What If You ARE the Smartest One in the Room?
Rabid Rant
Someone has to be. Why not you? Probabilistic reasoning suggests that if you are in a room with one other person, there’s a 50% chance you will be the smarter one — but only until someone else shows up.
In that case, you might still be the smartest, but the odds go down. And they continue going down as more people enter, because the more people in that room, the less likely you’ll be the smartest.
Think about it. When you’re coming home after work, you can be pretty sure you’re the smartest one in the car, unless you’re in a carpool. If you’re dining out tonight, your odds will still be pretty good if it’s a small restaurant. But, if you’re with 100,000 punk rock enthusiasts at a Sex Pistols concert in a Texas open-air amphitheater in August, odds are at least a few thousand of those concert goers are smarter than you are. And that should scare the living hell out of you.
Now, think about this. If you actually are the smartest one in the room, you’re probably smart enough to know it. And that’s where things get complicated, because we all know it’s OK to be the smartest one in the room, but it’s not OK to think you are — or for others to think you think you are. Are you still with me? If so, here’s a simple but useful rule:
If you think you’re the smartest one in the room, try not to act like it because, even if you’re not the smartest, others will think you think you are.
Wise Ask: Do people think you think you’re the smartest one in the room?
Share your answer… below.
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CATEGORY DEFINITIONS:
Re-Recollection: A brief, occasionally edited recounting of an event or situation.
Rude Awakening: A short piece of writing describing a sudden awareness or discovery that causes a change in perception.
Rabid Rant: A brief diatribe on a single topic, often characterized by strong and passionate language.
I’ve never known anything different.
I’ve never viewed myself differently than the one who was the smartest one in the room.
At least that’s what everybody kept telling me. …Since I was 3 years old. Certainly in high school. And it got even worse in my 30s, and beyond.
Somehow, no matter with the setting, or the context, or who else was in the room, somehow, someone with some power and authority insisted that I was the one who was the smartest one in the room.
Very dangerous. Very misleading. I started to believe it. Then I started to question it. Then I started to resent it.
I look back later now, and I realize that intelligence had nothing to do with it. I had a dazzling personality. I had charisma. As my parents would always say, “Ronnie would walk into a room and the whole room would light up!” Somehow people mistakenly took that as being smart.
By my 50s, I was crippled and crushed by the shared expectation others had imposed upon me. I was even more undone by my own inner pressure to uphold that standard. …To carry that mantle. “Be the smartest one in the room. (or else???)
In meetings, whenever we were stuck, or there was a pause, invariably the person with power and authority to effect change and introduce breakthrough concepts and ideas and solutions, would stop and say, “Ron. What do you think?”
Then I knew we were all doomed. No matter what I said, it would somehow become THE new reality. Flawed as it might be. Based on nothing but my anxiety to perform and uphold someone else’s standard, I spoke “As If..”..and so it was.
In this second stage of life, I’ve learned how interesting, and thoroughly enjoyable, not-so-smart people are (whoever decides that!). And I became enthralled with my own inner not-so-smart self. It felt something like taking my shoes and socks off on a hot summer day, and standing in a cool mountain stream, just listening to people who weren’t always brilliant. But refreshingly honest and authentic in their “not- always -too bright”-ness ways.
By the time I was in my mid-50’s, I remember walking the beach on Cape Cod saying, “I just want to be small. I want to be ordinary. I don’t want to be anything. “…-est” Maybe that’s part of the value & beauty of aging. Just good enough, is often just good enough.