My desire to learn is greater than any desire to be perceived as intelligent. It does not make me uncomfortable to say “I don’t know”. I love being around people who make me “feel stupid” per se. And as long as I have breath in my lungs there is something for me to learn.
My mother told my brothers and I growing up if you’re the smartest person in your friend group you need new friends. Now this virtue wasn’t coming from a sense of the grades my friends and I were receiving on report cards, but better yet what are you learning from your peers.
I consider myself a culture enthusiast. I love God’s people. His creation is beautiful. And to be able to bask in new traditions, customs, languages, recipes, proverbs, styles, oh I could go on forever literally makes me smile from ear to ear. To have conversations with people from the other side of the world changes your perspective. To eat food with people that use spices you’ve never had changes your palate. And to dance to music in a different language in a different part of the world changes how you heal.
The Importance of Intellectual Humility
Perhaps that is why intellectual humility is so important. I believe a mistake people make is carrying a badge of “I know so much”. Because no matter how much you know there is always someone or something that knows more. I love saying to myself “you don’t know everything, and that’s ok”. When you go around the world with a pretentiousness that you know so much you end up leaving on the table knowing so much more. Eventually, that mindset becomes a hindrance. It may not directly be a hindrance because of a lack of knowledge but a hindrance in the relationships you could have had if you were willing to be open.
Intellectual humility is essential if you want to learn more. Interestingly, intellectual humility and confidence are not opposites. Many people who think highly of themselves are able to do so while still understanding the limits of their knowledge because they bask in metacognition. When people compliment one’s mind it’s often tied to their capability to look within. That’s what metacognition is, understanding your own thought process. And that is what intellectual humility does. It does not diminish what you already know; it simply makes you humble enough to realize you could know more.
Ego and a culture of overconfidence often contribute to one’s struggle with intellectual humility. I personally call it white boy confidence but psychology has coined the term overprecision. It occurs when someone becomes so certain that what they know is fact. And while this is great when you are having to pitch your company, it’s terrible when this is just how you operate in life. Ego and overconfidence will have you overprioritizing the appearance of being competent, intelligent, or wise rather than actually being that. Fortunately, the brain is built for growth.
How to Change Your Brain?
Get comfortable being around people who may not necessarily know more than you, but merely know different than you, can bring so much depth into your life. Our brains change over time. And how it changes is tied to our learning. Within our brains there are dendritic spines, where learning and memory occur. And when we learn we actually create new dendritic spines in our brains. When we are not learning and our brains are no longer being stimulated those same spines become weak and may even fade.
Learning is not just about gaining information, it literally affects what new creations can happen in our brain. One of my favorite words in the whole wide world is steward. Stewardship to be exact. And if you stay around and keep reading my work you’ll hear me discuss it quite a bit. Because I don’t just value stewardship, I live by it. It is important to be a good steward in all aspects of life. And being a good steward of this beautiful brain God blessed us with means cultivating a desire to learn. Not for a perception of intelligence but because your brain literally and figuratively continues to grow. I attend Social Dallas, and my pastor always ends the service saying “If you keep showing up, you keep growing up” and the same is true for learning. Pour into your beautiful mind and allow your desire to learn to be greater than any desire to be perceived as intelligent.
