How to Become Smarter (56 page)

Going back to the subject of financial destiny, the majority of the population cannot become self-employed entrepreneurs. Realistically, most people will do well if they get good education and find good jobs. Having a bearable boss will be crucial for your well-being, and you need to choose your prospective bosses carefully, for example, you can ask around among former employees. Current employees of the prospective supervisor will not give you an honest opinion because they are most likely scared of their boss. If the prospective supervisor appears to be nice during a job interview, this may be a false impression because most bosses try to be nice during the interview. Although you are unlikely to find a “nice boss,” finding a tolerable boss is feasible. By “tolerable boss” I mean someone who is not rude, or at least not very rude, and who will not make your life a nightmare by making unreasonable demands. If possible, choose bosses that are 20 to 30 years older than you are because it is easy to take orders (and occasional insults) from someone who is twice your age. Don’t waste your time and money on get-rich-quick schemes. Studies show that high income (and self-employment [
513
]) is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for being happy, although there is a weak to moderate correlation [
476
,
523
,
997
]. Keep in mind that in any occupation, as your career advances, you will receive more autonomy, i.e. you will become more like your own boss. Under the current economic system, you have a far better chance of achieving an above-average income if you get a good education and work for hire than if you try to start your own business. It is possible to achieve financial independence with almost no risk when you reach the retirement age, if you are prudent with your finances.

In conclusion, this book discussed many aspects of intelligence including academic, emotional, and social intelligence and even how to be smart with your money. This advice should simplify your life and help you become more productive. I update this ebook from time to time, so feel free to download the
latest version
.

• Publicly available information, such as a mass-marketed book, cannot give a person a competitive advantage over other people, at least not a big one and not for long.
  
• Hard work is not a sufficient condition, whereas luck is a necessary condition for achieving wealth (the top 1% of net worth in the population).
  
• The correlation between hard work and income is weak and limited. Some factors other than hard work must be important for achieving a high income.
  
• A moderate and limited correlation exists between IQ and income, but there is no correlation between IQ and net worth. These data suggest that wealth is either a result of pure luck or has to do with mental abilities unrelated to IQ (such as an entrepreneurial talent). The latter explanation also involves luck because a person can neither learn nor earn a talent. (A talent is a biological property of the brain that gives a person a competitive advantage over other people.)
  
• IQ scores predict job performance in various occupations, but there is no correlation between IQ and self-employment. These data suggest that starting a successful business requires a lucky guess (predicting the unpredictable) or mental abilities unrelated to IQ. Success of a startup business depends on unquantifiable and unpredictable variables.
  
• A person’s income and net worth depend on many genetic and environmental factors that are beyond the person’s control, such as: innate health, both physical and mental; physical appearance; various talents; character or personality traits; where and when you were born; your parents’ social status and net worth; the kind of upbringing and education they will give you; the lifestyle that your parents have imprinted on you (habits related to nutrition, exercise, smoking, and drinking, which affect physical and mental health); the environment you grow up in; and whether your talents and skills are currently marketable. A person cannot earn any of the above things; they happen to people by chance.
  
• This book asserts that you can change some of the above (for example, impulsivity). Yet individual differences among people are substantial and will remain substantial regardless of whether these techniques work or not. For example, if everyone increases their IQ by 10 points, some people will still be much smarter than others.
  
• It’s a losing proposition to invest your savings in the following: a) individual stocks; b) your own startup business; c) trading of financial instruments; d) prepackaged profit systems; e) the lottery and other pure gambling activities; and f) online poker.
  
• It’s a bad idea to pay for these three types of advice: a) how to get rich; b) how to achieve big success; and c) how to start a successful business. These things require luck and nobody can guarantee anything. The sellers of this sort of information promise to give you a truckload of money
  out of their own pocket
  if you pay them a small fee. If you knew how to make a million dollars easily and quickly, would you let somebody else have this pile of money in exchange for 20 bucks?
  
• The notion that anyone (i.e. the majority of people) can achieve big success is illogical. Big success means that you have hundreds or thousands of times more fame, wealth, or competitive awards than average people. The majority of people cannot be a thousand times better than average people because the majority consists of average people. Hence only a tiny minority of the population can achieve big success, and the probability that this will happen to any given person is miniscule.
  
• Most people cannot become self-employed entrepreneurs but can become financially independent at the retirement age.
  
• The sector of the economy that includes agriculture, fishing, hunting, and forestry offers high rates of successful self-employment and is a smart choice if you wish to become your own boss.
  
• An MBA degree does not provide an advantage at starting a business, but this degree represents a low-risk and patient approach to wealth: climbing the corporate ladder. Even if you do not get lucky, an MBA degree or any other professional degree is a reliable path to above-average income.
  
• People with advanced academic degrees (PhD, MD, JD, and others) are twice as likely to be self-employed as an average person. There is a good correlation between probability of success of a startup and age of the founder.
  
• There is a weak to moderate statistical correlation between self-employment and happiness,
  on average
  . The same is true for material wealth and happiness. Nonetheless, wealth and self-employment are not necessary for happiness because there are plenty of happy people who are neither self-employed nor rich.
  
• Most people do well if they get good education, find good jobs, and make long-term investments.
  [
  Previous Key Points
  ]
  

Social intelligence is the ability to understand and manage people and to behave wisely in human relations. Social intelligence represents mental abilities that are separate from academic intelligence, but may overlap to some extent with emotional intelligence. Just like academic intelligence, social intelligence has two dimensions: fluid (the ability to understand and solve novel problems) and crystallized (knowledge and skills). Thus, it is possible to improve social intelligence by learning special skills. There is evidence that this approach is effective in some groups of patients who suffer from impaired social interaction. According to the natural intelligence theory, diets that approximate the “ancestral diet” of humans should improve functioning of the brain in general and social intelligence in particular. Several different “smart diets” facilitate social interactions, based on my personal experience; 100% compliance with the diets is not necessary.

Solitude is a state of social isolation, which can be voluntary and comfortable. Temporary solitude is often unavoidable and the creativity regimen (Chapter Four) makes such periods tolerable, even if you use the regimen for a few days per month. In addition, several
psychological
approaches exist that make temporary social isolation more comfortable.

As described in Chapter Three, a diet that consists only of fruits and vegetables induces symptoms of ADHD, such as hyperactivity and impulsivity. This approach seems to result in a sharp wit and unusual talkativeness, especially when combined with cold hydrotherapy. This makes it easy to entertain large groups of people. On the other hand, some situations require low impulsivity; for example, when one has to make a life-changing decision. The depressant diet and a hot environment are effective at suppressing impulses, based on my experience.

Various lifestyle changes proposed in this book can improve one mental function while often making other mental abilities worse. Therefore, it is more convenient to use different regimens, depending on circumstances, instead of leading one permanent lifestyle.

This book is unlikely to help you get rich but will improve your chances of successful self-employment. Self-employment depends on luck and does not correlate with intelligence. (Nonetheless, some occupations involve low risk.) Most startup businesses fail and there is a one-in-eight chance that an average person will become self-employed successfully. Wealth depends on luck and does not correlate with intelligence. There is no direct correlation between wealth and work hours per week. Nonetheless, most people can become financially independent at retirement age.
[
Previous Chapter Summary
]

Since I am not a professional chef, I have not been able to devise many recipes that conform to the requirements of this book’s diets. I am not a gourmand and when I cook for myself, I am not concerned with deliciousness of food, as long as food is natural and tastes OK. For example, when I live alone, on some days, I may consume nothing but boiled ground meat and boiled shredded wheat without seasonings of any kind. This food tastes fine and is highly nutritious, but it is not “delicious” in the widely understood definition of this word. This kind of Spartan approach to food is not acceptable to most people and the pages below list some of the more civilized recipes. This appendix also provides a summary of the culinary requirements for those readers who are experienced with cooking and can invent their own recipes. Note that food can be both “brain-friendly” and delicious, but preparation of delicious food requires more time and effort. Also, keep in mind that you do not have to adhere to the restrictions below on days when you do not have to perform any mental tasks, and in this case you can follow the conventional dietary recommendations.

Allowed foods:
meat with average or high fat content, fish, eggs, pasteurized dairy products (free of dietary supplements and other artificial ingredients), edible mushrooms, fruits and vegetables, pasteurized juices (free of additives), raw juices, natural fats such as butter, cream, sour cream, and unrefined vegetable oils; raw nuts; raw water extract of whole-grain wheat flour or shredded whole grains; boiled or steamed
whole grains
are a special case because they are allowed in some diets and disallowed in others (bread and other baked goods are always disallowed). Genetically modified food is not harmful and is allowed in all of the diets described in this book. The same goes for food that is not “organic.” I almost never buy organic food. Small amounts of salt are allowed in all diets except the fruit-and-vegetable diet (in this context, salt may cause “bloodshot eyes”). Unsalted food is easy to get used to and tastes OK; it is also possible to use natural substitutes of salt for cooking instead of table salt, as described below.

Disallowed foods:
cured, smoked, canned or other processed meats; spices and pungent vegetables (garlic, onion, leak, hot peppers, radish); salted and processed cheeses; various artificial ingredients, such as food additives (white sugar, brown sugar, refined starch, gelatin, nitrates, nitrites, vinegar, coloring agents, and others), and dietary supplements (iron, calcium, vitamins, herbal extracts, and others); honey; any breads or sandwiches; white flour, noodles, macaroni, pasta, store-bought salad dressings, sandwich spreads, ketchup, mustard, dip, and other store-bought seasonings; any junk food, such as potato chips, cake, candy, cookies, pastry, pizza, hot-dogs, hamburgers, chewing gum, and so on.

Allowed seasonings.
It is possible to devise seasonings that conform to the criteria listed above. I do not have sufficient culinary expertise to devise a complete recipe of a seasoning, but there are natural substitutes for the two most common additives, refined sugar and table salt. You can replace refined sugar in most cases with finely cut dates or chopped dried fruit, such as raisins or dried apricots. For example, you can add dried fruit to whole grains when you boil them and this will improve the taste. Highly sweet fruit juices such as pineapple and grape juice can also serve as a white sugar substitute in various dishes. Although refined sugar (pure sucrose) is an unhealthy product, fruits are a natural and healthy food, although fruits contain exactly the same sucrose (with the same chemical formula). In all likelihood, refined sugar has adverse effects on health because purified sucrose is devoid of other sugars, vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients present in fruit. Put another way, pure sucrose is an unusual and unnatural type of food.