Former Community – We Moved
🆕 Coached community here, for posts & feedback public community here.
Tom Bilyeu & Alex Hormozi: When self-help sounds stupid
Tom Bilyeu interviewing Alex Hormozi:
Tom: I have a hypothesis that haunts me and that hypothesis is (....) that people have a very hard time holding sophisticated ideas in their head part of what I think makes you so amazing is that you are able to hold sophisticated ideas (...) the inability to hold the sophisticated idea in their head is going to create a tremendous amount of problems (...)
Oh, you have a hypothesis?
Tom, that's called IQ.
Low IQ -not holding sophisticated ideas, VS high IQ -holding sophisticated ideas-.
It feels like Tom now is going to search for that "trick" to hold sophisticated ideas.
But not to mention that some people may never hold sophisticated ideas makes me lose a lot of (intellectual) respect and trust in anyone who approaches self-development that way.
It's a disservice to the audience.
And the second sentence is also not true.
You CAN not hold sophisticated ideas and still do GREAT in life -start with learn more practical power dynamics for one-.
To suggest that one cannot succeed with low IQ is absolutely untrue.
Adn to suggest that one may learn to think like a high IQ person does comes across as naive to me.
This is pure bias.
Positive basis, in the "positive" sense that there may be a some "tool" or hack one can do to make something happen.
But it's bias nonetheless.
There is a twist though.
And there is something people can do to improve their reasoning in my opinion.
Just like one can better learn to use his body to achieve physical goals, one can also improve the way he uses his mind.
No ned to rediscover anything for that.
It's no latest hack and no fresh-in discovery.
That includes learning centuries-old skills such as::
- Critical thinking
- Logic
- Scientific process
- Human biases
- Ridding of biases (including "self-help-y" biases such as that one can learn anything)
BTW, slightly off-topic:
if anyone knows of any great book or course or talk on critical thinking skills, logic, and generally "how to think", happy to take any recommendations.
It is kind of ironic that Tom speaks about high performance all the time, and he knows nothing about IQ, the biggest factor in high performance.
I agree with you on learning how to think like a high IQ performer. That is why people like to watch podcast, read books, and take courses.
But even then the rate of learning will be very variable between people depending on where they stand on the bell curve.
and I speak as someone who had the most difficult time making it out of high school because it was already too difficult.
I have a verbal IQ of 120 and fluid reasoning of 77. Huge discrepancy in my cognitive profile.
https://x.com/sbkaufman/status/1660318929166946306?s=46&t=9U9ch-jQosn8VqVLdOfEhw
Quote from Jack on December 17, 2023, 2:22 pmIt is kind of ironic that Tom speaks about high performance all the time, and he knows nothing about IQ, the biggest factor in high performance.
Yeah, and also very much in contrast with his mantra of "looking at the truth even it hurts*".
*Except when it goes against what you believe in, and what would be unpopular to say, I suppose :).
Quote from Jack on December 17, 2023, 2:22 pmI agree with you on learning how to think like a high IQ performer. That is why people like to watch podcast, read books, and take courses.
Yeah, that's what I may not agree with.
It may help a lot with the mindsets, especially for entrepreneurship and getting rid of the basic bad ones (blaming others, not taking action, etc.).
My take is that none of the popular ones help with critical thinking / logic / biases (and this is why I see an entrepreneurial opportunity for a good course on "critical thinking to win at life", so how to apply to make sense of things, and with a practical bent on goal achievement).
*Except when it goes against what you believe in, and what would be unpopular to say, I suppose :).
Yes, there are many cases like that, people want the truth only if it confirms their idealogical beliefs. In an era where the DEI (diversity, equality, inclusivity) reign it is difficult to talk about individual differences.
The topic of IQ is still very much taboo, even though it has been studied for 100 years and Charles Murray wrote “ the bell curve” in 1994.
Yeah, that's what I may not agree with.
I did miss read you. I was thinking : even though I’m not as smart as Lucio, I still learn from him by reading PU. I will never be as good as him, but I’m still much better than where I was before I started.
My take is that none of the popular ones help with critical thinking / logic / biases (and this is why I see an entrepreneurial opportunity for a good course on "critical thinking to win at life", so how to apply to make sense of things, and with a practical bent on goal achievement).
Geoffrey Miller had a similar thought a few days ago. He was asking if anyone knew of a practical step-by-step guide how to succeed in life, for someone that is absolutely average.
100 IQ, average conscientiousness and average physical attractiveness.
I link the tweet below :
https://x.com/primalpoly/status/1731757535424602450?s=46&t=9U9ch-jQosn8VqVLdOfEhw
Yeah, the way I see it's only one of the many traits that can help one do well / lead a "successful" life.
But no different than any other traits (money, height, looks, geography, etc.), you can work around it or do well despite of it.
Drive and ambition are the true basis for moving forward, in my view.
And examples of ambitious people doing well despite a (possibly below) average IQ are all around us.
I think of Trump or Dana White, neither particularly bright but very successful.
Or Andrew Tate, I'm sure the guy is very smart, but his dark triad bent blinded him to the risks of being overly provocative and doing -and sharing :S- illegal stuff.
Even staying at the mental level, to me strategic thinking beats IQ by a good margin -and that in turn overlaps with Machiavellianism-.
IQ without strategic thinking to me is like social skills without power: nice... But doesn't carry you very far.
I plan on doing a video on it so may be it's the right time to end the off-topic now :D.
Interestingly When they looked at consultants using AI tools what it did was bring the bottom staff up. So average people havecyop knowledge on hand.
I think another big impact is going to be fact checking of experts. Now when my IT solution architect says we have to do it his way or the world will explode not only can i get the AI to come up with a couple of alternatives but I can also get the AI to come up with some questions about his being the only way. The smart alec form of dominance is going to take some big hits. And about time!
Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on December 17, 2023, 11:11 amBTW, slightly off-topic:
if anyone knows of any great book or course or talk on critical thinking skills, logic, and generally "how to think", happy to take any recommendations.
A good course for learning effective time management and studying is iCanStudy but it has a strong focus on formal education, and the course head is planning the launch something mid-way through this year that is tailored to professionals.
It doesn't teach critical thinking pursue but the creation of a system to do well on tests and examinations with the combination of using things such as chunking, inquiry-based learning, and information layering by scaffolding information based on relevance and or the creation of relevancy towards information and using chunking to increase the ease of recall of information alongside forcing the evaluation of information so a persons ability to manipulate said information is better.
My main critique though is the level of nuance towards the techniques, and the coaches take upwards of 3-5 days to respond so the primary method of external feedback is by community members who are on a higher stage than you are. Also, the course is laid out in a very simple way on a surface level so it is easy to rush through it and I do only really suggest it if you are studying something formal in school because it isn't best suited for non-academic learning. However, the ideas can be used in a non-academic setting.
It more or less teaches a person how to learn information more effectively by primarily using mindmaps as a methodology to chunk the information alongside evaluating the ideas you're learning but the techniques have a primary focus on encoding declarative information better, but I think in the same vain the backbone to the refinement of procedural information is active engagement and using a declarative understanding to refine procedure there is also allot the course more or less covertly touches upon. like the refinement of procedural tasks also leads to encoding implicit memory from my understanding and in the same vein conditional knowledge. To me, the system seems complex and it is effective but in the same vein somewhat experimental I think the best source on learning how to learn on the internet. The key with the course is, that it is a far far more complex system than you expect and the best thing to do is just follow the instructions and the feedback as well as a person can.
this is slightly off-topic: I think IQ is a very complicated matter, because from what I've noticed some people can simply rote memorize a lot of information without it having relevance or connecting to anything else but in the same vain there are a lot of means of becoming more effective with encoding information, but it does depend. In some cases, people who can effectively encode particular information that may seem completely random can use other knowledge as a scaffold to remember said information or see similar patterns in a set of new information that is similar to a set of information they are familiar with. If a person is familiar with dealing with complex systems their ability to deal with complex systems in multiple fields would go up from my understanding because of the underlying understanding of how to deal with extremely complex systems. But this is all speculation on my end there is a really good chance my speculation is completely wrong. I don't know any of the science or the notion towards IQ in the cognitive science community
To me, Tom Bilyeu is the typical gifted adult. I would bet my hand he's gifted. But he's not aware of it.
He thinks he has average intelligence so he attributes all of his success to his shift in mindset.
So he's not self-aware at this level. Then his conclusions are all wrong.
"I'm average and I could sell a company for several hundred millions of dollars, anybody can do it with a change in mindset".
vs
"I'm smarter than average and thanks to my drive, work, (luck) and change in mindset I could accomplish that. To get what I have you need all of this".
That's why I think it's important for smart people to know they're smart. Again not as a sense of superiority (who cares really? your examples about successful not so smart people is an example), but more to self-manage their perspectives on reality, their (self-) expectations and for better interpersonal relationships.
A smart person wanting to be friend with a dumb person is not a good match for instance. Not in all cases but in most cases. There are many many exceptions. However, it's important to know that. For instance to know one's need in terms of mental stimulation. Not the same. In the private paediatrician office I wanted to slit my wrists of boredom, at the hospital I'm thriving. In good part due to the difference in mental stimulation.
So I think Tom Bilyeu's problem is that he does not know he's smart so his projections on other people are wrong. There are mean and stupid people. And these people will have a life of mean and stupid people. Easy. Trying to pull them up is like asking a cat to jump in a bath of cold water.
For instance at work, I had too much expectations. Now that I understand that some colleagues have intellectual limitations (wrong assumptions: you are in medicine so you're smart). I don't have (not boasting) I take into account in my communication: I explain without frustration, I take the time, I use simple words. I am not running around thinking or saying: "I SAID IT 3 TIMES ALREADY" as I used to do. So helpful in interpersonal relationships. To be clear, it's important to respect everyone as they are not as we wish they should be or think they are. And this is also about respecting intellectual abilities differences. It's not different than the difference between a right-handed vs left-handed person. Different not better in terms of respecting the person. I want to be clear on that. On possibilities and opportunities, yes there are differences.
Edit: curious to know why you think Dana White’s not smart.
So many golden nuggets and good threads in this thread.
About IQ, the working definition I use is that it’s raw intellectual processing power. So more analytical and speed of processing. Problem solving intelligence in a way. Also, with high IQ comes the possibility of a higher rate of adaptation. Exceptions: mental rigidity + IQ like Asperger. But this is going off topic on the topic of what is intelligence.
A high IQ person has also the huge advantage to learn faster therefore to improve specific IQ in other categories if effort is put in: strategic, social, verbal, etc. To me it’s a bit like the CPU or the engine of a car: raw intellectual power.
