I’ve seen the work of others.

It goes like this nowadays: “Hahah, I fooled these suckers into hiring me”

“Everyone knows something. Nobody knows everything.” If you focus on what you don’t know, ofc you will not feel smart. But you know something, so focus on that. Even if it’s not directly relevant, a lot of advances are made by taking ideas from a similar discipline and applying them to a current problem.

Success has nothing to do with being smart. All accomplishments are the product of dedication and effort, to varying degrees, in incremental steps. The starting conditions are not equal either.

The good news is you don’t have Dunning-Kruger.

I guess I can answer this, because I work in IT and that gives me the opportunity to feel smarter than people regularly. And despite also feeling like a moron regularly, the curse of competence tells me the imposter syndrome is bullshit.

You seem to be suffering from imposter syndrome. Step 1 is to understand that we’re all just winging it.

Are you getting the job done? Plenty of people you perceive as smarter than you are not getting the job done.

Wait you guys are having success?

“If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room.”

Be curious, not comfortable. Never stop learning from those who are smarter than you.

Everyone, including you (and me ofc), is dumb AF but in different ways.

preparation and luck or nepotism

“Success” is relative. Don’t believe the lie that you have to have lots of money and stuff to be successful.

Also, I’ve heard it said, “if you find yourself in a room where you’re the smartest person, you’re in the wrong room.”

I’ve been very fortunate, at times, to work with people who were incredibly good at their jobs or just wise people in general. I don’t think any of those people saw themselves as anything special. They just knew something I didn’t and were happy to share. I learned a lot from them. But I have so much more to learn. I’m ok with that. It keeps things interesting.

Your pay check is all the justification you need.

We need to get past this idea of smart being the key, Everyone is smart in their own way. I spent a good few years in stem, everyone says oh your so smart. I am not i am logical and persistent (or as i see it unfortunately obsessive).

Second your schooling likely led to this path, cognitive edu models, alongside problem solving roles amplifys the idea of smart. Reality you leaned to your strength, not everyone gets the means to do that.

Don’t feel guilty for doing what you are good at and what your edu pointed you at. If you want to feel grounded again why not try giving back by teaching, mentoring, upskilling, voulenteering to local community projects or running workshops etc.

Success is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration (I think it’s like 50% luck, too, but it’s not my cliche). Being smart helps, but just being present and putting in the work is the surest path to success. I say this as a relatively smart person who once thought he could coast on just being smart, you have to put in the work.

Christ look at the world around us. It’s pretty clear that the most successful members of society are some of the stupidest motherfuckers alive. Successful and smart is practically completely orthogonal.

But I digress. Smart is … overrated, particularly by smart people. You put in the work, you deserve success. Whether you get it or not is another question, but don’t doubt that it’s been earned.