Devoted to Managers and those that seek to improve their management skills

My colleague at Brain Based Business, Ellen Weber, wrote about the connection between being smart or dumb and attaining wealth. She was referring to a study by Ohio State University which said there is no connection.

This isn't surprising. I've done exhaustive studies myself of past wealthy people, and it's surprising how many have never finished college, and in a number of cases - high school.

Richard Branson, who I feature on managersrealm is one of those that didn't finish high school; neither did Henry Ford. Bill Gates never graduated from college either. The list goes on and on.

Another interesting insight by the authors of the "Millionaire Next Door" was that many of those with high incomes were living just as much paycheck to paycheck as those with less wealth. They were one major problem away from huge financial difficulties.

The university study reveals that the only place where how smart a person is has value in is in reference to income. I think that's because many times income is connected to the professions, which those in the professions are required to complete schooling to even be able to enter into them. Thus probably the higher IQ results.

When it comes to wealth, there are only three ways to really attain it. You either must have the discipline to cut back on spending and invest over decades of your life, be in a profession (doctor, lawyer etc.) or own a business. It is those in business that probably produce the results of the test by the university study. Smart as measured by IQ has no relevancy to business success. But many people unwisely think it does.

Ellen asks a question on the site then: "If IQ is unrelated to personal wealth, and if smart people can fall into financial difficulty… what advantage comes with developing more brainpower?"

My initial response is that developing brainpower may not be for the purpose of being wealthy by a lot of people in the first place.

Next, wealth and business success are related to more inner strengths like people skills, vision, passion, caring and never giving up. These aren't things that are related to the intellect, but more to the heart.

Management, if nothing else, deals with people. Those that are successful at it always have genuine compassion for people and their results show it.

To me, financial and business success comes in spite of intellect, not because of it.