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

Responses

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  1. OMG!!!!!!! FABULOUS advice!!!!! How I wish that all celebs (and others) tell the TRUTH! It’s OK, perfectly acceptable to NOT know. You rock

  2. 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.