Daniel Kahneman is a smart man.
If the name’s familiar, it may be because he’s the author of a well-known book – “Thinking Fast and Slow“.
20 years ago he shared the Nobel Prize in Economics.
More recently, back in 2017, he was a speaker at a dinner and, during the evening, was asked numerous questions. One person asked him if he could comment on brain trauma. He answered:
“No, because I don’t know anything about it and I strongly believe people should stay in their own lanes when giving opinions.“
He kept his feet on the ground and remained humble enough to know where to focus and when to keep his mouth shut.
Back towards the end of college we were doing interviews for jobs. Our joking mantra? “If you can’t amaze them with your knowledge, baffle them with your bulls**t.“
We wanted to get in the door. Get the job. Even if we might not be able to do the job well or might not be a good fit.
What do you gain if you try and make people think you know more than you do? You cede power. You reduce or eliminate your ability to learn from others. You might even begin to believe your own BS.
Nearly 2,000 years ago a Greek Stoic philosopher called Epictetus said that: “it is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.”
Stay in your own lane.
Stay humble.
If there’s something you don’t understand, and your business needs to understand it, go learn it or recruit/outsource/delegate to someone who already does!
If there’s something you don’t understand, and your business doesn’t need to understand it, do nothing! Or, at least, do nothing on the business’ time.
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