IQ lost its crown

For decades IQ was the yardstick for intelligence. Stanford researchers now prefer to define it by personality traits instead.

Twenty years, 600 people

A long American study followed nearly 600 parents and children. It found character traits shared by the brightest minds, three of them in particular.

Many kinds of smart

Howard Gardner's multiple intelligences model captures how differently people think. Knowing which ones are yours multiplies what you can do with them.

They ride out frustration

Dr Emma Seppala's work found these people handle irritation and frustration better than most. They say the negative feeling out loud to someone, which is what keeps it manageable.

Mistakes are just data

Failure reads as a lesson, not a verdict. They own the slip, go easy on themselves, and bounce back, while lower scorers tend to blame other people.

“le secret de la résilience, de la force face à l'échec, de la capacité d'apprendre de ses erreurs”

And they swear a lot

The trait that unsettles everyone else. Cursing when angry can lift confidence, motivation and productivity, though the benefit fades if you do it constantly.

“les jurons peuvent faire du bien à la santé mentale”