The only real IQ test is whether you get what you want in life, and these 15 problems are the ones that separate smart people from those who only think they are. If you are so smart, why are you not rich, happy, fit or fulfilled? The case made here is that intelligence shows up in results, not in how clever you feel.
Work through the 15 problems below and see which ones you have solved and which you have been avoiding.
Watch the full video here, or skip to the breakdown below.
The 15 problems at a glance
- Getting ahead instead of playing catch-up (0:20)
- Making money while you sleep (1:02)
- How to be happy without life being perfect (1:43)
- Work that doesn’t feel like work (2:39)
- How to stop trading today for an eventual tomorrow (3:37)
- Having a support system through family and great friends (4:53)
- How to maintain proper weight and increase mobility (5:30)
- How to override the little voice holding you back (6:24)
- How to be interesting and charismatic (7:11)
- How to be yourself around people without needing their validation (7:59)
- How to sell a vision of something that only exists in your mind (8:45)
- How to have time for yourself, slow down and enjoy the passing of time (9:30)
- How to make your intimate relationship flourish (10:37)
- How to deal with pain, suffering and work (11:50)
- Figuring out what you want your life to look like and living it (12:32)
- Bonus: the smartest people have others figure it out for them
1. Getting ahead instead of playing catch-up
Getting ahead starts with ceasing to dig. It requires delaying gratification beyond catching up with the present, and this is where most people fail. At best they reach now, but tomorrow they are already a day behind.
Smart people do not feel that life will eventually start. They know it already has. You become successful when your past has put your present in a position where you are already making moves for the future. While you still pay interest on past decisions, the cycle stays hard to escape, unless you decide the moment is now.
2. Making money while you sleep
Money is basic fuel for life: time and energy stored in your account that you can deploy when it suits you. Like a phone plugged in overnight that is fully charged by morning, it is life-changing when money works that way.
As long as you trade time for money you will never be wealthy. You might be a high earner, but not wealthy. An athlete earns a lot, yet brings home nothing unless they perform on the field. A smart person spends working hours building the thing that makes money while they sleep.
3. How to be happy without life being perfect
Life is not perfect as a whole. It has small moments of perfection, and you miss them if you cannot spot them. Happiness is when your reality matches your expectations.
That leaves two routes: level up your reality until every desire is fulfilled without adding new ones, or lower your expectations to match what you have. Some billionaires pick the first and some monks pick the second. A smart person finds the balance. Your second life begins when you realise you can have anything you want, but not everything. Tie happiness to goals and you will never be happy, because the goal post keeps moving.
4. Work that doesn’t feel like work
Growth still takes effort, grind and pushing past comfort. That is the entry ticket. Once you pay it, you can choose to maximise growth or optimise for enjoyment.
Only a small percentage of people figure out what eludes the rest: how to make money doing something they would do for free. Someone earning 100k a year at something they enjoy is far richer than a neurosurgeon who has not taken a holiday in ten years, though it takes a while for the real price tag to register.
5. How to stop trading today for an eventual tomorrow
The team’s life changed once its definition of retirement changed. They used to think retirement meant selling a company for hundreds of millions and relaxing until the end. They now call that wrong.
True retirement is when you stop sacrificing today for a future payoff. Today becomes the reward. Fully enjoying the present, and compromising only when it leads to a superior outcome, is the new definition of success. The aim is to gradually take from the future and give to the present, and to be thoughtful about how much of today you are trading away.
True retirement is when today is the reward.
6. Having a support system through family and great friends
Success does not feel like success with no one to share it. Success also falls flat if nobody knows the real you, if you cannot talk to anyone about what is happening, or if you have nobody to laugh with or be happy for.
A support system means someone is there to pick up the pieces after life has shattered you. Maturity and wisdom include realising that you will one day play that role for someone else, and being fine with it.
7. How to maintain proper weight and increase mobility
Self-respect shapes your sense of fulfilment, and you cannot respect yourself if you cannot control yourself. A fit body means you enjoy more of the world: organs and senses work better, and you live longer with less pain.
Go to the gym for the six-pack and the strength if you like. As the head of product at Alux put it, part of the reason is being able to pick things up off the ground in your 80s. Why does your back hurt, why do you sleep badly and why do you breathe heavily on a flight of stairs? If you were smarter about your life, this would not be an issue, so do something about it.
8. How to override the little voice holding you back
All of us have it: the voice that says to sit on the couch with chips and a streaming show, the one that whispers to hit snooze, the one that says intention counts.
That voice is not you. You are you, and the voice is a passenger who does not care about you. Treat it as a passenger instead of the driver and you are back in control. It will not stop talking, but it no longer decides the direction of your life.
9. How to be interesting and charismatic
You become cool by living life and having stories to tell. Living is interesting to others because most people are just surviving.
Most of what people say is a copy of a copy of what they heard, a real experience and original thoughts are refreshing, so much so that people gravitate to you. Some people realise they have gone their whole lives without one good story to tell. Life is supposed to be a grand adventure, and they have not boarded the ship yet.
10. How to be yourself around people without needing their validation
We want others to like us because then we would like ourselves, which sounds backwards but holds true. The proof is that you still carry a grudge against people who did not like you, and you want them to like you even if you do not like them. That shows how much power you have handed them.
A smart person changes the default of that desire. It can take decades to work out how to be yourself. Solve most of the things on this list and you will not need their validation, because they will seek yours.
11. How to sell a vision of something that only exists in your mind
Whether it is your business or your relationship with a partner, parents or kids, other people need to climb into the same boat if your life is to go where you want. Some people cannot see it unless you paint the picture.
Belief comes before achievement, because nobody achieves what they do not think is possible. So we are all in the business of belief: that you will be faithful, keep your word and be there when things get hard.
When belief meets vision, magic happens.
12. How to have time for yourself, slow down and enjoy the passing of time
Some people crave alone time, and some have not done anything just for themselves in decades. Other people, responsibilities and life chipped away at that block of time until only dust remains.
A smarter approach finds a way to get time back. You could buy it with enough money, but if you have not solved the second problem on this list, earning the money costs even more time. Suppose you do build the systems, find the right people and slowly add time back. Some people have forgotten how to use freedom. True luxury is not being bothered by the passing of time: you do not wish you were younger or fret that time is going too fast or too slow.
13. How to make your intimate relationship flourish
A friend described his failed marriage as one that robbed him of solitude but denied him companionship. Being strangers with your spouse under one roof is the last thing you want, and being a prisoner in an unhappy marriage hurts more than most things.
Society has trained us to replace broken things instead of fixing them. If there is abuse, leave and do what is right for you and the children. But most marriages fade through neglect: you stop giving attention, stop holding hands, stop finding shelter in each other, and eventually both look elsewhere. Both partners fail here. Both made an effort to win each other, then let go once it mattered more than ever.
Growing an existing fire by adding to it is easier by adding to it than to start one from scratch. In a relationship? Put in a little extra work today without being asked and see what happens.
14. How to deal with pain, suffering and work
As you mature you realise you cannot escape them. Pain, suffering and work are essential to life. You can waste your existence trying to escape and fail, or accept them as part of the ride.
Once you accept them, you can prepare: build your pain tolerance, learn to process suffering and find meaningful work. Since you can never escape work, what kind of work are you comfortable doing for the rest of your life? Do that.
15. Figuring out what you want your life to look like and living it
Smart people have a vision for their lives. They know what they want it to look, smell, taste and feel like, and these are the people who make it real. Nobody builds a dream life by accident.
First define it in as much detail as is scary to tell anyone. Break it into big milestones, run for the first, then the next, with the hunger of someone about to build their dream life. You will not get it immediately, because the present you is not yet worthy of that life. You become worthy by moving toward it. You may not know the exact path, but you know the direction, and somewhere along the way you will realise you are doing it.
Bonus: the smartest people have others figure it out for them
The smartest people do not work everything out alone. They lean on others and pay people with experience to show them what works and what lurks in the shadows. Change comes when experience meets reality, and some people wait for an experience that forces them to change.
Those who want to get there faster pay people who have been there. A small portion of readers will apply this wisdom and live better lives because of it, and everyone else will keep going the way they are.
Which problem is your next milestone?
Looking at the list, pick the one that is your next milestone. Some are about money, some about body and mind, and some about the people in your life, and solving most of them changes how the rest look.
Define the life you want, move toward it and accept that you do not have to work it all out alone.
FAQ
What is the real IQ test according to this video?
The only real IQ test is whether you get what you want in life. Being smart shows in results such as money, happiness, fitness and fulfilment.
How do you make money while you sleep?
Spend your working hours building the thing that earns money without you. As long as you trade time for money you may be a high earner, but you will not be wealthy.
How can you be happy when life is not perfect?
Happiness is when your reality matches your expectations. Either raise your reality or lower your expectations, and a smart person finds the balance between the two.
What is true retirement?
It is when you stop sacrificing today for a future payoff and today becomes the reward. The aim is to gradually take from the future and give to the present.
How do you stop needing other people’s validation?
Recognise how much power you give to people whose approval you chase, and change that default. The script says it can take decades, and that solving most of the problems on the list reduces the need.
Keep reading
- 15 Things Poor People Think Rich People Do (That They Actually Don’t)
- 15 Problems to Solve If You Want to be a Billionaire
- 15 Life-Changing Biographies of Successful People
