Why Intellectuals Fail?

Do brilliant people achieve at par with their potential?
Does their intellectual and analytic power help them move forward or holds them back?


Long Back, I had heard of a study...

There was a study to see how an academic performance and the career are inter-related. The results were like following for the group of students, in a Class-12:

1. Distinction:
1. Students who passed with Distinction were, of course, brilliant ones! They had become Engineers.
2. First Class:
1. Students who had passed with First class couldn't get admissions to Engineering so they did graduation and MBA after graduation.
2. They were working as the bosses of the Engineers.
3. Second Class:
1. These people weren't as brilliant, so they settled for mid-level profiles, after graduation.

What happened with those, who had failed?

Hmmm..., what do you think, who's companies, all these Distinction, First-Class and Second-Class people were working...?

(For those, who need explicit mention..., yes, the ones who had failed in 12th were owning the companies, others were working for!)

Can this really happen? How can Brilliant Intellectuals end up working for not so brilliant, non-educated people?

Let's go through the following story to understand!

There were two classmates, Popatlal and Vijay.

Popatlal failed in 12th. He had no hopes for passing it, by re-attempting, so he left the school. 

He started working as a supervisor on a construction site, to supervise laborers.

Vijay passed with Distinction in 12th. He could get admission to Engineering College. He passed Bachelor of Engineering in Civil Engineering and then, Masters of Engineering in Structural Engineering.

After 12th, Vijay spent 6 years to become ME and then worked in a job to get some experience for 4 years.

After failing in 12th, Popatlal worked in construction for 10 years, by now.

Vijay decided to start his business, having got enough experience..., so did Popatlal.

Both of them got a first assignment, which they finished over a period of a year.

Both of them had invested ₹600,000/- (INR Six Lac or Six Hundred Thousand) and had earned a total profit of ₹300,000/- (INR Three Hundred Thousand).

Popatlal was dumb (not brilliant), so he thought, good, he has made ₹300,000/- in a year, by being in his own business, while he could have made just ₹180,000/- in a year, in a job of ₹15,000/- per month!

Vijay was brilliant! He immediately assessed the situation and understood that he used to make ₹480,000/- in the job, at ₹40,000/- per month, and now he ended up making 62.5% less than the Salary!

Incidentally, Vijay's wife too was an educated and brilliant woman! She rightly pointed out that still they were not considering the Interest on the Investment of ₹600,000/-! Which would add further to the losses!

So they declared this endeavor as a loss-making and decided to go back to the job!

Popatlal was happy for his profit-making endeavor and decided to continue in the business!

I couldn't get in touch with them for next 5-odd years...! One day suddenly, I met Vijay! While talking, I understood their current statuses...

Popatlal had continued in business and had become one of the top builders in the town, earning around ₹200,000,000/- (INR Two Hundred Million) per month, while Vijay was working in Popatlal's company at ₹200,000/- (INR Two Hundred Thousand) per month!