If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll know that I’m…umm…pretty damn convinced of a set of uncommon beliefs that, if embraced, will turn you into a hugely successful person.
And one of those beliefs is the whole EQ vs. IQ debate.
I’ve written about this before, so I won’t bore you with the details, but here’s a quick summary.
Your emotional intelligence (or EQ) will get you further in life than IQ alone. I’ve said this until I was blue in the face, which probably isn’t best for the lunges, but whatever.
Apparently, Amazon’s CEO, Andy Jassy, is of the same mind.
“I think an embarrassing amount of how well you do, particularly in your 20s, has to do with attitude,” Jassy told CNBC.
The argument is simple: Having a positive attitude means you’ll work better with teams (aka: people won’t hate working with you).
And if you’re easy to work with, you can almost write your own ticket.
Your personality will get you 10 times richer than your intelligence. I believe this so much that I told CNBC about it earlier this year.
Yes, being smart is great. Got a 150 IQ? Wonderful.
The fact is we need high-IQ people for very specific jobs (think rocket science, engineering, medicine, etc).
But here’s the other side of that coin. I’ve worked with a lot of high-IQ PhDs in my life. A lot. Really smart people.
The problem was a lot of these people were difficult to work with. Many preferred to work by themselves. Others couldn’t figure out a project schedule to save their lives, much less how to lead other people.
As a result, they weren’t promoted (for good reason). They kept doing what they were great at in the same job, year after year.
While so many high-EQ folks (me included) got promoted well beyond those high-IQ positions. And made more money because of it.
So, here’s the good news. Don’t think you’re “smart enough” to succeed and make lots of money? Well guess what? It’s not about being smart.
Let your ability to lead and work with people, your infectious smile and positive mindset, lead you to riches.
Because in reality, that’s the way it works.
