Flex On, Flex Off, or We Need to Quit Being so Damned Humble
The other day I got excited. Like toe-tippy-tappy, butt-waggly excited.
I had just downloaded a new app on my phone and it’s incredible. No, it wasn’t TikTok. Refusing to download TikTok is my current top productivity hack because it is a bottomless well… and I say that like the app I actually did download isn’t 7,000x worse.
Are you ready to learn what the app was? Are you ready, ready, like really super ready?
Researcher. The app is called Researcher, and it allows you to stay up-to-date on thousands of academic journals! Search by topic! Filter! Get notifications when new articles drop! Yes, I just talked about “Analytic and Introjective Patients’ Experiences of Change in Psychoanalysis” dropping like it’s Beyoncé’s Lemonade album. I was downright giddy.
But listen, let me tell you something right now. I. Am. A. Know. It. All. I own it. I’ve come to peace with it.
I also know the reason for it is simple: I just gotta know!! My brain is wired to prowl after new information like Leonardo DiCaprio prowls after models under the age of 24.
I’m not a know-it-all because I’m arrogant or assume what I know is better than what anyone else knows. I’m a know-it-all because I am driven by the acquisition of knowledge. It’s that simple.
Discovering this about myself was one of the single most powerful revelations of my life. It meant that my desire to pursue yet another field or go get yet another degree could be seen for what it was. A core virtue. A strength.
Interestingly, it’s one strength that’s shrouded in a whole lotta b.s. Somewhere along the way, “intellectual” became a dirty word, knowing things meant you thought you were superior. But here’s the thing: you are.
If that statement made you a little cringey, hang with me.
If you’ve spent decades of your life studying climatology and geoscience, your knowledge on the topic of climate change is superior to someone’s opinion after they read an article about it once. Yet people get all weird about you stating that truth. And I don’t get it.
If you spent decades of your life training in Greco Roman Wrestling, no one who went to the gym one time would feel okay challenging you to a match. If you invest loads of time in the arts, no one would think their crayon drawing was on par. No one picks up a guitar for the first time and claims to be better than Hendrix.
It’s the same damn thing!
Yet, in an era of “alternate facts” owning your brain power, especially as *gasp* a woman, is often met with scorn. I call bullsh*t.
I might make some people angry with these words and I’m okay with that.
If you’re speaking from a place that embraces your strengths and no one’s getting mad about it, you’re probably diluting your message. If you try to speak to everybody, you end up speaking to nobody.
So if what you need is permission to stop downplaying that big, beautiful brain of yours, consider this it. I hereby grant you any and all license to own your noodle-notions and embrace your brain. The world needs smart people. Badly.
But. (uh oh, here comes the but.)
Every strength is like a trick coin. It will land face up but that doesn’t mean it is without a flip side. I don’t necessarily like to label it as a weakness because then we start a trek up Mt. Judgey and nobody has time for that. I prefer to think of it as a blind spot.
Yes, we need to own our strengths. But we need to own the blind spots too.
Being an entrepreneur has been one of the best ways to keep my inner knowledge monster well-fed (and that bish is always hungry). But there are blind spots. Like that one time I spent three days building out a special form on my website that required me to learn a bunch of new code and tinker endlessly to get the opacity of the pop-up box juuuuuuuust right—then, when I got all done, I realized that the form was not going to be able to serve the purpose it was designed for.
I got so caught up in the excitement of learning something new that I completely lost the ability to see that the task I was working on was not my top priority. Oooooops.
In the 75 million alternate realities where I exist as a quintessential absent-minded professor, that’s probably fine. But in this reality where I’m running a business that I rely upon to, ya know, survive and thrive and one that other people rely upon to get where they want to go, I need to remain vigilant about that blind spot. (If you are also a person with Love of Learning as a core strength and can relate to the above example, I highly recommend checking out Essentialism by Greg McKeown. Yes, it links to a Target page because letsbereal, Target > Amazon.)
Side note: In an upcoming post we’ll go toe-to-toe with those moments when people say, “There’s no way you’re an introvert!” (Link added). Nothing gets my grits more that people telling other people who they are. I really wish I had documented those three days building a website form when I spoke to no one and started to grow moss due to lack of sunlight. You know, for posterity. Anywooooo…
A few other examples of strengths and their blind spots are:
You’re a person with Kindness as your core strength and you use it daily in your therapy practice, but you forget to extend the kindness to yourself and continually battle burnout.
Leadership is your core strength and it makes you an excellent CEO and Girl Scout troop leader, but trying to corral your partner’s life is putting stress on your relationship.
Your strength of Curiosity makes you open to new experiences and people which has led to a lot of excitement and happiness in your life, but losing sight of the boundaries has caused some people to see you as intrusive and nosy.
Are you cashing what I’m checking?
It all boils down to two main points:
1.) Own your brilliance, you MAJESTIC BEAST, you.
2.) Remain aware that your brilliance can get carried away at times. Call in reinforcements when needed and practice tapping the breaks.
I say this a lot but imma say it again because it needs repeating: The world needs what you have to offer. Don’t hide your best contributions out of fear of what others might think. Own your strengths. Be bold.