Be Smart and Be you...

Don’t use your astuteness to belittle others: In general, waving your intellect in other people’s faces shows that you lack another significant type of intelligence - 'social intelligence'. If you had it, you’d recognize that letting other people take the spotlight makes them feel important and that they would connect the feeling with being around you. Instead of calling out your intelligence, let it speak for itself.

·    We lie to ourselves all the time. One of the main lies we tell ourselves? That we’re open-minded. The reality is, each of us cobbles together an identity based on narratives we’ve been told by groups we belong to. The first step is to simply acknowledge how difficult it is to form untainted beliefs. This will give you the humility to second-guess your own opinions. Once you’re able to challenge yourself regularly, you’ll be able to see the world through the lens of your independence and sit assuredly with your own opinions while everyone else argues.

·    Stop caring what people think about you: Do you want to know a great trick for letting go of other people’s sentiments? Read a book or watch a YouTube video about space. “Our sun is just one of the one hundred thousand million stars that make up our galaxy the Milky Way. The Milky Way is only one of the many galaxies in the local group. The local group, in turn, is just one of the thousands of groups and clusters of galaxies which form the largest known structures of our universe. Now think of your place in that universe. Why are you so thoughtful about what will happen or what others will think when you’re an minute space of existence?