I Am a Sapiosexual… and I Do Not Tolerate Stupid People

I sometimes forget that quote. And every time I do, I regret it. It never fails. You try to reason with someone who cannot think, and by the end of it, you are the one questioning your own sanity.

I am a sapiosexual. That means I am deeply attracted to intelligence. Not showy credentials. Not parroting someone else’s quotes. I mean raw, hard-earned, thinking-person intelligence. I am pulled toward individuals who build, who create, who question, and who act. I admire people who wake up in the morning and wrestle with life instead of sleepwalking through it.

In the early 2000s, I got a call that changed the course of my life. A business owner had just sold his company for over two hundred million dollars. He had read a profile on my first LexisNexis textbook, The Essential Individual Pension Plan Handbook, in Canada’s top business magazine, MoneySense. He asked me if I could help him legally extract half of his retained earnings from his corporation into his personal hands tax exempt.

Several million dollars in commission was on the table for all involved. I was in my mid-thirties. I knew I would screw it up if I tried to handle it alone. That was one of those rare moments when you know your limits and you act on them.

So I made the smartest call of my career. I reached out to Richard Segal.

Richard did not just understand the rules. He wrote new ones. In 1986, he created, pioneered, and perfected the 8/10 insurance structure. That single innovation legally moved billions of dollars out of Canadian corporations. It worked for almost two decades until the federal government rewrote the tax act.

And that still was not the end.

We went back to the drawing board. Together, we collaborated with dozens of top tax lawyers and accountants to create an even more elegant solution. We called it The Income and Capital Enhancement Solution, or The ICE Solution. And it changed how Canadian entrepreneurs structured their financial affairs. ICE worked because we built it with individuals like us. Not lifers. Not clock punchers. Not career victims in government jobs. We worked with real builders. Individuals who took risks, pulled the trigger, and made things happen with no safety net.

Richard was my mentor, my partner, and my friend. For fifteen years, we worked together daily. He taught me to ask better questions, then to go further. He taught me to keep digging until I found the real solution. He told me that if you wake up each day believing a solution always exists, you will find one. And he was right.

That kind of brilliance is rare. When it happens, it is magic.

On his desk sat a framed quote from President Calvin Coolidge.

That quote was not just on display. It was Richard’s DNA. And it became mine too.

Richard retired in 2021. He is irreplaceable. That kind of mind does not come around often. And even now, we still talk regularly. When I bring him a challenge, he still brings his attention, intelligence, creativity, and yes, his spreadsheets. And when that happens, the magic returns. It reminds me why I was so lucky to find him in the first place.

Now let me be just as honest about what I cannot stand. Stupidity.

Not the kind where someone struggles to learn. I am talking about willful stupidity. People who choose not to think. People who sit in the same mental chair for twenty-five years hoping their life will change while doing nothing. Like the teacher locked in the same classroom decade after decade, blaming the world but never themselves. That is not noble. That is a refusal to grow.

These people are not just annoying. They are dangerous. They are time-wasters of the highest order. Worse than that, they are black holes. You let them get close and they will pull you into their gravity and never let you go. They are spiritual vampires. They will drain your energy, your ambition, and your sanity. And the worst part is they have no idea they are doing it. They think their stuck life is normal. They want you stuck there with them. They want company in their quiet, camouflaged misery.

I have no patience left for that. I have grown completely intolerant of small, scared, provincial minds. The kind that refuses to change and calls it wisdom. I love innovation. I love growth. I admire self-actualized individuals who have walked through fire, built from scratch, and are still building. That is who I want in my life. That is who I choose to serve.

I do not work with stuck people. I do not explain strategy to spectators. I do not waste time on people who never take a shot but think they are entitled to a win. I want thinkers. Movers. Builders.

An idiot is not someone who lacks intelligence. An idiot is someone who has it and refuses to use it. Someone who lets fear and comfort run their life. Someone who sits still while the years pass them by and then dies full of what-ifs. And if you are not careful, they will waste your life while wasting their own.

I am still a sapiosexual. I admire brilliance. I crave depth. I want people around me who sharpen, challenge, and inspire. To the thinkers, the builders, the doers—you know who you are. We are rare. And we always find each other.

To the rest? Mark Twain warned me.

This time, I am listening.

Peter J. Merrick, TEP… Aka… Old Fart