People watching is a favorite hobby of mine. One of my many objectives is spotting intelligent people.
This has been a ‘hobby’ of mine for several decades now. Let me share the many common signs of intelligence I have observed.
Here is a short video describing the common characteristics of intelligent people.
Talk only to share information
To them, small talk is simply that. Small. Meaningless even. It’s a waste of time. They proactively listen to others and digest what was said before explaining their counter-argument. They bounce ideas and hypotheses off of others rather than discuss random pop psychology or the latest news on a celebrity couple. In short, they shamelessly focus on what’s important.
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Brutally honest with what they don’t know
I think a common trap that many people fall under is trying to pretend we understand something that we don’t know while nodding our heads meaninglessly. We do this because we don’t want to appear uninformed and unknowing. (I’m still working to improve on this myself) I think intelligent people get straight to the point.
They say: “I don’t understand this, can you explain it to me like I’m 5?”
They could care less about what others perceive their understanding or intelligence to be. What they do care about is catching up and learning so that they can understand in the first place.
They know that without a solid understanding of the basics, there’s no hope for them to grasp the more complex material.
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Spotting intelligent people … they consider different perspectives
Truly intelligent people can inhabit a different perspective, especially a perspective they disagree with. Abraham Lincoln would sometimes argue with a friend from one perspective, and then they would switch and argue from the opposite perspective.
Nothing to prove
They never feel the need to prove to other people how smart they are. They don’t brag about it. Casual acquaintances probably don’t even know. I think this is because they are so secure about their intelligence that it’s a non-issue to them.
My father went to Harvard and had a stunning memory. He never used his IQ as a way to make other people feel inferior. People who want to let everyone know how smart they are—yeah, I doubt they are.
Spotting intelligent people … they have patience
Leonardo Da Vinci called it “sfumato” or “smoke.” The idea is that not everything is clear, and the desire to have an answer now can lead someone into error. Intelligent people have patience with difficult, dense, or even ambiguous or vague subjects. Patience is defined as “the ability to endure, ” and in this case, a sign of intelligence is enduring not having a clear, definite answer.
Know how to explain their craft
This especially applies to people who are professionals or experts in their field. This is because they’ve been through it all. They know what it’s like to come across the topic for the first time.
To progressively learn more about it as a student. To having dedicated hours studying and researching and becoming an expert. They know what the stages of learning are, and can explain their craft to anyone in those respective stages. Albert Einstein is well-known for saying the following quote:
“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”
Spotting intelligent people … they are good listeners
They read and go to talks. A sure sign of intelligence is reading and listening. The average CEO reads 50 books a year. Warren Buffett spends most of his time reading. He’s fond of saying “the more you learn, the more you earn.”
Continuous learners
They read a lot and are constantly still learning. My father always took us to historical places or natural wonders during our summer vacations. Battlefields. Museums. Grand Canyon. Stuff like that. Our pleas to go to Disneyland went unheard.
My father wanted to learn things on his days off—and his days on too. He not only read both fiction and nonfiction, but he also watched many documentaries.
Seeking new perspectives
Intelligent people aren’t afraid or ashamed to tell you when they don’t know something. I’ve had more than one doctor try and fake his way through a conversation when I knew more about a medical condition than he did. When I found a doctor, who said, “I don’t know. I’ll research that.”—I kept that doctor.
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Are consistently curious
They ask questions. I guess they realize that the way you learn things is often to ask.
Spotting an intelligent person might not be that hard. They seem to have common traits among them. We can use these traits to identify them.
Intelligent people think before they speak: When you ask an intelligent person a question, instead of shooting the answer quickly, they take their time and answer the question.
They are not afraid of being wrong: Truly smart people are not afraid of being wrong. When they seem to find a hard question, they tend to accept the defeat instead of fighting with their ego.
When they get into a conversation, they are informational: Smart people only take part in the conversation when they have something important to say or something that is meaningful.
They tend to stay up till late at night: Recent studies claim that eveningness is an evolutionary advancement that marks out ‘more intelligent individuals, while those with lower IQs tend to restrict their activities primarily to daytime.
They are quite empathetic: Empathy is a core element of emotional intelligence. They tend to understand people’s feelings better.
Intelligent people talk less
While speaking, they try to explain as much as they can in as few words as possible. They know exactly what point they are trying to make and do not wander a lot from it. Their statements are short and precise.
Intelligent people don’t answer first
This might sound a little weird but, more often than not, whenever a question is thrown, intelligent people wait for others to try and answer. If no one else has a solution, only then they get up to provide the solution.
Intelligent people use their ears
Intelligent people are very good listeners. They will listen keenly to anything and everything you tell them.
Intelligent people understand things faster
When you are with a bunch of people, start telling a joke. Intelligent people tend to understand the joke earlier than others, and they will often start smiling or laughing even before the joke is completed.
Intelligent people never boast of their intelligence
You will never find them being rude to you if you contradict their words. They will never claim that they are always right because they are intelligent. Instead, they will listen carefully to your explanation. They are never afraid to accept that they made a mistake.
Others look up to intelligent people while speaking
Subconsciously, everybody looks at the smartest person while speaking to make sure whether they are right or wrong. This doesn’t happen in the first meeting itself. But, if you meet the same group a lot of times, people develop this habit.
The bottom line
All these are easy traits to observe and hence you may feel that it is easy to identify intelligent people. But again, they are smart people. They don’t reveal themselves easily. You have to be observant if you have to spot an intelligent person.
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