It seems an assumption in life that successful people are somehow better as people than everyone else.

Titles like genius, entrepreneur or ones of statehood are attached and somehow we assume that as people they have magically changed.

But the fact is every single one of us is flawed.

Bill Clinton and Tiger Woods are two famous examples of brilliant people who allowed their flaws to be aired publicly, however they are not alone.

Just because someone is intelligent in one sense doesn’t make them intelligent in others. The word genius is frequently attached to people who excel in specialised fields but their speciality often masks inadequacies in other areas.

Although I can’t prove it, I find in my experience that brilliance comes hand in hand with failure; as if to be brilliant in one area means you must be deficient in another.

Flaws can come in many forms and all too often they are well hidden. Previously we’ve discussed the effect that stress has upon people, and how when under it’s influences the layers of make u[ people apply to their personality to hide these flaws is often removed.

If we were to remove the often well crafted make up from any brilliant person and we might find the following:

• Depression
• Womanising (or manising if that’s a word)
• Narcissism
• Clouded sense of reality
• Lack of common sense

Most of the above centre around a desire to be accepted or even praised for their achievements.

Yet there is also an assumption that the above flaws are not fluid. They are in fact totally fluid; because someone’s brilliance can often mean that they can overcome their own flaws given time and support.

They are after all highly intelligent; the only problem is that often these flaws are hidden and as such you will never quite know when they are truly applicable.

You might uncover someone’s womanising ways, only to later realise that they have in fact learned from their experiences and cured them.

There is one final flaw that all brilliant people have in common. I don’t want to tar anyone with the same brush, because we are all different, but throughout my journey there is one common flaw I find more than any.

Trusting the wrong people.

People who crave attention, or those that have been elevated into a world surrounded by so called geniuses that as a security blanket they want to surround themselves with the right people.

Maybe these people make up for their own flaws, or simply they are there to help them enact some of their ideas, but in essence the problem of trust isn’t that it’s ultimately awarded; it’s that the wrong people are trusted.

There is an entire industry of people who have made it their careers to earn the trust of flawed but rich people and in turn use that to generate their own wealth.

Once you are trusted you can exploit matters to your own ends and in my experience the misplacement of trust has undoubtedly led to great teams falling apart and brilliant business ideas failing.

I’ve seen black holes of money draining ideas created because the wrong person was trusted with crucial task but more often than not the misplacement of trust puts an untouchable leach on a company’s cash flow.

In the workplace understanding who to trust can be tricky. Many people say one thing and do another. As a direct circumstance you’ll start to realise that your circle of friends will diminish rapidly.

You’ll end up with few trust worthy friends and many untrusted associates.

In order to succeed then we must appreciate that there will always be flaws in great minds, but if we add some perspective to ourselves then we can spot these flaws early and deal with them.

I have flaws as much as the next person and until I realised most of them I let a lot of people down.

In order to deal with your flaws you have to be true to yourself and honest; it’s often hard for us to be our own critic.

We gain experience in dealing with our specialist areas all the time and we grow because of the wisdom we learn but in terms of our flaws we often avoid confronting them like the plague.

In order to grow and succeed we need to deal with our flaws much like we deal with our business. We need to discover what they are, find a solution and ensure that solution is effective over time.

That sounds easy but it’s not. Despite being intelligent we are humans subject to an animalistic nature. Hormones and desires affect everything; learning to control them is one of the hardest tasks you will face but once you overcome them you will become infinitely more formidable.

Chapter Summary:

• We are all flawed
• Intelligent people are more flawed – like a fine balancing act
• You need to recognise your flaws
• Your biggest issue will be misplacing trust.

Read our next blog post “There’s no point in arguing”.