There is a line between what you know and what you think you know.
Learn where that line is.
I call it knowing your edge.
Your edge is the boundary between what you actually understand and what you don’t.
Inside that edge are the things you’ve learned, experienced, practiced, studied, failed at, tried again, and eventually come to understand.
Outside that edge is everything you haven’t learned yet.
And there is nothing wrong with that.
You are going to spend your entire life surrounded by things you don’t know. I still do. Everyone does.
The problem isn’t not knowing.
The problem is not knowing that you don’t know.
That’s where people get themselves into trouble.
Get Comfortable Saying “I Don’t Know”
I want you to get really comfortable saying three words:
“I don’t know.”
Those words don’t make you look stupid.
Pretending to know something you don’t understand does.
If I ask you a question and you don’t know the answer, tell me you don’t know.
But don’t stop there.
Say:
“I don’t know, but I’ll find out.”
Now you’ve turned ignorance into curiosity.
Go look it up.
Read about it.
Ask someone.
Try it yourself.
Ask another question.
Find someone who understands it better than you and listen to them.
That’s how you move your edge.
Every time you genuinely learn something, the boundary moves a little farther out.
Don’t Have an Opinion Just Because Everyone Else Does
You’re going to live in a world that constantly asks you to have an opinion.
Politics.
Money.
Business.
Relationships.
Faith.
Technology.
Whatever everyone is arguing about this week.
You’ll see a thirty-second video and feel like you understand the issue.
You’ll read a headline.
You’ll hear someone confidently explain something.
You’ll see thousands of people agreeing with them.
Be careful.
Knowing a little about something can sometimes be more dangerous than knowing nothing about it.
You don’t need to have an opinion about everything.
There is nothing wrong with saying:
“I don’t know enough about that yet.”
In fact, sometimes that’s the smartest answer in the room.
Don’t borrow someone else’s confidence and mistake it for your own knowledge.
Do the work.
Earn Your Confidence
I want you to be confident.
But I want your confidence to come from somewhere.
Real confidence is built through competence.
You’ve done it.
You’ve studied it.
You’ve practiced it.
You’ve failed at it.
You’ve gotten back up and tried again.
You’ve seen what works.
You’ve seen what doesn’t.
Eventually, you start earning the right to trust your judgment.
That’s very different from simply believing you’re right.
Confidence without competence can make you reckless.
Competence gives your confidence a foundation.
There’s a big difference between saying, “I think I can do this” and being able to say, “I’ve done this before. I understand it. I know what I’m doing.”
Earn that.
Your Edge Isn’t a Wall
Knowing your edge doesn’t mean staying inside it.
Quite the opposite.
I don’t want you to spend your life staying in your lane.
I want you to make your lane bigger.
When you reach the edge of something you understand, get curious about what’s on the other side.
Ask:
How does that work?
Why?
What am I missing?
Who understands this better than I do?
What should I read?
Can you show me?
Those questions will take you places that pretending will never take you.
Don’t be embarrassed when you’re the person in the room who doesn’t understand something.
Ask the question.
There’s a good chance three other people in the room don’t understand it either. They’re just afraid to admit it.
Find People Whose Edge Goes Farther Than Yours
One of the best things you can do in life is surround yourself with people who know things you don’t.
I’ve learned this over and over in business.
I don’t need to be the smartest person in the room.
Actually, I don’t want to be.
If someone sitting across from me has spent twenty years becoming great at something I don’t understand, I want to hear what they have to say.
I want to ask questions.
I want to understand how they think.
I want to learn from the mistakes they already made so I don’t have to spend twenty years making every one of them myself.
That’s not weakness.
That’s leverage.
You don’t have enough years in your life to personally become an expert in everything you’ll need to know.
So learn how to recognize people who actually know what they’re doing.
Then listen.
Don’t Confuse Confidence With Competence
This one matters.
Some of the most confident people you meet will have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about.
They’ll sound certain.
They’ll speak loudly.
They’ll tell you exactly what you should do.
That doesn’t mean they’re right.
Confidence is easy.
Competence is expensive.
Competence costs time.
It costs failure.
It costs experience.
It costs study.
It usually costs a few scars.
So when someone is trying to move your edge for you, ask yourself:
How do they know this?
Have they actually done it?
What experience do they have?
What evidence supports what they’re saying?
And here’s one I’ve learned to pay attention to:
Can they say “I don’t know”?
I’ve found that people who really understand something are often surprisingly comfortable saying those words.
They’ve learned enough to understand how much they still don’t know.
Pay attention to those people.
When You Reach Your Edge, You Have Choices
This becomes especially important when you’re trying to build something.
You will reach your edge constantly.
Maybe you understand the business but don’t understand accounting.
Maybe you can sell but don’t know how to build the product.
Maybe you understand technology but don’t understand contracts.
Maybe you have a great idea but have no clue how to turn it into a company.
That’s okay.
When you reach your edge, you have choices.
Learn it.
Research it.
Ask someone.
Hire someone.
Find a partner.
Find a mentor.
The mistake isn’t needing help.
The mistake is pretending you don’t.
Some of the best decisions you’ll ever make will be recognizing that someone else knows more than you and bringing them into the room.
Keep Moving the Line
Here’s what I hope happens throughout your life.
At 15, your edge is here.
At 20, it’s farther out.
At 30, farther still.
Then 40.
- 50.
- 51.
And hopefully you never stop moving it.
Read things that challenge you.
Learn things that are difficult.
Build things.
Travel.
Meet people who see the world differently than you do.
Ask questions.
Listen more than you talk.
Try.
Fail.
Change your mind when the evidence tells you that you were wrong.
And never become so successful that you start believing you’ve figured everything out.
That’s when your edge stops moving.
I don’t expect you to have all the answers.
I don’t have all the answers either.
What I want is for you to know when you have an answer worth trusting.
To recognize when you’re outside your edge.
To have enough humility to admit it.
And enough curiosity to do something about it.
Know your edge.
Respect it.
Then spend the rest of your life pushing it outward.