How About This? If You Don’t Know, Say So.
Photo by Damon Lam on Unsplash
Hey there, hero!
I just watched Ta-Nehisi Coates, the African-American writer, take questions after speaking at an event, and he frequently said that he doesn’t know enough or doesn’t feel qualified to answer.
Unlike some celebrities that mistake their celebrity status for special insight or knowledge.
What if we all made a habit to not speak to issues where we aren’t knowledgeable?
I’m going to continue to do just that.
Hope this helps!
David
Raw YouTube Captioning
Hey there, it’s David H Lawrence the 17th, and I have a suggestion and it’s based on something that just happened to me. I
had to get a new printer.
My Artisan 50 from Epson lived a good long decade-plus and helped me prints my resume on the back of my head shots, which
I haven’t done in probably six or seven years so and it was on its last legs. I couldn’t I couldn’t correct the the
adjustments. I couldn’t clean the nozzles any more than inkjet printer. So I thought you know what? I’m going to get one
of these little inexpensive brother monochrome Laser Printers and my printing will be a lot faster. It’ll be a lot cleaner
and we got sharper for what I do. It’s going to work out a lot better and I had an issue.
I wanted to figure something out about the wi-fi system so that I could do air printing from my phone and I couldn’t find
the answer on the Brothers site. So I went to unfortunately I went to a discussion group for brother printers online.
and I was
I was subjected to something that I was very familiar with.
And what prompted this this video I was subjected to somebody who?
Claim to know what they were talking about.
And instead of saying I think this is the answer or I’m not sure but this might be the answer or you might want to get
that answer from somebody else because I don’t know which would have been the best answer from this dude.
The answer was wrong.
And it was declaratively wrong. This is what you do.
So it reminded me of an interview, I’d seen with Tallahassee Coates who is a writer for the Atlantic and for the times and
he’s an author and he’s a great guy.
He has this habit that I think more of us should adopt. It’s a habit that I try to adopt whenever I possibly can if I see
a question that I don’t know the answer to all either back off and not do it not say anything.
Or if I want to know the answer, I’ll go look it up and find it and then maybe come back and help out. But what I won’t do
is declare an answer.
I’m not sure is true. And as I watched him be interviewed recently, I watched him and by the way before you write me and
say don’t know his name is pronounced on a PC code. It’s not a ton of Hachiko. Even though. There’s an eye. It’s hiisi.
It’s still hot. See you. So please I just want you to know anyway.
He was asking number of questions that.
many celebrities
would have taken the time to give a pithy answer to
Even though they don’t know the answer.
he said
And I my respect level for him grew immensely. He said, you know, I don’t know that I can’t answer that or I don’t feel
unqualified answer that question.
And left it at that. He didn’t say but my opinion is right and there are an awful lot of really arrogant celebrities who
once they latch onto a special cause they instantly become experts at it when they’re not really experts. They may be
calling on Experts to help them understand things.
But there are a lot of things said by a lot of celebrities.
That are just simply false.
They sound good in many cases and they are politically correct in many cases or they’re active correct. Meaning that they
fall in line with current.
Active movements active protest movements are active rights movements.
But you know my fellow brethren in the acting community that are much higher on the food chain than I am have this.
is awful habit
Of conflating their celebrity status with actual knowledge of what they are interested.
In promoting as a as a Cause.
they don’t say experts say that they say well you should know that because I know that or things along those lines in my
My admonition my suggestion. I wonder what you think about this. Let me know in the comments below my admonition.
If you don’t know.
say so
Just do it. Don’t fear that you’re going to look unprepared or you know, not knowledgeable or that you won’t have the same
Effectiveness in promoting your cause that you would if you had every answer there was
Especially when you’re a talking head and you’re arguing with someone.
Online or on video or on a podcast?
Or on a radio show, please.
if you don’t know say so and for my tribe, I try to generate that that as a culture in proconnect, you know, if you
Don’t know something or you think something is right, or you’ve always done it that way, so it must must be correct.
Please please please.
Check it before you wreck it and if you don’t know say so.
If you do know by all means contribute and if you’re pretty sure say, you’re pretty sure if you’re not sure say I’m not
sure but you know, what does this make sense?
because
Getting the best information.
Your best bet is not often to listen to a celebrity.
Your best bet is actually this is somebody who works in the field. Now are there political problems with that? Yeah, cuz
there were people that have political agenda and so you got to kind of watch for that but
I think we’d all be better off if we just kept kept to the adage of if you don’t know say so.
And I and I commit to to doing that whenever possible even though I’m a coach and even though I’m a teacher and I’m
supposed to be somewhat of an authority figure on performance and production and and voice-over know that if I don’t know
something the good news is I know how to find out if it can be found out at all. I know how to use the Google and I know
how to use my peer group and I know how to use, you know sites that are meant for the repository of proper and true.
Facts and I hope that deal heroes.com is regarded at some point. It’s brand new, but at some point is regarded as one of
those sites, so that’s what I wanted to say today. I appreciate you watching if you want to jump on my mailing list to
find out when these videos come out. There’s a box down there that says get on the list, so go get on the list. If you
want to leave me a comment on this. Please do so below the video. I’m David H Lawrence the 17th, and I thank you so much
for watching and I will talk to you tomorrow..
OMG!!!!!!! FABULOUS advice!!!!! How I wish that all celebs (and others) tell the TRUTH! It’s OK, perfectly acceptable to NOT know. You rock
Reminds me of the old saw, “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and confirm it…”
Oh man! Yes, I see stuff like this so much on tech forums. You’ll come across a thread like “My video drivers are crashing when I play X game” and someone jumps in and says “You must have a bad power supply. Change that out”…and then the rest of the thread is just painful to watch as it spirals into an expensive and multi-threaded fumbling towards a solution (or sometimes no solution). I don’t know why some people do that. When I’m on a call or in a room with people and I think I want to speak up, I have a beat where I ask myself, “Am I contributing to the solution? Or is my desire just to hear the sound of my own voice and feel like I’m participating?” Because the latter is unhelpful. I hope I’m always helpful and I can at least point people in the right direction when I don’t know.