In my work I’ve had a lot to do with successful inventors. Many of them have spotty academic background but have experience in technical trades like machining, fabricating or mechanics.

There are extremely smart and capable people who fall into cracks in the school system all the time. For example due to neurodivergence, family issues or poverty.

I would highly recommend books written by Temple Grandin to learn about neurodivergent education.

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Academics needs good discipline for the most part provided you have an okay head for it.

Somebody with a very high intelligence can cruise by for a while, but they will hit a wall eventually where they need to sit down and do the boring, borderline useless or administrative stuff too. Lots of people have a hard time to find the motivation to do these parts and fail.

I’m the opposite, I did pretty well in my academics (top of the class, etc. even during college).

But I’m finding it hard to excel in my career.

Not everybody learns the same and schools insist on only teaching in one particular way, so yeah tons of people are not good at academics because of this. A lot of them are quite successful in their non-academic careers

I think there’s two subsets of these people.

One subset is actually really smart, book smart even, but just doesn’t have a personality that aligns with the format of the education system. Those people tend to do really well in a different environment where they have more intrinsic motivation to succeed. For example, I know someone who didn’t do well in school even though he had the ability to because he just didn’t really see any reward, so he had no motivation. He went into finance and got through uni and his first few job with flying colors, because there was a reward at the end of the tunnel to pursue.

The other subset just doesn’t do well with any sort of “bookish” stuff - math, sciences, finance, engineering, etc. just don’t really fly. A lot of them I find feel a bit lost because they feel pressure to find a passion or orient themselves around a career when they just don’t have anything that sparks an interest. I find that those people tend to do well when they pursue “active” jobs that don’t feel like school. A person I know in this category struggled with school throughout his life, but was really good at working with people and interacting on that emotional plane. He went into social services and now works as a crisis counsellor. Most of the “schooling” was basically just situational training, and the job itself is so intuitive to him. Honestly if he didn’t have bills to pay I swear he’d do that job for free. Other people in this category are ok with a job just feeling like work, so any high paying trade tends to work well because they can go to work, do their hours, and then enjoy life.

I met plenty of focused/oriented people and depending on their field(s) of interest, environment and the presence of a spouse completing them, they manage well, or not so much.

What makes them that way? I believe we’re not born as “tabula rasa” and our minds are determined to evolve in specific directions from the birth. Some cite external influences, family, the possibilities the society opens, but then I point at the paintings found in Altamira or Lascaux and say “the external factors don’t matter that much”.

I have family deep in Appalachia where education isn’t much of a priority there, most drop out to help farming, coal mining and helping the family whatever way they can.

One man I knew who dropped out at an early age was probably the best mechanic I’ve ever seen. He could fix just about anything, cars, appliances, you name it.

One instance I recall was that there was a boy with either downs or on the autism spectrum. Back then there was no distinction but I digress. This boy had an old, beat up and very cheap 8 track player that he absolutely loved and couldn’t ever part with it. The mechanic was able to keep it working for years and years.

pretty much anyone that’s not me

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