A friend of mine once told me the following, and forgive me for not completing the sentence yet. But hopefully you will understand why as I proceed. Anyways, my friend told me the following …
If you’re the smartest guy in the room …
Then the sentence goes on. Let’s pretend the sentence ends there though. Purely as a theoretical exercise, let’s try to analyse the consequences of the above being a factual statement. Well, if you truly are the smartest guy in the room, the following facts can purely logically be derived …
- You cannot learn anything from anyone
- If something goes wrong it’s probably your fault
- Every time something goes wrong you need to fix it
- Etc, etc, etc …
Being the smartest guy in the room is a curse. Believe me, I’ve struggled with it myself for a large portion of my life. Being the smartest guy in the room implies always being depressed. This always feeling the burden of the world on your shoulders, and having everybody else asking you for help, 24 hours per day. Also never finding the time to even do half the things you planned to do. Being the smartest guy in the room implies you can never go on vacation. You can never find the time to simply smell the flowers, and you can never truly enjoy life with your family. This is because you’re constantly busy figuring out how to prevent the world from ceasing to exist as we know it. Being the smartest guy in the room implies being called upon 2AM in the morning on a Sunday. This is because a web server crashed, and you’re the only guy in the company that can magically fix it. Unless you fix it 2,000 colleagues will no longer have a job to go to on Monday. Do you see the problem here? So let me finish the above sentence for you to make my point …
If you’re the smartest guy in the room, you’re in the WRONG ROOM!
Get it …? ;)
Therefor I ask the universe for the required wisdom, every day, to make me realise I am never the smartest guy in the room. This implying where ever I go, I can learn something from somebody, regardless of how young and inexperienced the other party happens to be. Thank you to Kelvin Okuroemi for reminding me today of that I should try as hard as I possibly can to never be the smartest guy in the room. Or to say it with alternative words …
Dear God, please make sure I’m never in the wrong room!
