Image by Prettysleepy from Pixabay

The smartest people are the ones who are quietly listening and absorbing everything that is being said around them. These people have the most knowledge because they’re processing words instead of speaking them. Their thoughts and opinions arrive from knowledge that has been meticulously collected and curated.

What are the signs of a smart person?

So here are a few signs of an intelligent person, according to experts.

• You’re Empathetic & Compassionate.
• You’re Curious about the World.
• You’re Observant.
• You Have Self-Control.
• You Have A Good Working Memory.
• You Recognize Your Limits.
• You Like To Go With The Flow.
• You’re Passionate about Things That Really Interest You.*

Intelligent people tend to appear quiet because they are natural observers. They are listening and watching what's going on around them. They tend to analyze the situation, breaking it down into parts like a social puzzle, and ask themselves questions to figure it out.

 If smart person do not know a topic very well he would be quiet, while the extroverts would just make random comments and guesses about the topic. But if he knew the topic well, he would be able to explain it concisely and refute false ideas logically. Because his statement were fewer but more accurate, he thought people assumed he was smart than he was.

 But that may not be true. A person who is talking is only stating what they have thought and are not gaining new knowledge. A person who is listening or reading is learning.

 The difficulty comes for introverts when they realize the person talking does not know as much as they do. A co-worker once asked why I would not share my information much in a meeting. The extroverts would just start talking, parroting what they had heard earlier and then move on to ideas that obviously wouldn't work. It was too late to present my ideas which countered theirs without insulting them.

 The other difficulty is that when I thought an idea through I was confident about it and did not ask for consensus, which the extroverts felt they had the right to weigh in on. This is probably because they realized their own ideas were half-formed and needed refinement. They assumed everybody presented ideas in that manner.**

* https://www.rampfesthudson.com/do-intelligent-people-talk-more-or-less/

** https://specialties.bayt.com