At provincial grade school, I was top of most classes with very little effort. It made me lazy. But in higher education I finally met people who were significantly more capable than me (at least in my chosen specialism). I had to raise my game, and it still wasn’t enough to be top again. In postgraduate study, I met one person who I swear had superhuman powers. I check in on him occasionally to see what he’s become president of.
Throughout my working career I’ve spotted this pattern time and time again: the jobs where everybody thinks you’re great are the ones where you’re learning the least.
"If you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room"
The problem is that it's not easy to assess the skills of others. Between impostor syndrome and the Dunning-Kruger effect, it takes a bit of training and knowledge of your environment to sort things out.
Throughout my working career I’ve spotted this pattern time and time again: the jobs where everybody thinks you’re great are the ones where you’re learning the least.