How To Be The Dumbest Guy In The Room is a great post that kind of fits into my whole professional/personal development stint that I have been embarking on of late. Continuing on from my earlier post Do unto others as Carnegie would do unto you the linked post encourages you to be the 'dumbest' guy in the room so that you learn the most.
There are two parts to this really, surround your self with smart people and extend yourself to the point where you can fail and potentially look dumb. These are covered pretty well in Greg's post. I can kind of see a third part as well, that is not so much acting dumb but asking a lot of questions. Of course when you ask a lot of questions there is the potential that you appear dumb, but that is a risk worth taking. This is also what Carnegie would have you do, the asking a lot of questions that is. Getting to know the person that you are talking to. While the aims here are slightly different they use the same means.
As you encourage the other people to talk through lots of, potentially dumb sounding, questions you absorb some of their knowledge about whatever it is you're talking about and as long as you retain a bit of this knowledge you will be smarter because of it.
The aim is to be the dumbest guy in the room so that you end up being smarter.
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