It’s not just that they’re smarter than everyone else. It’s that their brains are wired differently. They’re wired to process information in a different way than the rest of us, and that’s why they can do so much more than we can. It’s one of the things that makes them so different from us: they don’t have to think about the world in the same way we do. That’s what makes it so hard for us to understand what’s going on in other people’s brains because we’re so used to thinking about it in terms of our own. But that doesn’t mean that high-IQ people aren’t capable of understanding the thoughts and feelings of others, or that we shouldn’t try to help them understand them. After all, if you can’t understand someone else’s thoughts, how can you understand your own? And it turns out that there are a lot of ways to do that. Here are some of them:
- Ask them to describe their thoughts in words they understand. This is a great way to get a sense of what their thinking is like. Ask something like, “What comes into your mind when you hear the word ‘family’?” What is the word mean to them? You could also ask if they think it means something different to them than it does to you. If you’re not sure what they mean, try asking them a question like “Do you believe that family is the most important thing in your life?” or “How do you describe your relationship with your family member?” The answers they give you might surprise you, and you’ll also learn something about them that you didn’t know before. And, of course, they’ll be more open to talking about their feelings and thoughts with you than they would be with a friend or a family member. (For more on this topic, check out my post on how to talk to people who have high and low IQs, as well as my article on what to say to someone who has high or low intelligence.)
- Listen to their stories. One of my favorite ways of getting to know someone is to listen to the stories they tell about themselves. I’ve found that listening to a person’s story can help me understand their perspective on life and how it relates to what I’m trying to accomplish in my own life. When I hear a story about how their life has changed over the past few years, I can get an idea of how much they’ve changed in that time and what that means for them and their future.
- Read their books. Reading a book can be an excellent way of learning about someone’s life, especially if the book is written by someone with high intelligence. There are many books out there that are written for people with higher intelligence, such as The Genius at Work: The New Science of Extraordinary Creativity by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. These books are great for getting a feel for how someone thinks and feels about things.
- Watch their videos. Watching a video can also be a good way for you to gain a better understanding of someone. A great example of this is when I was in college and I watched a documentary about a guy named Steve Jobs. The documentary was about his life from his early days as a teenager to his death in 2011. During that documentary, Steve was interviewed several times by different people, including me, who were interested in learning more about what it was like to work with him. So I decided to watch the entire documentary and learn as much as I could from it. What I found out was that Steve had a very different approach to life than most people I knew. He was very focused on his work, which is why he was able to create so many amazing products and products that changed the way people thought about computers and computers in general. As a result, he had an incredible amount of energy and drive to make sure that the products he created were the best they could be, even if it meant sacrificing some of his personal life for the sake of making them better.
- Talk with them on the phone or in person. Talking with someone about something they care about is an incredibly powerful experience. Not only is it an opportunity to learn about who they are and where they come from, but the conversation is also a chance to ask questions that will help you better understand the other person and the situation at hand. 6. Share their ideas with others. Sharing ideas is another way that people can learn from each other. Highly intelligent people tend to be very open-minded and willing to share their knowledge with anyone who wants to hear it, regardless of whether or not they agree with the ideas. Sometimes, this can lead to some very interesting conversations, like the one I had with my friend who had just graduated from college. She told me about her plans to go to graduate school