While in my pursuit to continually educate myself, I went to WordPress meetup here in Charleston 2 nights ago. It was just $5 and both presenters were covering topics I want to learn more about. Plus, it was a great reason to leave the house, something that doesn’t happen all that often since I work from a laptop!
Being Dwarfed
As expected, I didn’t know anyone there with the exception of one guy I invited from my blogger meetup the week before. I was definitely out of my comfort zone when I walked in, but the good news was that it seemed like a few others were too. The pizza relaxed us all.
The first speaker began and I felt the urge to ask a question, but as most people in a room full of strangers, I didn’t want to bring a ton of attention to myself seemingly not knowing what I’m talking about. That wasn’t going to stop me and I shot out the first interruption/question of the night.
The speaker, Cheryl, answered my question and helped open up the room for the first bit of discussion for the night: success! I thought I asked an insightful, helpful question. You know, the kind where everyone is thinking it, but only one person asks it? Not the case…
Being Dumb
Soon after Cheryl took the stage, John, was up next to cover a specific plugin I have used before. I didn’t have any questions for him, but everyone else did.
Apparently not many people came to listen to Cheryl, they all wanted to hear what John had to say. His topic was a little more of a case study versus theory with Cheryl.
Some of their questions were very in depth and made mine from the previous speaker seemed childish. I quickly came to the realization I was in a room full of people way smarter than me.
Their expertise was apparent, their questions were detailed to show their proficiency, and they were genuinely curious about the information the presenter was giving.
I felt dumb and I loved it.
The speakers wrapped up the night and everyone began to disperse. I was able to get some time with both of them to make some new connections and ask some more questions about their topics. Overall I learned a lot in a short period of time that would have taken me days or weeks on my own through research.
Being Humbled
It sounds weird to say I felt dumb, but trust me I don’t have an inferiority complex (those that know me well are smiling and nodding your heads right now). It was a good thing, here’s why.
When I am able to put myself in a place where I’m not the expert, I can soak up knowledge and experience from the people around me. It is true we can learn something from everyone, but we learn a lot more from people that know more than us.
In this particular topic, WordPress, I have a lot to learn. It humbling to say, “I don’t know about this, can you help me?” to an open room full of people whom I perceived to be ‘experts’ on this subject.
How often do I humble myself to learn more like that? Not enough
The cool part about this meetup was even though I thought most of the people in the room were smarter than me, they were still here to learn from the speakers. They too wanted to keep learning and keep reaching up to other experts!
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What are you doing to reach up to those with more knowledge than you? How are you growing your skills?
I would love to hear these answers are more about continually learning so leave a comment below to start the discussion!
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Have a great weekend & try to stay warm!
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