We often hear stories of successful founders, CEOs, and entrepreneurs recognized for the so-called “intellect” that sets them apart. This narrative usually makes success out to be solely about superior intelligence, but there’s actually much more to it than that, and here’s a hint: you don’t need to be the smartest in the room to be successful.
I was recently joined by Tobi Pearce, founder & ex-CEO of SWEAT, investor, and business advisor, to chat about his incredibly inspiring journey from homelessness to multi-millionaire on the podcast, all things business, and how intelligence contributes less to success than trial and error, experience, luck, and persistence do.
We also discuss hitting rock bottom, finding purpose through pain, if business and passion really need to align, why timing is everything, why having experience in the game makes for better decisions, learning from failures, and so much more. This is such an incredible and informative episode for entrepreneurs and anyone in the business industry, so be sure to give it a listen below! For now, let’s chat about how success isn’t necessarily correlated to intelligence and which other factors are actually more important.
Why successful doesn’t always equal smartest in the room
While knowledge and intelligence can obviously get you far in the business world, it’s not this end-all-be-all thing that many people make it out to be.
“If that were the case, then all the really wealthy people in the world would be the really, really, really smart ones. Sure, some of them are really smart. But they’re not just successful because they were smart. They’re successful because they took risks, they persisted for a really long time, and because the idea and skill set they had appropriately suited that time,” Tobi tells us. And I honestly couldn’t agree more. Speaking from experience and from seeing other entrepreneurs around me succeed — it’s not about knowing everything and having higher intelligence. It’s about being willing to stay in the game when it gets complicated, putting in the work, being adaptable, learning from your mistakes, and continuing on.
Take podcasting, for example. Most people give up by around episode 5 because it’s so much work. Simply by putting out a podcast every week for a year, you’re already beating 90percent of people, and it has nothing to do with how smart you are — it’s all about persistence.
Persistence and learning as you go
That said, let’s get into persistence and why it’s ultimately the golden ticket to success. It’s similar to the saying, “practice makes perfect,” because continuing to learn from your mistakes, making adjustments, and pushing through challenges gives you knowledge and experience over time that puts you in place to eventually make the right decisions that get you to your goals.
As a business owner and advisor, Tobi can really speak to this, and I couldn’t agree more. “You can’t just continuously apply no effort, no change, no approach and expect to win, right? But the continuation of effort does work because it usually results in the continuation of intelligently applied effort. You learn over time, and you improve things. So, time in the game is really time learning, right? And I always, like when working with business owners, try to bring them back to this basic principle that decision-making is a skill, right?
And if you want to win in any endeavor, but in this particular case, business, well, you will win by making better decisions than others. And if you want to make better decisions, you need practice, right? There’s a reason why corporate executives who’ve been in the game for 30 years get paid more and get better job opportunities than people who’ve been doing it for three.”
The role of timing and luck
I loved getting into this topic because I feel it’s often overlooked, but timing really does play such an important role in the success of your business. It’s the same reason some people see an immediate return on their investment when they launch their business, and it takes others years to reach certain milestones despite both products being equally valuable.
So many factors come into play when launching a business — how saturated your market is, the demographic you’re targeting, what’s trending on social media, etc. It all plays a vital role. The way Toby sees it, luck is not necessarily this invisible force making things happen for you, but more so, “Your attributes, the timing, and the space that you were in all coming together simultaneously.
I’m not some genius who came up with it all. Sure, I worked hard. I persisted in this, that, and the other, but really, it’s that the timing and the continuation of effort is more responsible for success than me being especially clever, and that’s a really harsh reality for some people.” I loved chatting with Tobi and hearing his fascinating story of going from homelessness to becoming a multi-millionaire by 29. It’s always so inspiring chatting with other business owners and hearing about their experiences and advice — in my opinion, it’s the most valuable thing you can do as an entrepreneur. While you’ll inevitably make mistakes and need to have your own trials and errors, taking notes from others who have already been through it is so beneficial.
The road to success is never an overnight, easy one — keep going, keep pushing, and keep learning — it’ll all be worth it in the end. Tune in to my full episode with Tobi for loads more information and advice on all things business and entrepreneurship and to hear his truly inspiring and motivational story!