When we first start out in our businesses, fresh from learning “everything” we need to succeed, we tend to overestimate our abilities.
And once we’re old, grizzled veterans, the opposite happens, and many of us start to underestimate what we’re capable of, which often prevents us from growing and expanding our business reach.
In psychology, this is called the Dunning-Kruger Effect.
Often, for newbies, this effect is simply stated as “you don’t know what you don’t know.” Or, to paraphrase an old Venetian saying: the further from shore, the deeper the water.
We start out in our lives thinking that we know everything, only to find out that there’s a lot more to it than what we see at first glance.
But only the truly wise person realizes that there’s much more to know that we’ll ever understand.
We’ve got to make sure we know on which side of the divide we find ourselves.
The fundamental cause of the trouble in the modern world today is that the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.
Bertrand Russell
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