I think the problem is you place too much value on intelligence, since other people told you you are smart, you consider it core part of your identity, which ma

I think the problem is you place too much value on intelligence, since other people told you you are smart, you consider it core part of your identity, which makes it feel bad when you realize you are not the smartest, you felt like a fraud, that you don't belong to the group of smart people, which sounds quite like imposter syndrome. Those folks you look up to, by its definition, is quite often people who you think are better than you in one way or another, that's why you look up to them anyway, there is nothing wrong looking up to those people. However, it is necessary to build your identity around more than just intelligence, that way you should not feel so anxious about this intelligence superiority. Intelligence is tricky in itself, likely no one came up with relativity theory before Einstein, but I'm pretty sure someone before Einstein is smarter than him, we just don't know who, but that someone didn't come up with general relativity, because he would not have had the kind of tools and access to knowledge Einstein have. Intelligence doesn't mean you already understand how the world works when you are born, it's not like it's burned on a disk, it means you have the ability to understand and the creativity to come up with ideas. What should matter more is always what you do with your intelligence, rather than what you have.