The Truth about Being the "Stupidest" in the Room | Simon Sinek

the reality is i'm an idiot like and i'm not being i'm not being flip about it like i don't understand very complicated things and so i ask a lot of questions so that the person who's telling me something complicated who's talking in terms as if i understand them sure finance or neuroscience i don't know what you're talking about right and i ask enough questions just so that i understand it so is what you're saying this no that's what i'm saying well what are you so i i we're most i mean i'll give you a perfect example so a long time ago i had a client they were a a public company and uh they brought me on um to do some work for them but the the they invited me to sit in on a meeting from the consultant that they had hired um and so all the c-level executives and me and this consultant was giving a presentation about something wrong this is junior marketing this is when i had my little marketing company and every all the ce level executives sitting there nodding and taking notes on the on the you know on the powerpoint that they had printed up in front of them and i had it as well and i didn't understand a freaking word of it yeah right i was like looking around like yeah i'm r and i and so i'd raise my hand and say i'm really really sorry i know i'm the only person in this room without an mba but this doesn't make sense like you say a plus b equals c but based on your logic a plus b equals d can you just say it again please i'm really i'm really sorry to slow the meeting down everybody you know and you could see the consultant getting frustrated with me and would try and explain it again i said i'm so sorry and one by one all the c-level executives said yeah i don't understand it either now if the idiot hadn't spoken up yeah and said i don't understand they all would have nodded their heads yeah for fear of looking stupid because they don't understand yeah and it would have they would have paid a lot of money for a document they didn't understand and they would never have used it would have sat on a shelf um and it's it's because i'm i'm okay being the idiot like that's why i'm not being flipped i'm okay everybody in the room going ugh because i have to ask questions until i understand it but the reality is is once i can get to the point where i understand it i can get it so simple that i understand it and i can say it in simple terms that means other people understand it too yeah yeah so it's there's a lot of value being the idiot

Channel: Simon Sinek

Views: 2,508,354

Rating: 4.9645863 out of 5

Keywords: simon sinek, start with why, inspiration, motivation, leadership, career, inspire

Id: BkLzo_oNVho

Length: 2min 17sec (137 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 16 2021