You’re Always an Idiot to Someone ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This bird doesn’t think it looks silly.

About two and a half years ago, I left a job that on paper seemed perfect but that was leaving me stultifyingly bored. The only thing that interested me about going to work was observing the caustic office politics and the comical applications of Silicon Valley-inspired motivational approaches. Corporate sweatshirts! Foosball tables! Unlimited food all day long! And just like the sugary pastries spread out every morning in the company kitchen, these imagined perks of employment gave us the briefest of pleasures, weighed on our health, and very quickly grew stale. I knew there had to be a better way.

I applied for and was accepted to a Master’s program in organizational psychology, and I spent the next year learning the world of leadership and management and motivation and well-being. Nearly a decade earlier, I had done an MBA, and I found that the organizational psychology degree was far more demanding, especially in the amount of reading and writing that we did. After a year, I knew I had learned an incredible amount… but there was still more to learn. I acquired a certification in coaching, and I began working with a half-dozen clients.

But now I was facing a new frustration: I had learned some “better ways” of employee onboarding and motivation, of management and leadership, of shepherding organizational change, and I was comfortable expressing my take on these issues in one-on-one settings, but I was terrified at the idea of putting them out there for complete strangers to read and criticize. There were so many people out there who knew more than me! The Ph.D.s, the scholars in fields like sociology and neuroscience, the seasoned managers with decades of experience, the investors who’ve seen hundreds of companies and their management teams… Each of them would see right through my arguments. So I kept my thoughts to myself.

This past fall, I was having a glass of wine with a friend who mentioned off-hand that the last person who could have “known everything” was sometime in the Middle Ages. Since then, he explained, the amount of human knowledge became too vast for any single person to possess. Now, you can argue about the exact moment when human knowledge passed this threshold, but there is no question that there’s not a single person alive who can know everything, which means that no matter how intelligent you are, on the vast majority of topics there will be someone out there who will know far, far more about it than you. That is, you’re always an idiot to someone.

I found this otherwise mundane observation to be completely illuminating. Why bother waiting until I made my arguments entirely bulletproof before saying them out loud if the entire idea of making them bulletproof was a farce? Why not just accept that someone might have something to add or dispute or correct about what I’ve written — and that, even so, my perspective could have some value to at least one person? Why not be open to the possibility that even if I’m completely wrong, I (and others) might learn from the discussion?

But something still nagged at me. When I read the newspapers and my social media feeds, I saw throngs of idiots making the stupidest arguments without the slightest hesitation or even hint of self-awareness. Surely, the message our society needs to hear is not, “feel free to sound stupid!” or “say whatever’s on your mind!” If anything, many people seem to require a daily dose of humility, a reminder that they should probably do more listening than speaking, an indication that they’re completely misguided in their self-confidence.

So how to reconcile the need for some people to speak up with the need for others to pipe down? Here’s a suggestion: if you’re struggling with finding the confidence to say or write what you think — whether it’s to your partner or your boss or your organization or the public at large — you probably should find the courage to say it; if you feel comfortable sharing every thought that comes across your mind with everyone you meet, you just possibly might want to consider that you could do some more listening.

But this is not an article about overconfident bloviating; it is about the exceedingly common issue of overcoming the fear that speaking your mind might make you look foolish. So here are three tips to consider:

1. Remember that you have a unique perspective. You are the only person in the universe who can communicate how you see things. There is an inherent value in that. Your identity, your experiences, your interests, your personality, your way of processing and analyzing things, they are all distinct from everyone else’s, especially when combined. Your subjective viewpoint is just as valid and real as anyone else’s, and when something affects you, or when you feel strongly about something, then you deserve to have your perspective heard.
2. Be open to learning. Whatever you say, you might not get it right. If someone corrects you or adds to what you say, that’s not cause for shame or defensiveness. On the contrary, being wrong is a (the?) path to enlightenment. It is often said that every single advancement in science has been proven wrong, but that without those mistakes, we would never have arrived at what we know now. Just as you don’t know everything, neither does anyone else, and you will be surprised just how many people don’t know things you think are obvious and are open to learning themselves.
3. In the end, it’s not about you. Every year, I read countless articles and books and watch scores of shows and films and listen to hundreds of concerts and recordings, and at some point, I forget about the individuals who created them. There is simply too much stuff to process to keep a running tally of who is brilliant and who is forgettable. Still, I love reading and watching and listening, and I am eternally grateful to the people who create these thoughts and ideas and artworks. When you think about your contribution as a service to others instead of some individual test, you free yourself to be authentic and honest.