The world is run by people no smarter than you
Seems like the failure was imagining that smart people don't make mistakes. Smart people make tons of mistakes and they are confident in their ability to correct and improve. They aren't fragile and afraid to be wrong in public because they know saying 'I don't know' isn't a death sentence.<p>Regular people generally just sit in one place improving nothing, learning nothing, changing little year over year. Terrified of being "caught out as an imposter" whatever that means.<p>The difference isn't smart/not smart. It's movement vs stationary.