The Most Important Lesson of My Life

A long time ago, when I was about 20 years old, I learnt probably the most important lesson of my life. I learnt something so completely unexpected it changed my entire view of the world. Today, I’m going to share it with you. If you like it, please leave a message in the comments section and let me know what you think.

I was young, and I had so many questions, and wanted to learn so much, so I took a job as a junior interactive designer at an amazing little company just outside of Toronto in Canada.

It was the first time that I really thought that I could learn something from other people. Here I was, on the lowest rung of the ladder, everybody was above me.

I thought that I could learn everything from the amazing staff there, who, I believed, would have the answer to everything.

Throughout life, we always encounter those people who have the answer. They could be the person who is in charge of financing your next project, they could be your boss, they could be the company owner, or the guy who has worked at the company for 50 years and just seems to know everything.

There are people that you naturally gravitate towards because you assume that they know the answer. They know how much money they have to spend, they know if you can or can’t do something.

You can recognise these people, because they always have a string of other people behind them, constantly asking them “What should we do about this…..?”, “How are we going to solve that…..?”.

At first glance, these look like the “People In Charge” and for some strange reason we find ourselves constantly going to them, unable to make a decision without their say-so.

I spent a lot of time watching and observing these people, and I very quickly learnt their secret. And their secret became the greatest thing that I ever learnt:

They were making it up as they went along.

Once you realise that people who appear to know “the answer” do not actually know the answer but have the skill, confidence, conviction and ability to instantly generate an “answer” then it can act as a huge mental shift!

Over time, people do not learn to perfectly recall every fact and figure instantly from their brains. They learn to adapt, to improvise and to make it up as they go along.

What does this mean for you?

This means that YOU are equally as equipped to invent an answer as you are to ask for it from someone else.

What if it goes wrong?

Think how many times your boss has told you to do something stupid vs how many times he has told you to do something that made sense. That’s your stupid to success ratio. As long as you improve on that ratio you will be fine.

How can I test this theory?

Simple, go, now, and ask a “person in charge” face to face for an answer on a ridiculous question. Watch them make up an answer, and say it with conviction.

Now, you need to go out and make it up for yourself. Build your own answers. Do what YOU think is best, after all, the answer is inside you!

If you have enjoyed this post, please tell your friends, link to the site, share it on your social network, leave a comment or send me an e-mail.

If you have enjoyed this, why not check out these other interesting things?