Dateline: last couple of decades. I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Not sure why but I sure have been. By this, I'm referring to how lucky I am to have encountered, and in fact sought out, people vastly smarter than I am. This is harder than it sounds for a couple reasons, which is why I acknowledge my luck in doing so.
The first reason is simple: availability. I worked many years in tech startups, which is populated by seriously smart people. From team leaders to coders. If you're not talented you'll get booted. The only slackers I encountered in that space were marketing team, who have zero tangible talents other than outsourcing their work to the actual smart people in advert agencies. Or they did it in house god help us. Let's focus.
The other reason is intrinsic rather than extrinsic. Essentially, it required me to have the humility to shut my pie hole & open my ears to soak up what I was hearing & observing. This was an unusually wise move on my part. Or maybe just observant. Reminds me of my favorite factoid:
The opposite of talking isn't listening. The opposite of talking is waiting.
How many of your friends does that apply to? Plenty I reckon. Wrote about that phenomenon earlier actually. Anyhoots.
How does a lack of smart(er) people in your life manifest? How does a lack of humility in your life manifest? How does a lack of motivation to listen to smarter people in your life manifest?
