The Dumbest Person In The Room

SM037 Monday June 14 The Dumbest Guy in the Room. 

Welcome to the Second Mix Podcast where we reflect, revise, and remix our lives. My name is Matthew Bennett. At the end of this episode there’s going to be a call to action - a call to take a little step to remix your life – please join the Facebook group Ideas and Concepts so we can continue the discussion. The link is in the description.

I used to belong to a tribe which had intellect as its highest value. If you could show off how smart you are, then you were in. It was kind of like a wanna-be-MENSA competition. And here’s the thing. I knew I was intelligent on some level. But these guys wouldn’t see it. They went to great lengths to make sure I knew that they saw themselves on a higher level than me, a higher plane. Possibly because I wasn’t imbibing small chunks of Einstein or Marx or Nietzsche to bring in and show off a little. Now I know that they weren’t really reading the whole work, they were just doing what I’d call intellect mining, so they could bring their gold nuggets to the group, and everyone could ooh and ahhh at how smart they were that week. How smart they sounded. 

If you want to be conceited, and make others feel lower than yourself, make the people around you feel small then by all means, get into a tribe like that. 
 
 It’s easy to confuse these two values. Intellect and learning. Intellect and wisdom. Now I belong to a tribe that values learning above intellect. They value fellowship. They value wisdom. And the difference is vast. Because the other tribe wanted to appear intelligent, the highest goal was to look smart to the people around them. It was all about appearances. The goal of my current tribe is to be the dumbest person in the room, to absorb, and learn, and understand. 

I stayed with my early group of people because I thought it would help me rise above the fray, not get caught in an endless work-TV-sleep feedback loop. It changed nothing, and it brought me lower. The arrogance of the group began to wear on me – but I learned the amazing lesson that it didn’t matter how smart I was or wasn’t – I didn’t want to be like them, and I wasn’t going to take those steps to be accepted by them. 

I left the group and found my new fellowship. And I will always in some way be a part of a group like this. My people. I call them my people because they always want to be the dumbest people in the room. If they are somewhere where they are the smartest, they know they’re not really learning at the capacity in which they could be. 

It’s not about announcing that you’re the dumbest person. That would be ridiculous. It’s about being with a group of people who are all trying to become all the things that you want to become. 

These people have enough wisdom to know that being valuable and becoming more is one of the greatest pursuits available to us. To attempt achieve a wonderful balance of family, endeavors, possessions, and lifestyle. They know that we will never get where we’re going, but that we can continue to be green and growing until the day we die. 

I don’t know of anyone who reads as many books as I do monthly, yearly. That’s one personal development principle that I took to quickly and went at it hard. I am able to provide value to my group, book drop instead of name drop. All of the people I network with who are brighter, more successful, and understand more than me – they read what they need to, but they don’t read as much as I do. And that’s the difference between the wisdom and the arrogant intellect. I could see myself as better based on that one tiny category – I read more. 

And that’s the group I used to belong to. Giving myself the ability to stand in judgement of people based on one tiny aspect of a limited reality. But it’s a big world. 
 
 Which group has useful intellect? The ones who appear smart? Or the ones who are seeking wisdom? I think you know. 

So I have two questions for you to answer in your journal. #1 Are you around a group of people you are learning from? Learning those concepts and ideas that will help you grow into the person you are striving to be? And #2 Are you currently judging anyone based on your own limited scope of reality? Where you pick something you’re good at, and judge them because they are not? If you do, begin to look at the places where they excel and learn from them. And expand your tribe so you can be the dumbest person in the room. 

Thanks for listening to the Second Mix Podcast, once again, I am Matthew Bennett. You can grab this transcript on the blog at secondmix.net. If you have any questions send me an email at matt@secondmix.net, I would love to hear from you! Please give me 5 stars whenever and wherever you can , subscribe to get notified about the latest episodes – and if you haven’t yet, please leave me a really nice review.  Once If you know anyone who might find this information helpful, please tell them about this show – I do this to help people.  I’m gonna be here every Monday and Thursday until….

Take steps that will make your week incredible.  I’ll be back on Thursday  –  this weekend continue reflecting, revising and remixing your life. I’ll see you soon!