High IQ and you can't market or sell a product or youself

[Shadow Nexus]

Taken from the blog post.

My IQ is in the genius range. There is nothing I can’t understand given time. I’m always overloaded with new ideas.

However, I couldn’t sell a heater to a guy in snow storm. Despite huge amount of training, i’m unable to sell myself to job interviewers. So, I find myself poor struggling with no chance of getting any regular job(on disability). I’m pursuing entrepreneurship, hoping for something.

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High IQ doesn’t mean anything if you can’t market or sell yourself(or a product).

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How many of you have a high IQ, but can’t get or hold a job? Bad at selling yourself or products. You have a low Emotional IQ, relating to others as I understand that term.

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[trashman]

I am so sorry to hear that.I am on the other side of the coin . I have a low IQ I can go to a job interview sell myself get the job, but within six months I would lose or quit. and now I too am on disability . so I guess with out all the right pieces to the puzzle of life we are all lost. fixing it is easier said then done.I have learned when I put others problems a head of mine seems to help find solutions for some of mine. I think thats because it takes some of the pressure off. sorry I can’t be more help. 😥

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[Anonymous]

What I have sort of learned is that IQ is less important than Wisdom or Compassion .. have had to look up what those words mean.

There is a story, no idea if completely true. That in the 1930’s the country with the highest number of high IQ professionals was

Germany, and we know what happened there. IQ doesnt guarantee much in terms of function, though it appears to offer potential.

Mine has done me much less good over time … currently working on patience .. heard it is usefull … no clue what really works ..

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[Anonymous]

I don’t know where I read it, but the whole job interview process is broken. Instead of finding the person best qualified for the job, prospective hire-ers are winding up with the best salesmen.

I don’t have the best social skills – I tend to avoid speaking out in fear of saying the wrong thing. A lot of the jobs I’ve held required me to be a “team player.” What a joke. To add to the confusion, I have difficulty interpreting signals and often miss key parts of instructions.

At any rate, I’m telecommuting now and I seem to be an indispensable part of the group I’m part of. I only communicate via phone or email, and it’s not perfect, but it seems to be working a bit better than my previous jobs. It also helps that the work is varied enough that I’m never doing the same thing twice – so it keeps me from getting bored.

One thing I’ve learned since diagnosis with ADHD is to recognize when it is my ADHD that is holding me back. If I am afraid to bring something up to my superior, I now know that it’s not a something I really have to be afraid of and can force myself to move past it. Not perfect, but it helps.

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[Anonymous]

Getting back to the thing I said about instructions. I always seem to miss a key part of written or verbal instructions and either get something half done or go down the wrong trail altogether. What I find odd is that I used to love to build models as a kid, and Ikea furniture and Lego sets never give me problems. I think it’s because of the interesting and colorful way the information is presented.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could figure out a way to incorporate that into office instructions? Imagine the number of tasks I could do if everything had pictures to go with it. Might be worth investigating.

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[Anonymous]

part of selling yourself to a job is charisma, personality, and enthusiasm. I have lost some interviews because I talk a lot and let things I did not want to say slip. However, I got my last job because they appreciated the sincerity and honesty. I have gotten jobs due to enthusiasm. I have not gotten jobs because I was too enthusiastic. Sometimes I am perceived to be am cute and a nice bubbly person. sometimes immature and irritating.

I am usually quick to pick things up and am considered to be pretty intelligent. I did almost lose a job for being clueless about how people were reacting to me and clueless that people thought I was displaying disobedience when I thought I was inquisitive or when I forgot the precise instructions and did something else to meet the same means. I worked really slowly too lol. >_<. so I suppose this one job is an example of ADD nearly losing me a job. but they were very unreasonable people anyway.

I’ve never really sold anything. I guess I’m not too good at that because I give disorganized descriptions of things and talk too fast and too much. but I have managed to ‘sell’ psychosocial strategies to further people’s health and that is what is important. The enthusiasm and caring is part of the sell. i suppose i couldn’t see a vaccum cleaner or anything…….

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[billd]

I’ve got that high-IQ issue, and that’s what the school psychologists blamed my behavour on when I was young – they said I was too smart for my class, was bored, etc. etc. They didn’t diagnose ADHD then.

Further, my mother has a very high IQ – and she predicted, accurately I might add, that’s due to my high IQ, I’d have trouble relating to or getting along with others (a lot like Einstein did)

I’m VERY impatient with folks that “don’t get it” are aren’t all that smart. I try, but can’t help it – and it’s very irritating when I find myself being that way with friends.

The neuropsychologist who recently diagnosed and tested the bejiggers outta me said that I don’t bond well or relate well to other people, I never form strong bonds with others. Accurate. I’d had – and lost track of a lot of friends. If one moves away, it has little impact on me. (he said my wife was the exception and he saw a very strong bond there – uh, yeah!)

He also said I was a VERY strong visual learner, and with a picture or diagram, would be able to “get” something very fast. Yeah, but don’t give me WRITTEN instructions – as although technically I’m a skilled reader, and did great at reading in school – instructions are a lot different. I’ve got to read them several times – but once I see how something should look in the end, I can figure it out.

I can fix almost anything – I’ve wired houses, built buildings, repair anything about any car, old or new, do all my own plumbing, held a maintenance electrician license with a near-by city, I’ve painted cars, I’ve farmed. Pretty much everything I know or know how to do, I got there on my own. But I seem to rub “bosses” the wrong way – EXCEPT for one I had in the 1990s. He thought the world of me and took good care of me. In one review he asked how much of a raise I thought I deserved. I told him 10K. I got it. I was never trained in computers – yet an now an IT network security administrator. I used to repair notebook computers – down to the board and component level – with no training. I just figured it out. The boss back then told me I could set up shop in an airport and make a mint fixing notebooks for travelling business people.

sugargremlin hit on why I can get jobs – and with only a couple exceptions, I typically get what I go after. I’ve not had to try hard to get a job. I typically turn down offers if I decide I don’t like the sound of it.

Sell, I can sell – but I HATE selling as I don’t like to deal with people in that way. Odd for a fellow who used to have a very successful retail store, eh? KEEPING jobs – well, that’s another story. Maybe that’s why I’ve had so many!

Man, sugargremlin, a lot of your post – including the middle paragraph, really describes me very accurately!! WOW, do you work in our building or something?? You seem to be describing me.

I can even relate to thegameguy (although I don’t like to play games – literally)

Germany could have cleaned our clocks in technology in the 1900s – and very nearly cleaned our clocks in the war. We got lucky, that was all.

Even today, their auto technology blows us away by a very long ways. We aren’t even CLOSE to them in automotive. They had jet technology before we did. Recording tapes – such as the 8 track tape? Thank a German. We STOLE that as a “spoil of war”.

As far as highest over-all IQ, it’s the Asians. They have the highest IQs. They are also superior at “spacial thinking”. The U.S. is sort of in the middle generally.

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[Anonymous]

Yeah that job was ridiculous. I hate just doing things when I do not know why I am doing them. I also like to know why I am doing A rather than doing B. Apparently, people forget why they do things and get defensive. I was in the manager’s office as she was describing me as challenging and disobedient. So here I am about to be fired with zero medication errors, consistent good work, and mentioned in patient satisfaction surveys. yeah…. I was in complete disbelief. I am this friendly bubbly person!!!! Anyway, I was the same person, but had to rephrase everything I asked people. “I have an opinion question for you….” etc… this worked better as people like to think of themselves as the expert. pathetic. I dealt with it and went back to school for a masters! People all liked me by the time I had left (except for the manager). I guess the people at my current job did not talk to her lol.

You would probably do best in a position of authority and hire people to do all the waste of time paperwork lol. Paperwork is a waste of life energy.

I am definitely not anywhere close to genius IQ. I can feel the limits of my brain processing… just those concepts..that I cannot quite grip.. brush aside them, but just not quite. irritating feeling like I am hitting a ceiling. Although, I feel a little smarter knowing that I have a ADHD diagnosis. Feeling like an airhead who cannot string a thought together was not a confidence booster!

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[Anonymous]

High IQ here, always tested well etc. Managed to get good grades despite the difficulty I had in incomplete homework or not turning it in (or last minute doing it before class.) I can land the jobs based on, how I look, my resume (independent projects etc), and my personality (enthusiasm/passion for the job), it’s the staying that was always a problem. I can get in and even get promoted (even when I don’t want to be but someone has to do the job), but when I get bored or restless, it’s very difficult to want to stay and fight through it. I’ve walked out of jobs before where people liked me and really liked what I did for the company. I just couldn’t face the bureaucracy, red tape, or stifling lack of creative outlet more often than not.

I’ve learned I can “play the part” though and pretend to be enthusiastic or interested in a project, and I work well on a team as long as I’m left to do what I need to do. I can even lead, if I have people to help carry the load.

I think I struggle with the thought that I can do so very much more (I KNOW it), but at the same time, can’t get it all put together to make it happen. That’s where my self-esteem takes the hit. I find myself recalling, “but remember when you got that award in high school?” Then I think, yeah, 20 years ago and it wasn’t even my best work. It’s what I had on hand because I forgot we needed to turn something in that day. “Yeah, but there was that other competition too!” Yeah, awesome.. also high school. “Ok. How about those books you co-authored?” “Uh, that was over 7 years ago and I still haven’t finished the novel I started writing over 10 years ago.”

Thankfully, when I do that, my husband gets angry and tells me to knock it off and starts telling me about my current accomplishments (as he sees them.)

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[Patte Rosebank]

There’s a big difference between IQ (how smart you are) and EQ (what you can do with it).

EQ is a better measure of potential success, because it measures how well you interact with others, how well you set & achieve goals, etc.

How many geniuses are so socially awkward that they’re essentially complete loners? How many people with Autism or Aspergers have fantastically high IQs?

My brother has always said that I’m way smarter than he is. But he’s the one with the MBA and the solid career with benefits & a very fat paycheque (his Christmas bonus was as much as I made in all of 2011), and with one (soon to be two) published books under his belt. I’m the one whose trail is scattered with the remains of hundreds of unfinished projects.

I think what we need to do is find someone who can do the stuff that we can’t, so that we can just focus on doing what we do so well. This is easy for someone rich, like Richard Branson. For the rest of us, it’s somewhat trickier.

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[Wgreen]

I’ve never seen an allegation that ADD negatively impacts sociability as it relates to salesmanship. In fact, I gather many ADDers find their niches as salespeople. Filmbuff, if I had to guess, I’d offer that your inability to sell may have more to do with an IQ differential—you just find it hard to relate to the rest of us pillocks—than anything else.

And… on a number of forum strings, I see an insinuation that there is, or may be, a correlation between high IQ and ADD. Is there any empirical evidence of this? If so, where can I find it? I’m not being snarky, I’m just curious.

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[billd]

>>I’ve never seen an allegation that ADD negatively impacts sociability as it relates to salesmanship. <<

I have – and it’s me for one, and the doc that gave me the full report for another.

He said that”social anxiety often goes with ADD”.

I’ve further read on other forums that because of how ADD children are often treated, talked to, bullied, etc. that they develop personalities that would preclude being socially active, having many friends, or going into sales because of the people contact.

Frankly, I’d never work out as when I’m asked questions about something, I can’t answer at that moment. I have to get back to them. I can hardly ever answer a question when “put on the spot”, but give me a few minutes and I’ll have many details. (that’s one aspect of ADD in many folks)

There’s no way in heck I’d be a salesperson, I have tried, I absolutely hated it and i’d be unemployed for the rest of my life before I’d ever get into any sort of sales, ever.

Frankly, I in many ways tend question if some actually have ADD, or are just assuming they do, and if they were told they did – was it the family doctor? I’d never ever trust the family doctor for such a diagnosis! IMO, a lot of what we see and hear about things is probably skewed by misdiagnosis, no diagnosis, assumptions – OR, it could be their flavor or severity. You can have mild ADD, still be called “having ADD” and sell like a champion.

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[Wgreen]

Billd, that’s interesting. My dad had acute ADD and he could sell ice to an Inuit. Then on this forum, over in “The Workplace,” I found this bit:

“I have lots of ADHD friends who successfully [sic] in occupations such as various trades in construction, music industry, film industry, sales, teaching, almost anything to do with computers, acting, theatre, comedy…”

Clearly there are people with ADD who CAN sell. And while I don’t dispute there are ADDers who can’t, I have never seen any study suggesting that ADD=inhibited/bad salesperson. ADDers are all sorts of things. The question is, which of those things can be traced directly to ADD?…

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[billd]

If you look at what you – and they are saying – it’s pretty much that the trades or professions people with ADD are in, it pretty much matches what non-ADD people do.

In other words – ADD won’t make you a better sales person than if you didn’t have ADD unless it impacted the development of that side of your underlying personality – just like in some cases having ADD can cause you to go the other way.

>>I have never seen any study suggesting that ADD=inhibited/bad salesperson. ADDers are all sorts of things.<<

Exactly – and there is no study suggesting they are BETTER salespeople, they are indeed all sorts of things.

Your dad is one example, I’m an example of acute/severe ADHD who could sell, but can’t survive the interaction and can’t deal woth cold calls. You’ll find threads on this very forum where you found what you did that shows a number of members here who say they have trouble making such phone calls.

In other words, for every ADD sales person, there will be as many or more NON-ADD sales people. and on the flip – for every ADD person who is and loves selling, there are as many who can’t, or hate it.

I’ve had more than one teacher and professor tell me I should have gone into teaching……… i’m really really good – however, i’d never survive it due to the add-connected factor the doc told me about (one can also have that same issue and not have ADD)

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[RichD73]

I find that socially I’m good. I don’t know what my IQ is but I completed my phd in my thirties after a childhood of inattentive (‘needs to concentrate more’) schooling. I had a common issue touched on above and in other threads; I was highly qualified by my late twenties to MA level but couldn’t get a job that mirrored that. This continued after the doc until I was nearly 40, bagging my first role on the average industrial wage (a milestone!). My confidence was undermined by a sense that I wasn’t good enough. I couldn’t see my strengths. This was complicated by being in the arts field (precarious enough) which is all about selling yourself and building connections. I was disastrous at both!

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