“You think that I know a lot! But the reality is that I’m a dumb s…t!”. Whatever success I’ve had in life has had to do more with my knowing how to deal with not knowing than anything I know.”
Ray Dallio, CIO of the world’s largest hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates
“Have you ever considered how much of what you “know” is just an assumption?
People in Ireland often use the term “eejit” playfully or affectionately among friends or family to describe moments of silly misunderstanding or comic failure.
We all have our “eejit” moments – times when our assured grasp on reality turns out to be nothing more than a handful of sand.
Consider, for example, the tale of two climbers informed by local villages of the location of a hidden goldmine two days’ hike away. After several days, the climbers returned exhausted and complained they’d found nothing. “We were digging all day, but all we found were bits of dirty green metal, which we threw away.”
When the villages explained that the dirty green metal was gold ore (amalgam), the climbers suddenly realized their stupidity.
The story offers a lighthearted yet profound reminder that we should not take anything for granted in a nonlinear, unpredictable world.
When life was more predictable, it was easier to trust our own expertise, rely on validated life strategies, and rely on mantras like “best practice” or “guaranteed approach.”
But the biases, preconceptions, and assumptions we develop for the predictable, linear world can be extremely dangerous in the nonlinear world.
And here is the paradox: the more we think we become experts, the more we risk barricading ourselves against new learning and insights, and the more we can veer off course unless we’re aware of how they play out.
