Steven Bartlett: ‘The people you admire aren’t as smart as you think they are’

Steven Bartlett, entrepreneur, investor and host of the global hit podcast The Diary of a CEO, recently shared a candid reflection on LinkedIn that challenges long-held assumptions about intelligence, success, and what truly sets top leaders apart.

While touring Asia, Mr Bartlett was asked a simple yet powerful question: “What’s one thing you wish someone had told you 10 years ago?” His response was striking: “The people you admire aren’t as smart as you think they are.”

For Mr Bartlett, who co-founded the social media marketing agency Social Chain in 2014 before becoming one of the most recognised entrepreneurial voices in the UK, success had once seemed linked to extraordinary intellect. He admitted that in his early years, he would “read their interviews, study their strategies, convinced there was a god-given, innate, genetic cognitive gap I needed to bridge!”

That belief shifted only when he began to encounter the very figures he had once put on a pedestal. “Then I started meeting them, interviewing them, spending time with them and doing business with them and my mind completely changed,” he said.

What Mr Bartlett discovered was that “success isn’t about being the smartest person.” Instead, the controllable factors that drive achievement are “about being really really persistent and hoping that your timing is right.”

Failure, too, plays a central role. He stressed that often the first attempt will not succeed, but “trying again without a loss in self-belief and tenacity” is what distinguishes entrepreneurs who eventually make it. In his words, “All of the ‘smarts’ you think you need will be acquired by doing this, repeatedly.”

Facing discomfort

A key difference he observed between those who achieve professional success and everyone else lies not in IQ but in mindset. Mr Bartlett highlighted the willingness to “look silly in public, to face temporary embarrassment in front of people they care about and to fail several times in a row.”

In this light, intelligence becomes less about innate ability and more about resilience, openness to failure, and surrounding oneself with the right people. “The smartest thing successful people do? They surround themselves with smarter people,” he wrote.

For those still hesitant to embark on their entrepreneurial path, Mr Bartlett’s advice is reassuring. “The truth is, you’re probably smarter than you think. And most definitely smart enough to start,” he affirmed. What holds many back, he argued, is not a lack of intellect but “the false belief about how much intelligence they need.”