What makes someone smart?

Recently I was in a meeting with two people who I valued as very smart people. After all, both of these individuals had been CEOs for a variety of companies, and were certainly more seasoned at business than I am.

So, during the course of the meeting, I hung on to every word these men said. Because - after all, they are smart, right?

Unfortunately, one of them lost me pretty early on. The subject of work ethic came up, and his words of wisdom go against everything I believe (that will require a blog post all on its own). I completely disagreed with what he said. Completely and utterly. And from that point forward, even his strongest nuggets of advice or learnings meant very little to me. Sure, I still listened and took note, because I respect the position he was in. But I found myself no longer hanging on to every word he spoke. And his 'smart level' dropped. Pretty significantly.

The other man continued to have me enthralled. Everything he said was right. Man, this was a smart man. My pen was flying, and I was writing, smiling, nodding all at the same time. Because I agreed with everything he said. It all made sense to me. In fact, I have several of his nuggets jotted down for blog posts. What? You thought I could make this up all by myself? Anyway, as Vince would put it, every time he talked, I was 'focus-facing'. This was one smart man.

Now. Let's go back to one little sentence in this last paragraph "because I agreed with everything he said."  And let's go back to the other guy. His smart level dropped, because he said something I disagreed with. So is that what makes someone smart? Is it the number of people who agree with them? Is it the quality of people that agree with them? This is starting to borderline on politics, so I'll tread lightly, but I get it.

But it begs the question: what makes someone smart?