The most competent people I know are pretty good at basically anything they put their minds to, because they just design a process and run it. I think this is largely mental and emotional—the hardest part isn’t figuring out the steps, it’s enduring the psychological discomfort of doing them and then adapting.
Schools are good at teaching and measuring intelligence, so that’s what people tend to value and aspire to. But in almost any field, smarts is what gets rewarded long term.
You cannot measure empathy like you can SAT scores, so it’s not surprising that one is given more weight on resumes. But who is more likely to succeed in life – a person whose... See more