Keep in mind that the smartest people are not always on top. In reality, the person who believes in himself or herself the most, irrespective of their nominal brainpower, is usually the most successful.
You have probably heard the expression, “he’s smart, but he doesn’t apply himself.” This is not a beneficial way to go through school. In business, however, if you feel you aren’t the smartest, then you should make up for it by changing the rules, which you couldn’t have done at school. This would be akin to getting yourself a new teacher, selecting your own schoolbooks, choosing new classmates (teammates), changing school hours, getting leveraged (student) financing, merging and deleting classes at will, or beating up on your peers who were born with higher IQs but are complacent.
You can see that each idea would have helped you be the leader in your class (even if a bit heavy-handed) and is analogous to how you can still lead in the business world. If you could have changed the rules like this in class, you could have attained straight A’s. Fortunately, in business you are allowed to change all the rules to get top grades, as long as you don’t run astray of any laws.
You don’t have to be the smartest to dominate your business niche, but you do have to be among the most assertive and confident.
