I was the annoying kid in class who asked a lot of questions to the teachers.

To be fair, I didn’t ask questions to annoy them. I was genuinely curious.

In class 8, we were learning about force, and I had some questions. My science teacher obviously did not like these questions. Most of his answers were in the line of these are Newtons formulae or theories, you can’t question them.

He called me aside after class and explicitly told me that teachers don’t like students who ask a lot of questions.

As I started writing this blog I realized, this is where my distancing from science as an academic subject started (I’m still a curious science buff though). I also stopped asking questions to teachers in the class.

I have hardly had any favourite teachers in my life. But one stood out from the others. My class 11 and 12 accounts teacher. Some have asked if I liked him because he was very smart. Upon reflection I realized, he was the only teacher who wouldn’t get flustered if anyone asked a question. He would genuinely try to answer the question or try a different approach to make us understand. But more importantly he would own up if he didn’t have an answer to any of our questions. He would go back, refer to books or talk to his colleagues and get back with an answer. He had another even rarer trait. He would admit his mistakes in class and correct them.

Mr Kannan – My accounts teacher in the middle

I respected my accounts teacher not because he had all the answers, but because he had the guts to say, “I don’t know”.

We tend to think we may not look smart if we ask stupid questions or say I don’t know. While reality could be the opposite.

I interned at Goldman Sachs in the summer of 2014. During the orientation for one of the processes the word ‘Amex’ kept coming up. It seemed important to know the meaning of the word to understand the process we were discussing. There were few others in the same session who had joined a few weeks before me. I whispered sheepishly and asked them if they knew what it was. Not a clue. Then, with a bit of hesitation, I raised the question. The manager asked if anyone else knew. It turned out no one else knew either. She apologized and explained that she was referring to ‘American Express’ credit cards. The others thanked me after we came out of the session.

The incident taught me that most others may have the exact same ‘stupid question’ as you, but most don’t have the guts to ask the question.

Another thing we are worried about is if the question is stupid what will others think of me?

The truth is no one is thinking about you or the ‘stupid question’ you asked as much as you are.

People are too busy worried about their ‘stupid question’ and their own egos to have time to think about us.

If you are a young person just entering the professional world, it is important to develop this attitude-

From the movie- “The Pursuit of Happyness”

“The Pursuit of Happyness” is one my most favourite movies of all time and this scene is very close to my heart. – The Pursuit Of Happyness: Job interview

If you are a fresher or new to a team, disturb people and ask them a lot of questions that is the only way you would learn. It is better to look stupid in the first few weeks rather than realising you didn’t learn anything after few months or years.

In our professional lives as we grow, the world sees us as smart / knowledgeable in our chosen field. It is important to embrace our limitations and admit to ourselves that there is a world of knowledge that we don’t know yet and not pretend that we do.

If we don’t have ‘I don’t know moments’ in our lives it is probably a sign of stagnation🤔. It means we are not learning anything new. Therefore, we need to celebrate our ‘I don’t know moments’🎉 as a sign of growth and learning. 📈