“Be brave enough to suck at something new.”
“Knowledge talks. Wisdom listens.”
At twenty-five, I would have dismissed them as motivational poster material. The kind of thing printed on office walls by people who had never shipped a product, missed a deadline, or watched a project catch fire five minutes before a board meeting.
Back then, cynicism felt like intelligence.
If you could spot the flaw in an idea, predict why something would fail, or explain why everyone else was wrong, you felt smarter than the room. There is a certain comfort in that posture. It protects you from embarrassment. It also protects you from growth.
Age has a funny way of changing the equation.
You start enough new jobs, new technologies, new countries, new friendships, and eventually you realize that being bad at something is not evidence of failure. It is evidence of movement.
When I started dancing recently, I was terrible.
Not “slightly awkward.” Terrible.
The younger me might have quit after a few lessons. The older me laughed, stepped on a few toes, and kept going.
Because at some point you understand that competence is not the starting line. It is the destination.
The same thing happened in my career.
I’ve spent decades in technology. I’ve led teams, built products, survived enough corporate reorganizations to fill a small museum. Yet every year the industry reinvents itself and hands me another opportunity to be a beginner again.
AI is merely the latest reminder.
Every day I meet people desperately trying to appear like experts. The wiser ones are usually the people saying, “I don’t know yet, but I’m learning.”
Which brings me to the Hendrix quote.
The older I get, the less interested I am in being the smartest person in the room.
I’ve met brilliant people who could explain everything and learn nothing.
I’ve met quieter people who asked thoughtful questions and left the room knowing twice as much as everyone else.
Knowledge often arrives with confidence.
Wisdom usually arrives with curiosity.
Maybe that’s what age does when you’re lucky. It doesn’t make you know more. It makes you more comfortable admitting what you don’t know.
The cynicism of my youth has not disappeared completely. It still rides along from time to time, muttering sarcastic commentary from the back seat.
But these days it no longer gets to drive.
Instead, I find myself liking quotes I once would have mocked.
Not because they are profound.
Because after enough years, enough mistakes, enough reinventions, you realize they are often true.
And truth has a way of sounding less cheesy the longer you live.
The real trick, perhaps, is staying brave enough to be a beginner while becoming wise enough to listen.
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.