# Why your IQ doesn't really matter?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2u0SAVIbK7Y

[00:00] This video is sponsored by brilliant.org.
[00:03] What is my IQ?
[00:03] Hey guys, it's Dr. Justin.
[00:06] Here and uh I saw this question uh pop up recently on one of my videos and it was saying I've done a lot of stuff.
[00:11] I manage a lot of things and I've got lots of things on my plate, therefore I must have a really high IQ.
[00:19] They said I must be like 140, 150.
[00:21] I've got a medical degree.
[00:24] I've got uh this is my this is my uh honors degree, my research degree.
[00:27] I got that in first class.
[00:30] I got my master of education, I got that with distinction.
[00:34] Um, I got the highest possible grades that you could get for all of the assignments.
[00:38] And I was doing this while I was managing working full-time, you know, as well.
[00:42] Therefore, like, only logical conclusion is that I must be a genius, right?
[00:47] I must just be gifted.
[00:51] And so this video is going to address that.
[00:53] What is my IQ?
[00:53] And is that the secret to why I've been able to be academically at least quite successful?
[01:00] so the original plan for this video was that I was going to take an IQ test and then I was gonna do it.
[01:06] I was gonna say, hey, look, this is this is what my IQ is and I was going to talk about it and so I went on the Mensa website and they have this free test sort of saying it's meant to give you a preview in terms of what the IQ test is like and I did it and it doesn't tell you the score that you get but you know what I realized I realized that that wouldn't work because I am too good at taking the test.
[01:29] here's what I mean when I was entering into Medical School here in Auckland um for a period of time there was this test called the umat it was basically like a psychometric test plus an IQ test wrapped into one you needed to sit this to enter into medical school and you had to have a reasonably good score and so I took this test but in order to take this I trained for it like I trained quite a lot for it in fact and so I learned all the strategies in terms of how to take it and because that test was designed very very similarly to Conventional IQ tests when I was taking this I found
[02:02] that I could not stop using the strategies that I'd learned like I just couldn't stop myself from thinking in the way that I had taught myself how to sync.
[02:11] when I set the umat test I got in the 98th percentile and based on like IQ calculators if you're in the top two percentile it means that the IQ is roughly like mid 130s or something like that but it's not an accurate reflection and this is a criticism of IQ tests in general and if fact the concept of intelligence in general.
[02:32] this is sort of one of the big debates is that the IQ test is a measure of how well you sit that test if it was truly a measure of real intelligence you shouldn't be able to improve by training for it.
[02:48] however because you can what does it mean it means that by training for it you get better at doing IQ tests and so your score actually ends up going up and the other question is what even is intelligence here's the thing is that I
[03:02] am good at learning it's my thing this is what I do it's my job like I dedicate my life to it right so this is not a humble brag like I've dedicated my life to it I'm allowed to be good at this one thing.
[03:12] however it doesn't mean that I am expert at literally everything it's not like just because I can learn something therefore I am the most intelligent high performing person for every single task.
[03:22] in fact most of the time when I'm in a room I'm not the best at anything other than just teaching learning skills.
[03:29] so intelligence is really kind of this false label I mean like what does it really mean because people are not looking for intelligence what people want are the outcome they want the result they want to be able to do well in a certain exam or a test or whatever it is because it leads to something else.
[03:46] if you set a test and then you did great but then that never got you anywhere that test would have ended up being like useless you wouldn't want to do one on that test like you don't just randomly go out and find tests to sit just so that you can score well at least I'm I hope you're not doing that.
[04:02] intelligence is many different forms.
[04:04] there are lots of different ways that you can be smart and you can perform highly and it's just a series of habits.
[04:10] it's just a series of skills if you learn to think in a certain way then you can think in that way.
[04:14] so in order to answer the question of well what actually is my IQ I think the best way to do it is the very very first time I set that umat test the very very first time I said it I was 17 or 16 which is above the eligible age and I said it without any preparation.
[04:33] I said it without any training at the time when I said it I think I got something like 75th or 78th percentile and so what that means is that my IQ whatever that even means is probably above average but it isn't Elite.
[04:51] so what does that mean if you think about my actual lived experience of studying and going through University this actually makes sense yes I've been able to perform very highly.
[05:04] when I entered into Medical School my grades were like essentially perfect.
[05:07] however for those of you that are familiar with my story I had to study a lot.
[05:12] I studied all the time I was studying constantly and if you think about it if I was truly so smart I wouldn't have needed to do all of that to perform well.
[05:25] the fact that I had to study so much like a lot of people will leave comments on some of the videos that I upload saying like that's stupid.
[05:35] like you don't need to study that much to enter into medical school and you're right you don't need to study that much.
[05:40] the only reason I had to was because I wasn't just naturally smart enough to do it.
[05:46] like I had to make up for that was just working more and more and more and more and I was actually like the lucky one.
[05:52] like I could at least overcompensate and get that result.
[05:56] I mean it's complicated because there's efficiency to factor into the equation and things like that but at the end of the day a lot of other people are studying a lot and they're not getting.
[06:06] the result they're not able to compensate in that way.
[06:10] so I find it really interesting because I talk about these learning methods.
[06:11] I talk about this way of thinking and a way of learning that is different to what everyone else is doing.
[06:17] and people sort of have an issue with that like uh you know people are kind of hating on it saying oh you know like this isn't right it's not real or whatever it is.
[06:27] and even if we don't think about what all the research says about it which supports it completely if you just think about it logically.
[06:32] if you are using the techniques that other people are already using like you're doing your flash cards you're studying the hours and you're writing your notes and you are still not achieving at a certain level that you want to be achieving.
[06:45] what does that mean like the only logical conclusion there if you think that's the best possible method is that you're just too dumb.
[06:55] so you could either believe that or you could believe the alternative which is that maybe the methods aren't as good as you think they are maybe the people that are successful with those methods are
[07:07] able to be successful not because of those methods but they're able to be successful despite those methods.
[07:16] and I'm not saying that something like flashcards is like useless it has a place and it has a purpose but if that's all you're using then you're not going to be able to accomplish a lot of the other learning outcomes and learning goals that you need especially the higher order learning outcome that I talk about in all my other videos.
[07:32] and so really the trick here is that yes you can use these strategies and you can use these methods however you need to train your brain to be able to think in a certain way.
[07:41] like if you're not good at public speaking no baby is born good at public speaking everyone sucks at public speaking when you're first born right.
[07:52] public speaking is a skill that you can learn and once you train and you learn how to think like a good public speaker and you practice public speaking and you get the hours in where you are doing the right public speaking technique then
[08:09] that becomes a new norm for you like you know how to speak that way.
[08:11] When I was in high school I was a terrible public speaker.
[08:15] No, now I'm going and talking at conferences in front of thousands of people.
[08:19] I did my TEDx talk, you know, I'm doing public speaking all the time and I find it reasonably like, okay, I'm pretty comfortable with it.
[08:28] 16, 15 year old me was terrified of public speaking.
[08:31] It's just a skill that I learned and it's a habit, it's a method of thinking.
[08:36] And the thing is that your ability to learn is very, very similar to that.
[08:41] It's a little more complicated, but it's about learning a way of thinking about something that allows you to perform better.
[08:50] It's not that your intelligence is fixed.
[08:52] It's not that your IQ is set at a certain level, that's not the main thing.
[08:58] For a lot of people, yes, genetics does have an impact, but most people in my experience that I've worked with, most people are really, really underperforming their genetic.
[09:10] potential they're nowhere near the top
[09:11] and so if you can train your brain to
[09:14] think in the right patterns and those
[09:16] patterns become familiar and then they
[09:19] become your new habits which does take
[09:22] time
[09:23] then
[09:24] you've become smarter your intelligence
[09:27] has literally grown and that's it's true
[09:30] the ability for your brain to grow and
[09:33] adapt is something that's called
[09:34] neuroplasticity and we don't know
[09:36] exactly the extent of neuroplasticity
[09:39] yet the research hasn't told us but we
[09:40] know that it is significant we know that
[09:42] the human brain is capable of adapting
[09:44] enormously immensely and we're
[09:47] constantly Blown Away by how much it can
[09:49] and we know that with practice and
[09:52] training your ability to think at a
[09:54] higher order which directly translates
[09:57] to having better memory and the ability
[10:00] to understand complex information more
[10:01] deeply and more easily
[10:03] that all improves and that's what a lot
[10:06] of people call intelligence I'm able to
[10:09] perform at the level that I can perform
[10:11] in terms of learning because I have refined my methods for the last decade.
[10:15] and obviously these are the methods that I teach in my programs the methods I keep pushing out on my YouTube and all my social media is some methods that I want people to start using more.
[10:23] because when you use it this way you don't think I'm dumb you think oh I need to just change my methods.
[10:31] it's not like I'm a I'm a stupid person and therefore I can't achieve it's like I am capable of achieving I just don't have the right tool.
[10:40] I'm just not familiar with the right process I think that's a much better way of thinking about the situation rather than assuming that the most common methods that everyone uses are the best which the research that itself says is not the case.
[10:54] rather than you know thinking that that's the case and then you're just too dumb I think it's better to think that hey maybe it's just my methods which is actually the very reason and this is kind of all ties together this is the actual reason why I chose brilliant to be the sponsor of this video because what they do is it
[11:12] Illustrates a very specific point.
[11:14] Let's take the example of stem subjects.
[11:16] You know science, technology, or and especially maths.
[11:18] Maths is a subject that a lot of people feel like they're not very good at.
[11:23] They naturally feel that they're not able to think in a way that's mathematical.
[11:26] But what does that even mean?
[11:28] What does it mean to just think in a way that's mathematical?
[11:32] That is also a method of thinking.
[11:36] It's a process and once you know what the method of thinking is, you know how to see it and how to think about it.
[11:43] You become smarter, not immediately, but as you practice and you become more and more familiar and that becomes your normal default way of doing it.
[11:49] Just like how I'm now good at doing IQ tests, not because I'm naturally so smart, but because I just got really good at that test.
[12:00] If you get good at thinking about maths, you become good at maths.
[12:06] It's kind of really a way of like fake it till you make it.
[12:08] And so the reason why I agreed for brilliant to be a sponsor and those
[12:13] of you that have been following me for a while know that I'm very very picky with who I allow to be a sponsor.
[12:16] brilliant is teaching people how to think about certain subjects that are typically difficult to think about.
[12:25] like math is taught in a very linear very formulaic kind of way.
[12:28] it's very hard to see what it means like when you read an equation what does it even mean when you read a formula what does it even mean.
[12:34] same thing with science a lot of these concepts are very abstract and by role modeling and seeing examples of what that looks like it gives you another perspective on the subject.
[12:44] you're now able to visualize it you're now able to see how it connects and comes together.
[12:48] and once you're more familiar and used to seeing it through that lens you become able to replicate that method of thinking and learning even without having a guide or a software or an app like brilliant.
[13:00] and so let me tell you a little bit about brilliant.org and what it offers because I think it could really be helpful for you to see science and maths and computer science and these other subjects a little bit more intuitively.
[13:11] and also because I have to tell you about them because it's part of
[13:14] my contractual obligation as a sponsor.
[13:15] as you can see brilliant has a ton of different courses on on different subjects.
[13:20] they're most well known for studying math and computer science and they're phenomenal at doing that.
[13:26] the good thing about this is that you can learn how to think in a certain way.
[13:30] so let's take physics of the everyday and this is what the lessons would look like.
[13:33] it's very very visual it's it's basically they're trying to explain concepts to you but they're trying to make sure that every single concept they're sort of anchored with like good visuals that you can really see exactly what it looks like.
[13:44] and the good thing is that even if you're not learning something that is directly like your curriculum material because it's about a method of thinking it's very transferable.
[13:54] like you know those situations where your teacher will explain a concept to you in a way that is like really really simple and once you see that you're like ah now that you explain it that way it makes a lot of sense.
[14:06] well brilliant is basically just a collection of descriptions that all are designed to try to make things make sense.
[14:10] as you can see they've got a ton
[14:15] of different topics and they add new topics every single month.
[14:19] so rather than me just showing you and explaining it you may as well just give it a go as part of the sponsorship agreement.
[14:23] brilliant has given me my own special link.
[14:25] it's brilliant.org Justin song you can see the link in the description and you can get everything that brilliant offer for free for 30 days.
[14:35] and then if you choose to then pay for it the first 200 people will get 20 off an annual subscription so I recommend that you check it out.
[14:42] and I recommend even more so that you don't think about intelligence as something that is like an IQ point.
[14:49] it's or a test you know it's not astrology.
[14:52] you don't get to you're not born under like the whatever like a Sagittarius star and therefore you're deemed to be an idiot for the rest of your life.
[15:01] you can train the way that you think you can transform the way that you view subjects and topics to make it genuinely easier for you.
[15:08] and it might feel like it's faking it but it's actually helping you to perform better.
[15:12] and that is exactly the reason why I'm
[15:15] able to perform academically at a high level even though my natural intelligence is only whatever like 75th percentile or something
[15:24] so to finish off what is my IQ
[15:26] I don't know and I don't care and neither should you
[15:41] thank you