You Know Nothing…

‘The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.’ Socrates

I had the pleasure of attending a leadership conference a few years ago. The speaker came out with the most purposeful 5 minutes of the entire conference. He had everyone in the audience close their eyes and point in the direction we thought was north. He then had us open up our eyes to see where everyone is pointing. People were pointing in every direction.

He then said, ‘Let’s go to the experts. All of you who are absolutely certain without a shadow of a doubt you know which way north is, raise your hands.’ There were about 200 people in the audience and about 15-20 people raised their hands and deemed themselves experts. He asked them to stand up, close your eyes and point north.

Predictably, every ‘expert’ in the audience pointed in different directions. These were the people who were absolutely sure they knew which direction north was. He reminded the audience that if they were off only by one degree aiming for Paris, you’ll end up in Greenland. With that he walked off of the stage, leaving the crowd in complete disarray.

It was a true drop the mic performance and the message was clear; you’re not as knowledgeable as you think. Even the things that you are absolutely sure of, there may be perspectives that have yet to be uncovered. By claiming that we know something fully, we inherently stop the learning process associated with that subject or concept. Amazingly enough we don’t even recognize that we are doing it on a conscious level.

I have been a submariner for 22 years and with that level of experience, I subconsciously think that I know everything there is to know about submarines even though that thought is completely illogical. If we are asked ‘do you know everything?’ ‘what about half of everything?’ our logical answers are a definite no. We must apply this same principle to everything that we interact with, we must assume that we don’t know, so that we may come to know. The beginning of wisdom is the recognition that we don’t know anything.

From a mathematical perspective, we really don’t know anything. Taking into consideration the infinite amount of information to be known, what we truly know is infinitesimally small, subatomic level small, incalculably small. Our ego tells us a significantly different story. Our ego tells us that we know everything and if we are confronted, lie. You cant look stupid in front of people, what will they think of you. You must be the smartest person in the room or at least make people believe it.

There’s so much power in ‘I don’t know.’ Admitting you don’t know really says that I honor you too much to b/s you with a mediocre answer. That I respect you too much to lie to you. That although I may not know right now, I will find out. Truth is, wisdom isn’t about learning; it is about unlearning. Stripping away the programming of our deceitful ego so that we may be reprogrammed with true wisdom.