Would you rather be Smart or Skilled?

I've often coaching new and sometimes younger inventors/entrepreneurs. They are bright eyed, bushy tailed and eager to take on the world with a quiver of confidence backed by rosy myths, book knowledge, and guesses. Their biggest problem is they confuse smart and skilled.

Smart people can figure things out.

Skilled people know. 

Skill is gained through experience. Would you rather parachute with a "smart" parachuter who jumped once or a skilled parachuter who jumped 1000 times? Smart is not a substitute for skill.

But why does it matter? Smart people often confuse their smartness with skill. This blinds them to the storms and tripwires that may lie ahead. 

One person I know reads every book on a subject and then thinks he knows everything about it. But when I ask him to explain how his ideas work in specific cases he can't. He brushes the questions off saying he'll figure it out. He's very smart but will need some actual experience to "figure things out". And ultimately, he'll learn that everything he believes is not correct. Skill shows you what books often can't.

How does one get skilled? Experience is your friend. If you want to be skilled at entrepreneurship then go start something. It could be a small something. Rent a hot dog cart and sell hot dogs this weekend or go to the flea market with junk you scavenged from dumpsters or bought at the dollar store. It doesn't even matter if you even make money, although that should be a minor goal. Your major goal should be to build your skills by experiencing things. Remember, profits and loses, success and failures, winning and losing, all build skill.

How do you become smart? Much debate on that. Clearly, some people are more gifted in the smarts department than others but I'll tell you why smarts don't matter. Most people can't tell the difference between a smart person and a skilled person. If you have skill, you appear smart. Maybe you can't be Einstein but if you master a skill, like baking delicious artisan loaves of bread, your skill will appear like smarts. You will make money, and heck, you'll look like a freaken genius.

Dumb people should just focus on building skills. (I know, I used the word dumb. Stop wincing. I saved you from having to read "less-than-smart" or some other BS word kludge for the rest of the article.)

If you know you're not MIT material but have a passion for cars, go for it, get your skill on. Learn everything you can about every aspect of every car you can. The world will pay you for your skills. Plenty of money is always available for skilled people. Some mechanics earn more than some college professors and many car dealers earn more than doctors.

What if you're smart? Smart people need to take a humble pill. Yeah, you're smart, but understand that smart is not a skill. You don't want to read a book about lion taming and then immediately jump in a cage with a lion. Build your skills, in a safe environment and be ready to fail. Failure is a part of the process and smart people don't like it. Dumb people are often more accepting of failure as long as they see they are moving ahead. But many smart people don't like the punch in the face a good failure can be. A bloody nose heals and also reminds you never to do that again. Understand, failure is also skill building.

One more thing about skill building. The quality of your skill is proportional to the breadth and depth of your experiences. Some people think they have 10 years of experience when really they just have one year which they've repeated 10 times. Doing the same thing over and over for 10 years is not 10 years of experience. Being skilled means your knowledge is current and you are continually exploring, learning, and growing. 

Why did I write this? I see too many smart people quitting because they believe their smartness is all they need and suddenly failure kicks them a little too hard. And I also see too many dumb people not wanting to try because they believe they're not smart enough. If you have an idea, build some skills and try it. It is the best way to chase success.

Success rewards skilled people who take a chance. Build your skills and then take a chance. You just might surprise yourself.

Perry The Inventor is a patented award winning designer, serial entrepreneur and coach. He is the founder of Perry Teri Toys llc and loves play. Connect with him on Linkedin as he accepts all connections and loves networking with innovative minded people.