During my days as a consultant, I often found the first few days of a client engagement mortifying. In the initial meetings, the clients would bombard us with jargon and technical details that I struggled to understand.
But I was too scared to clarify because I did not want to sound dumb. After all, we were paid top dollars by the client to solve their problem.
However, I would soon find that I was not the only one – others also understood probably just as little. But we were probably all scared that we might be the only dumb person in the room.
Quite often, if you are feeling clueless, you are like everyone else in the room. So don’t hesitate to gently ask.
Nobody is born wise. We all learn by asking.
It is better to ask and be dumb just for a few minutes. Not asking keeps us dumb forever.
– Rajan