Pretending that we know more than we really do is one big reason we’re not as successful as we should be. It’s probably the worst self-limiting behavior we have.
What is especially challenging about this bad habit is that our culture pressures us to believe that we should know everything about anything… that to be at the top of our game, we have to be all-knowing. Always be right. Never make a mistake.
Of course, knowing everything is just not possible. And to pretend otherwise is not healthy. It’s just stupid.
Yet we all do it—act like we have it all together out of some false need to protect ourselves or our vulnerabilities.
Instead of pursuing answers, we spend our time pretending like we already have the answers.
Frankly, that kind of attitude and those actions come from fear—fear of being seen as ignorant or limited or small.
And that fear keeps you from being amazing.
It keeps you from taking advantage of the opportunities around you.
It limits your ability to master new things. It is the reason you don’t read more and better educate
yourself. It limits your creativity to explore new ideas.
It keeps you from seeing the world outside your own prejudices. It prevents you from complimenting successes that aren’t your own. It alienates people who would otherwise help you.
At some point, you have to look past your fear of “not knowing” and just live the life you really want for yourself.
Why pretend to know when you can create a habit of knowing?
Why pose when you can empower?
In fact, if it’s a contest between looking like you know and really knowing… well, that’s not a contest at all, is it?
Related to the belief that you have to know everything is the belief that you are always right.
It’s a mindset that is crippling on a lot of levels.
Perhaps the biggest wrong is in thinking that you are always right. The secret to being successful is having an extreme obsession with figuring it all out.
When you dedicate yourself to a life of pursuing answers, amazing things happen.
Three days into 1870, John Roebling began work on a suspension bridge that would connect Manhattan to Brooklyn for the first time (known today as the Brooklyn Bridge). It was a project that would take more than 13 years to complete and cost the lives of almost 30 workers.
Nothing like this had ever been done before. It was a massive feat of engineering complexity—the first steel-wire suspension bridge, and for more than 20 years, the longest suspension bridge in the world. For five years ahead of the launch, John and his team worked tirelessly. Without the aid of computer systems, he created new ways to explore under water and measure the bedrock in order to place the foundation pillars in key locations.
But John didn’t live long enough to see the beginning of construction on the bridge. In mid-1869, he was working on the edge of a dock when an arriving ferry crushed the toes on his right foot. He requested that his toes be amputated so he could continue working on the bridge. Tetanus took his life 24 days later.
Having learned the science and art of bridge building from his father, Washington Roebling took over the project as Chief Engineer. However, just a few months later, he suffered a crippling underwater accident that left him with shattered health and made him an invalid for the rest of his life.
But Washington was the only one with the knowledge to keep the project on track. So, as he lay in bed far away from the construction site, he taught his wife, Emily, higher mathematics, stress analysis, materials strength, and the fine details of steel-cable construction. As the liaison between Washington and the engineers onsite, Emily became the first woman field engineer.
At times, Washington became so sick that he lost the ability to speak. Not to be deterred, he taught himself Morse code and tapped out instructions on Emily’s arm. Every step, every day, he slowly but determinedly tapped his way to success.
Washington and Emily spent the next 11 years working together to build the bridge—Washington from his bed—while politicians, engineers, and competing companies tried to steal his project and the spotlight. Husband and wife learned their way around politics, technology, and Washington’s impairments until the bridge finally was completed. On May 24, 1883, Emily was the first person to walk across the bridge. Washington was too sick to attend.
At the opening ceremony, Emily was honored in a speech by Abram Hewitt who said the bridge was “…an everlasting monument to the sacrificing devotion of a woman and of her capacity for that higher education from which she has been too long disbarred.” And of Washington’s conducting the largest and most difficult engineering project to date, it was said: “Nowhere in the history of great undertakings is there anything comparable.”
One hundred and thirty years later, the Brooklyn Bridge is still in use and an icon of New York City. More than 120,000 vehicles; 4,000 pedestrians; and 2,600 cyclists cross the bridge every day. Following several New York City blackouts and the 9-11 attacks on the World Trade Center, tens of thousands of people used the bridge to escape Manhattan.
The Roeblings could not have foreseen the unique stresses on the bridge from the massive numbers of people who would one day cross it on foot, yet they designed it with three separate systems to handle unanticipated structural stresses. John Roebling famously said that if anything happened to one of the systems, “the bridge may sag, but it will not fall.”
And if that wasn’t as staggeringly successful as one family might attempt, Washington Roebling didn’t stop there. He set out to learn biology, and that quest consumed the next 43 years of his life as he collected rocks and minerals from all over the world. Today, his scientific collection of over 16,000 specimens is an important part of the Smithsonian Institute.
What do you need to start being wrong about? What do you need to learn that is holding you back from being amazing?
Excerpt from “EDGY Conversations: How Ordinary People Can Achieve Outrageous Success” by Dan Waldschmidt. For more information, visit www.edgyconversations.com.
Dan Waldschmidt is an international business strategist, speaker, author, and extreme athlete. His consulting firm solves complex marketing and business strategy problems for savvy companies all over the world. He is author of Edgy Conversations: How Ordinary People Achieve Outrageous Success. Dow Jones calls his “Edgy Conversations” blog one of the top sales sites on the Internet. He’s been profiled in Business Week, INC Magazine, BBC, Fox News, The Today Show, and Business Insider; has been the featured guest on dozens of radio programs; and has published hundreds of articles on progressive business strategy.
