Being smart is an attribute and carries no guarantee for accomplishment. Talent still has to be harnessed through hard work and combined with imagination/creativity/original thought and especially emotional intelligence (which includes assimilation of social norms for access to institutions with other really smart people, who get better faster by pushing each other.) Note the parallel to running. For most really smart people, intelligence almost by definition is usually not the limiting factor. On the bright side, intelligence is an incredible gift because if you actually apply it, you can figure out how to learn just about anything (non-athletic). But like running, if you want to accomplish something in particular, some keys may be to surround yourself with other motivated people and to focus on process goals.