The Hills of Knowledge
I wrote about the fear of not doing work because the future is unsure (for that effort or related events) in Nobody Knows Anything. Most of us become quasi-experts about something, or often some things. In our current culture’s insane acceptance of “it’s okay to make shit up,” it’s difficult to tell fact from fiction without doing a lot of extra work. It’s equally tough to remain confident that one’s knowledge is worth sharing, depending partly on the source of our learnings.
I stumbled onto the chart above somewhere on the internet, or in a newsletter. Studying it brought back good and bad memories. I've had many professional experiences reaching the top of that first hill for presentations and discussions, then tumbling down the backside! On later reflection, those moments were important lessons learned and significant opportunities to help me overcome my public speaking fears. At the time, though, they were simply terrifying.
One early example while working for a consulting firm came during a large team-building effort for a major oil company. The event included the top ~60 petrochemical engineers combined with their best ~60 deepwater oil rig operators and supervisors. If you’ve ever worked with groups having different perspectives and expectations like these two (oil and water comes to mind), then you'll appreciate the appropriateness of that metaphor.
At a segue the first day an hour into the morning session, my boss, standing at the podium, introduced me to lead the next segment. That moment literally sent chills up my spine at the time because a) I had no clue it was coming, and b) my #1 fear back then was public speaking.
Thus tossed into the symbolic freezing cold water pond and left to sink or swim, I survived. I remember nothing about what I said, how it landed, did they laugh or smirk, or if I was sweating bullets the whole time. My boss later coached me to remember the audience doesn’t know what you don’t know. And never be afraid to say “I don’t know, but I’ll find out” to a question. Or with smaller audiences, deflect such a query back to the group with “What do you guys think?”
That advice helped me many times later to survive and thrive in public speaking situations, as did gaining confidence once I felt I knew enough about a subject. Today, if you watched me present to groups, you wouldn't think I once had an intense fear of public speaking. Yet even when you believe you know enough to communicate with expertise or authority, at some point doubt will "tumble" you down the backside of the hill. You can learn from such moments and push on.
Use those doubts as seeds to grow on, as opportunities to discover additional levels of knowing. There’s a reason professional sport players keep training, as there is for would-be experts to be continuous learners. Becoming a master of a subject, or at least someone who knows more it than most, truly exemplifies what a journey means: it's about the steps taken and the days spent far more than the destination.
The key to progressing up the grown-up mountain in the chart above is not more knowledge, better facts, or new examples. It’s learning enough to trigger improved critical thinking and insight through which we attain wisdom. And in the knowledge world, nothing breeds confidence better than wisdom.
Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. It may not be difficult to store up in the mind a vast quantity of facts within a comparatively short time, but the ability to form judgments requires the severe discipline of hard work and the tempering heat of experience and maturity.
- Calvin Coolidge
Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, be fortified by it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.
- Herman Hesse