Not The Smartest Guy in the Room

Not The Smartest Guy In The Room

John Paul Derryberry

A quote my dad used to tell me all the time, when I was struggling with my confidence, was "Even the scientists at NASA are dumb in some subjects."  It always got a chuckle out of me. I would think about what is one of the smartest collections of brain power in the world struggling with understanding some mundane subject. It usually allowed me to get out of my own head of doubt and push forward. If the smartest people in the world could feel dumb, so could I. The more I think about how I interact with the world, the more I realize how much this quote from my father has shaped me.  When I wasn't mentally and emotionally healthy I could not stand people telling me I was wrong, or that I was doing it incorrectly. Something about being in that state of mind and needing to protect my psyche from another gut punch to the fragile arrogance, that I used to protect myself from accepting any help.  Yet when I have found myself in a good space emotionally and mentally, I could handle the feedback; I could use it to grow; and I could remember with doubt comes opportunities for growth. I'm no NASA scientist, so I'm rarely the smartest guy in the room, but as my career has grown, I have learned I get to be in the room with people smarter than me. Take the doubt and turn it into a chance to gain knowledge. 

It's how I found myself again last night, dining with a colleague who is way smarter than me, and picking his brain about what are the next steps for what I'm trying to build. And I don't mean way smarter, like he is only a couple levels higher than me, I mean he uses words I have to look up later. I think most of us find ourselves in those situations and struggle because we think it's a reflection of what we lack. The fact someone has gained more knowledge in a subject matter than us puts us face to face with our shortcomings. I often think this is why we like our social media channels and circle of friends to be an echo chamber, so we do not have to put our knowledge to the test. We can dismiss the others as brainwashed, not enlightened, and if they only just used our information and our point of view they would see things our way. But that's the point of human interaction. It's to grow, to learn, to be curious, to find out we were wrong and adjust, or find out we were right but for all the wrong reasons. The last one might be my favorite piece of knowledge of all time. It happened with my dinner guest in 2010 or 2011 when we met and I went through his training. I was doing my job correctly but didn't know the reasons I was being successful. He provided those. 

I often find myself enjoying talking with other people about the areas in which they are smart. It's so cool to see others light up and discuss their passion. I learn something about human experience, when I place myself in a room where I acknowledge I'm not the smartest guy in the room; whether that is about a subject I know well or a subject I know very little about. It's about understanding that the human experience is vast, varied, and meant to be shared. Knowledge can come from so many places: like the homeless mother who educated me on her choices when she stated, "John, either I'm a bad mother because I stay with an abusive partner, or I'm a bad mother because I came to a homeless shelter to keep my kids safe. So you tell me which bad mother choice is the correct one?"  It was that education setting that revealed that sometimes even the people, with all the education and technical training for the job, still do not understand the job. It chiseled into me, never, ever think you have all the ins and outs of this job figured out. 

It's scary, intimidating, and oftentimes confusing, but if you find the gumption to seek out spaces where you are not the smartest person in the room, your world will get infinitely better. It makes us life- long learners, and we all should be. Not a single person can contain all the knowledge for every situation we will encounter in life. It's a mathematical impossibility. So instead of assuming you know everything, assume you know nothing, and proceed with such resilience from set-backs that you gain as much knowledge as possible. Here's to knowing that even the smartest people in the world are dumb in something, including ourselves.