Smart People Ask Questions
Well, one of the problems (among many others) was this: People rarely ask questions. We rarely ask others for help–sometimes because we don’t know there’s a better way (how would I have known I was cutting the onion wrongly?)–and sometimes for other reasons like preserving our ego. I’m not the only one to point this out: A survey asked corporate employees what the #1 networking mistake was. Guess what it was? Not asking for help.People rarely ask for help. For example, in my hometown, my group of friends got a lot of scholarships and college admissions, and it’s a pretty small community. But we can count on one hand the number of times other students have asked us for advice on how to do it themselves–advice we would be happy to give.
People who seek out advice are a good bet. After sitting in on about a billion meetings with real-smart people and fake-smart people, I’ve decided on a pretty good litmus test to tell them apart: If someone asks questions, he’s probably smarter. Why? Because he’s not afraid to admit that he doesn’t know it all, and comfortable enough to ask questions. That alone makes him smarter, plus the actual answer he gets from asking a question.
In other words, if someone actively seeks out advice, I’d be willing to bet that they succeed more often than someone who tries to go at it alone.
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