The Danger of Being Smart

What happens when you think you are smart? A long shadow emerges. It is the dark side of being smart without maturity. In my mind maturity allows us to see the benefits of our strengths but also the limitations of our strengths. I have the good fortune of working with many highly talented, bright and yes smart individuals. Yet as I try to work with them, I have noticed three trends.

The Trends
1. The little voice in their head says they know it all.
2. Their intelligence gets applied to areas they know nothing about (part of number 1)
3. Being wrong is a threat to their identity

Sadly these trends are why many smart couples remain overwhelmed and frustrated. Often both people in the marriage are very smart, highly educated and trained to think. Yet their problem solving skills in the areas of marriage and money are not developed. The reality is that many of the problems in our marriage and with our finances will not be resolved by intelligence alone. Rather they will need to be addressed at the emotional level first before logical answers can emerge. This thinking is based on the findings of research based Emotional Focused Therapy.

Rather than our intelligence serving us well, it acts as a protective measure against feelings of insecurity. In the field of psychology intelligence is seen as one of the most complex defense mechanisms. Intelligence allows us to navigate many obstacles in life, but it has its limitations. As we grow in maturity and recognize the limitations of our intelligence then the weight of responsibility can begin to fall of of your shoulders.

In our culture which prides itself on knowledge, the risk of looking like we don't know something is high. However when we recognize the necessity of vulnerability in our marriage and money then we can see that our intelligence is not threatened, but rather encouraged. When we start to acknowledge the limitations of our intelligence, then we can become receptive to getting the feed back that we need to grow and make the necessary changes. Sometimes this feedback needs to come from outside sources including financial planners and marriage counselors before we are ready to hear it from our spouse.

Getting to the place of recognizing the limitations of your knowledge may be difficult in part because you have been prized for your intelligence for so long. Yet in order to get along in your marriage and money it is not about letting go of intelligence, so much as it is about recognizing it's limitations.