I have often wondered why so many people with great intellect or some kind of technical acumen never use that intelligence or ability in any meaningful way and live ordinary or even less than ordinary lives. In my quest to learn ways to improve thinking to improve one’s life, I conducted research on how people use their minds and found that while for the most part many experts, including neurologist Barry Gordon of the School of Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore, I agree that the concept of “we only use 10 percent of our brain” is a myth.
That got me thinking that even if we use the most of our mental resources, maybe we don’t always use our minds in the most effective way. I have often wondered what unseen limitations in the mind would cause the smart and gifted people who should be among the next generation of leaders, movers and shakers, to lead mediocre or less than mediocre lives.
When I was in school, I met a boy I’ll call “Brandon” who was absolutely brilliant. He was very studious, he liked to read in his free time and he did very well in all subjects. Brandon continued on this path throughout high school and, when he graduated, he was accepted to an Ivy League university, where he continued to excel and graduated with honors.
A few years ago, I took a consulting job at a large company and was there for a client meeting when I’m supposed to meet Brandon. But instead of being a high-level executive or at least on his way to becoming one, Brandon was the department’s administrative assistant, a position he probably could have gotten with a high school diploma.
I wish I could say that Brandon is my only example of a talented person who starts out strong but seems to run out of steam along the way, but that wouldn’t be true.
Years ago, there was a girl in my neighborhood whom I will refer to as “Jessica” who, like Brandon, was brilliant, eloquent, and much loved. Jessica was obsessed with all things science and unusual for a girl, she was an avid insect collector who owned a large collection of insects. It was no surprise when Jessica was accepted into a renowned medical college and after her graduation and internships, she landed a job as an internist at a prestigious hospital.
But within a few years of practicing medicine, Jessica’s habit of taking amphetamines to stay awake during her grueling internships turned into a serious drug addiction with harder drugs that eventually led to her losing her license to practice medicine. Last she heard, Jessica had not been reinstated and was working as a teacher’s assistant at a community college.
I understand that gifted and highly intelligent people often choose not to take the “fast lane” of career and sometimes select less stressful and lower paying vocations in exchange for a better work-life balance. I am also aware that people discover along the way that after excelling in studies and professional preparation, they actually want to do something very different.
An example of this would be the wife of an acquaintance of mine who went to law school, took a job at a law firm, and decided after a few years that she absolutely hated the profession. In response to that discovery, she obtained her real estate license and has been selling residential properties ever since.
For the purposes of this article, I am referring to gifted and highly intelligent people who made they opted for the fast track and acceleration of their career, but somewhere along the way a limiting element in their mind pulled them off course and now they are living lives of underachievement and wondering what happened.
From stories like Brandon and Jessica’s and many others, I’ve come to the conclusion that even if we use all of our brain resources, many don’t use their brain power in the most effective way. Obviously, there is no instant cure for the way we inefficiently use our brain resources. But I firmly believe that how we use our minds, regardless of levels of intellect or talent, will determine our success factor.
