In case you haven’t noticed, people are different. While every human has the same worth and dignity before God, we differ in other ways, including intelligence. I’m about to talk about intelligence, and before doing so I just want to be clear that one’s intelligence neither contributes to nor detracts from one’s worth. Okay, now we can proceed.

Uncle Sam wants you, unless your IQ is lower than about 85. You see, the U.S. Army is hungry for people. They can find a job for just about anyone. From rocket scientists to toilet washers to frontline soldiers, they want anyone who’s willing to serve – at least to a point. The truth is they want anyone who’s willing and able, and part of being able is being smart enough.

Even the Army has standards and the truth is that they refuse to enlist persons whose IQ is one standard deviation below average (100), which means about 16% of the population lacks the cognitive ability to serve. Why? Because not even the Army can find productive work for someone who lacks the cognitive ability to solve problems, think on their feet, or follow instructions at a basic level. To put it bluntly, soldiers have to be productive, otherwise they are in the way.

Why should you care about the Army’s IQ requirements? Because their standards remind us, in no uncertain terms, of a powerful truth: not every person is smart enough for every job.

Another point of evidence for this fact came recently in the demise of the Charlotte School of Law, which closed after years of controversy. The controversy? They admitted far too many students whose LSAT scores indicated they lacked the cognitive ability to do well in law school or in the real world of law. Their admissions standards were deemed nothing short of a scam – letting in students they knew couldn’t do the work in order to boost student enrollment and tuition revenue. We all have limits and there is nothing gracious or kind in charging hefty tuition to someone who’s very unlikely to succeed.

Having too low an IQ makes some jobs difficult to impossible. This is a fact for every single person. But the inverse is also true: having too high an IQ makes other jobs difficult. Not to sound too much like Goldilocks, but the ideal job is one that is “just right” for your level of intelligence.

If you’re coaching someone about career planning (or thinking about your own career), one of the surest ways to know if they will find success (or be miserable) in a job is to compare the person’s IQ with averages for that industry. As Toronto psychologist Jordan Peterson concludes, the ideal job is one where your own IQ places you in the top 25% as compared to others in that field since doing so will afford you the opportunity to succeed and be well engaged. Pick an occupation for which you are too smart, and you’ll not only be a poor steward of your potential, but you’ll be surrounded by people with whom you find it difficult to work. Choose a field where your IQ is substantially lower than average, and you’ll always feel like the dumbest person in the room and find it challenging to keep up, let alone succeed.

One of the bitter lies of modern thought is the notion that anyone can be anything they want to be if they just try hard enough. Of course we know this is not true when it comes to physical ability (very few people have what it takes to play a sport at the professional level), but for some reason we think it demeaning to admit that not everyone has the mental horsepower to be an attorney or engineer (average IQ between 116 and 130), a nurse (115), a delivery person (98), a janitor (87), or even a soldier. We should also refuse to assume that being an attorney is somehow inherently better than being a janitor.

One of the most powerful philosophical underpinnings of coaching is the notion that each person has somewhat unique potential. Rather than push everyone toward the same goal, we are wisest and most helpful when we help each person discern and live into the goals for which they are best suited and where they can come fully alive in making their contribution. IQ isn’t the only (or even the strongest) factor in determining fit for job, but its significance reminds us that people are different, they contribute in different way, and this is good.