If you use IQ as a score to measure intelligence it is said that with 100 being the average ,the most successful are around 120. IQs of more than 140 are less likely to achieve success.
I would like to modify this statement slightly. The ability to think in a spacial and sequential way will produce higher incomes as shown by the technology giants. I am referring to the great thinkers where wisdom is the currency. Great philosophers will often lack the precise digital thinking that draws vast wealth in our times. They see the world in a more analogue way.
They will have a more eclectic mind regarding the intricacies of commerce as trivial. Great thinkers as academics often regard the acquisition of wealth as an unethical enterprise and somewhat inferior to their own disciplines.
Most fortunes are generated from the daily grind doing the small things better and better and over and over again. These fortune builders adjust their thinking to the ever changing market and have little time for life shattering theories. They only analyse the market to feedback whether their activities are profitable or not.
The education system will promote intellectual rigour for its own sake , ill preparing most for the savage world of competitive business. However they do a good job in shaping their most gifted pupils into the professions some who actually become affluent.
I take no side in this debate as we benefit from both thinkers and and commercial providers. Both miss out on the experience of the other but on balance to be business orientated is probably more advantageous for both the individual and their family. Alternatively great thinkers could benefit society more in the long term.
Peter Bull. ( author of the get in touch series)