Most people don't want to get smarter. Not really. They like the idea of being smart. And the feeling of being right. But the process of becoming smarter is not for them. It's uncomfortable. Slow and inconvenient. And ninety percent of the time makes you feel dumb. A lot. It's a long shortcut. Most people stop when they don't understand. Or when knowledge takes time. They want something that confirms what they already know. Have you tried reading Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow?

Philosopher, educator, encyclopedist and author Mortimer Adler noticed something decades ago that still applies right now. He spoke of how to become smarter than 99% of people.

He wrote:

"If you're reading for understanding — for deepening your mind, acquiring insight, lifting your mind up from a lower level to a higher level — then I think it's terribly important for each of us, for everyone, to find a number of books that are over their heads. Because if a person reads only books that are on the level of his head, he can't lift his head up. It's the books that are over one's head — the books which one only partially understands at first and must work at to understand more — that can possibly elevate you. You can't lift yourself up with things at your level or below your level … What's over your head, you should go after. The art of reading consists in having the skills required for lifting your mind up, with nothing but a book in your hand, from understanding less to understanding more."

The one thing I took from his quote is the habit of engaging with knowledge that is "over one's head."

The problem with sticking to content at "your level" is that your level of understanding stays almost the same. If you are reading things you already know, you are not necessarily becoming smarter.

You are practising "skill/ mental maintenance."

Researcher and author on deliberate practice, Anders Ericsson spent decades studying experts across fields: musicians, chess players, surgeons and many top perfomers. The pattern was always the same: improvement happens at the edge of your current ability. Not at your present level. But right at that uncomfortable boundary where you're almost capable. Cognitive scientists call this the "zone of proximal development." It's where you become better, smarter and more capable than you are. Too easy and you're bored. Too hard and you're lost. But right at that sweet spot where you're struggling to get it is where your neural pathways reorganise.

That's where you get smarter.

"Turns out most people didn't want it," Warren Buffett once said:

"Everything I read was public," he said in an HBO documentary. "Anyone could buy the same books and magazines. The same information was available to anyone who wanted it. Turns out most people didn't want it." Buffett is one of the most successful investors of all time. He didn't have secret sources. He read annual reports, business journals, and economic analyses. All publicly available. But he read things most people found boring or difficult. He spends time digesting complex reports. Until they make sense. He built mental models from books that required real effort.

The information was there. The opportunity was equal. But the willingness to engage with difficult material was rare. And that's still true today. You have access to more knowledge than any human in history. MIT puts courses online for free. You can read long essays on any topic for free. The greatest minds have written books explaining their wisdom. But how many people spend time reading them? Or try to understand them.

Most people want summaries. Shortcuts. They want the conclusion without the reasoning. You won't get smarter that way. When I pick up something genuinely difficult, say, Kahneman's work on cognitive biases, I don't expect mastery. I expect confusion. That's why I rush to finish. I read a chapter, and understand maybe 50% of it. Then I come back later. Second time through, I get 75%. When something doesn't make sense, in the beginning, you make time to for metacognition: think through your thinking. Think about the examples. Argue with the author in your head. Try to explain the concept to yourself in different words. This is effortful. It's slow. It feels inefficient compared to hurrying through it to finish.

But this is where the cognitive work happens. Work on "desirable difficulties" shows that when learning feels harder, it sticks better. The struggle is the process.

It pays to choose the right "hard" knowledge.

Not every difficult book/knowledge is worth your time. Some are just badly written. You want books that are difficult because the ideas are complex. Look for the classics on topics that interest you. Find works that other smart people reference repeatedly. Read books that have stood the test of time. These tend to be hard for good reasons. Most people have plenty of information. But less capable of complex thought. Less able to hold contradictory ideas in mind. Less willing to sit with confusion until it resolves into understanding.

"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function," novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald said. He was right. While people are reading things at their level, you can be reading things above your level. Don't worry about the confusion. Or the resistance. Sit with the discomfort. Understand the opposing ideas. Close the gap between your level and the next one up. Be prepared to have books on your shelf that take you weeks or even months to finish. Reread chapters multiple times if you have to. Look up concepts you don't understand. Take notes. You won't feel like you are making progress. But it pays to keep going.

You're not checking boxes or completing tasks.

You're thinking.

You're growing in ways people don't. And that's exactly why most people don't do it. If you consistently seek out knowledge that's just beyond your current level. If you're willing to sit with that discomfort. You won't just accumulate information. You'll develop a different quality of mind. You'll think more clearly. You'll see patterns others miss. You'll solve problems in ways that seem creative but are just the result of having wrestled with difficult ideas until they became part of how you think.

As Adler said, "If a person reads only books that are on the level of his head, he can't lift his head up… It's the books that are over one's head… that can possibly elevate you." If you only consume what you already understand, you just confirm what you already know. And if you want to become smarter than 99% of people, you have to get comfortable doing something most people avoid. You have to regularly choose content that makes you feel out of your mental pattern.

The one obstacle to being smarter is low-level knowledge.

If your inputs are basic, your thinking stays basic. You can be hardworking, disciplined or motivated. And still be stuck making low-quality decisions because you're missing high-level concepts. Great books are some of the best access to the minds of people who spent decades breaking down complex ideas. You can spend an evening in your living room learn from the top one percent thinkers who may have spent decades obsessing over problems and figuring out solutions. A lot of the best knowledge is sitting in books, papers, biographies and lectures. "In my whole life, I have known no wise people who didn't read all the time — none, zero," legendary investor Charlie Munger once said.

He also said, "I believe in the discipline of mastering the best that other people have ever figured out. I don't believe in just sitting down and trying to dream it all up yourself. Nobody's that smart."

Most people want the outcome of knowledge without the effort of understanding. They want the "five key takeaways." But intelligence doesn't come from takeaways. It comes from making time for complex thought. And not quitting. Most adults avoid anything that threatens their identity. Or a book threatens their ego. They give up the minute the brain starts resisting with thoughts like: "This is too hard." "You're wasting time." "You're not smart enough for this." The average person listens. And puts the book down. They go back to something easier. Most people read until it gets hard. Then they stop. Or they keep reading, but they stop thinking. And then wonder why nothing changes.

The top 1% keep going.

They stay long enough with hard knowledge for their brain to adapt. They know better books/knowledge change the structure of their thinking. And build better mental models (reusable tools that help you think clearly or make better decisions). Cognitive adaptation can do wonders for your mind. Your brain literally gets better at what you repeatedly ask it to do. If you train it on shallow content, it gets good at shallow thinking. If you train it on demanding ideas, it becomes a smarter mind. It's slow and annoying.

But it works.

These are a few that improve my thought patterns: incentives drive many behaviours. Systems create better outcomes. Feedback loops amplify problems. People rationalise after the fact. Small changes compound over time. Once you start collecting these models, you think twice before you take the next step. You become pattern-aware. "I see people rise in life who are not the smartest, sometimes not even the most diligent, but they are learning machines. They go to bed every night a little wiser than they were when they got up and boy does that help," Munger once said.

The smartest people are not always the ones who know the most. They're the ones who make fewer stupid decisions.

Acquiring knowledge "over your head" exposes you to how experts reason, how arguments are constructed, what evidence looks like. And where people commonly mislead themselves. And yes, sometimes it also exposes you to nonsense. Which is also a learning experience. You can read the summaries. You can listen to podcasts. Or read the threads. All of that helps. But none of it replaces the mental work of engaging with knowledge one or two levels above what you know. To be smarter than the other ninety nine percent, you have to actively construct meaning. You have to entertain multiple complex ideas inside your own mind. And force yourself to become a better thinker to keep up.

The one obstacle to being smarter is high-level knowledge. If you can make the time to find the right knowledge and apply it in your life, your circumstances will change. Pick up that book you've been avoiding. Start reading. Be prepared to get confused. But keep going anyway.

That's how you begin.

Your life is the output of your inputs. Your beliefs, confidence, relationships, habits, decisions and worldview are defined by what you repeatedly feed your mind. So if you want to become smarter than 99% of people, read what's over your head, stick with it, and work to understand and apply what you learn. It's a secret. It's available to anyone. But the best things that change your mind are painful. Some ideas are slow. But every time you push through something difficult and actually understand it, you level up. You become harder to manipulate, confuse, fool or defeat. You become more capable of building the life you want. Upgrading the machine doing all your thinking is the upgrade that pays forever.