Note from Glen: As a kid, I remember my mom rubbing antiseptic ointment onto my bloodied knee after a fall. “It hurts!” I sobbed. “That means it’s working,” she said wisely.

Sometimes what’s good for you hurts a little too. And that’s how I feel about this post by Jon.

We’ve gained a ton of new readers since it was first published, which means thousands of new patients for Doctor Morrow. So tell me, are you ready for your medicine?

Can I be painfully honest with you for a moment?

Not thank-God-he-told-me honesty, where somebody points out you have spinach on your teeth. No, I’m talking about the sucker-punch-straight-to-the-face brand of honesty.

It’s brutal. It’s ugly. It’s unexpected.

And I can almost guarantee you will NOT enjoy it.

In fact, I’ve been holding off telling you for years now, hoping somebody would do the dirty work for me. But no one has. So, out of respect to you, I want to tell you the truth.

So here it is.

You know how you’ve been struggling to get traffic? Tried everything, and it’s just not working right?

Well, it’s not because you haven’t found the right traffic strategy. It’s not because you need to change your domain name. It’s not because the Google gods have turned against you and cursed you to wallow in anonymity forever.

It’s because you’re dumb.

And if you ever want a chance in hell of anyone listening to you, you’d better smarten up.

Did I really just call you “dumb?”

Yes, I did. Sorry.

Granted, you might be part of the minority who’s getting a lot of traffic and making a ton of money and is really and truly brilliant. If that’s the case, consider yourself excused from this “Come to Jesus” meeting.

The rest of you though?

This is not a ruse where DUMB turns out to be a clever acronym for something far less offensive. The truth is, I’m calling you out, and I’m doing it out of love.

Because you see, everyone has been lying to you. Including me.

We teach you traffic strategies. We dole out writing tips. We give you a pep talk and make you believe maybe you can really become the next blogging superstar.

But honestly?

There’s one really big thing we’ve been leaving out. Here it is:

Popular bloggers are smarter than you are

And no, I’m not talking about IQ.

What I’m referring to is having a conversation with somebody and walking away thinking, “Holy crap, they’re amazing!” Maybe not a super genius, no, but captivating nonetheless.

Every popular blogger I’ve ever talked to for more than 15 minutes has had that effect on me. Ialways come away from the conversation with a perspective I didn’t have before.

You might say, “Well, they’re not necessarily smart. They’re just articulate,” but I don’t think that’s all it is. I think it’s a piece of a much larger set of characteristics.

Just a few examples:

• They know damn near everything about their topic. And if they don’t know it, it’s in their reading pile.
• They can take enormously complex ideas and compress them into simple language anyone can understand.
• At least some of what they say is truly original. You’ve never heard it anywhere before. Ever.
• Even if you have no interest whatsoever in their topic, they find a way to captivate you and make you interested. It’s spooky.
• You find yourself thinking about something they wrote or said weeks or even years into the future.

Yes, they are publishing great content, building relationships with the right people, and employing the right traffic strategies, but at the bottom of it all, you have a wicked smart person who deservesall the attention they’re getting. They are truly special people.

On the flipside, there’s everyone else who is some combination of ignorant, obtuse, unoriginal, boring, or forgettable. You read their work, and you come away thinking they’re kind of dumb.

So, it’s time to ask yourself the question…

Which group do you belong to?

Or even more importantly, which group do you want to belong to?

The truth about building a popular blog

It’s not only about what you publish. It’s also about who you are.

If you’re smart, it’s relatively easy. You publish an idea that’s both brilliant and useful, it blows people’s minds, everyone starts talking about it, and a bazillion people link to your blog. Influencers also line up to become your friend and help you out because… well… you’re cool.

But if you’re not smart?

It’s nearly impossible. You can do everything all the blogging authorities tell you to do, and you can do it absolutely correctly, and you’ll still fail. I guarantee it.

So, does that mean you’re doomed?

Not necessarily. Here’s why:

This isn’t about genetics. This isn’t about inborn talent. This isn’t about fate.

It’s about deciding who you want to be and then making yourself into that person.

How to make yourself smarter

I was not what you would call a “bright” kid.

I goofed off in class. I failed tests. I skated through with mediocre grades.

But sometime around the age of 13 or so, I got fed up with myself and decided to change things. There wasn’t any pivotal moment that I recall. I just started caring less about what my friends thought and started thinking about who I wanted to become.

And that person was smart.