartender example, he might love the chat he shared with Ernest, but relative to someone more similar to him, it would be much more difficult to penetrate the inner-circles of friends. Group-dynamics tend to amplify this affect – imagine if Ernest was to catch the bartenders ear, but was competing with others who shared deeper similarities. The group-dynamic itself then tends to further compound this, solidifying Ernest as someone likeable, but on the fringe.

All in, I agree it is not unconquerable, but if this is a discussion of “all else equal”, it is objectively worse to possess surplus intelligence after a certain threshold. This doesn’t preclude one from being well-liked, or having friends who are dissimilar to him, but there tends to be a glass-ceiling due to an underlying lack of reciprocation. Of course, one’s character and social status is more diverse than just their IQ, which is why this can be overcome. At that point though, we are dropping the "all else equal" assumption, which opens the door to possible correlations between intelligence and certain character traits (i can't quote figures, but i'm sure they exist).

 

I assume i got a reasonable high number but since i also know about the "speed limits" of my more complex math understanding, i doubt it would be an impressive result. Well, since i learned that one is able to actively improve that value through mental work anyway and there are a lot of skills you need in daily biz life which are not only connected to IQ, it became less determinist in my eyes. Very important but not everything - people just love to rank.

 

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