No One Ever Told Us That: Money and Life Lessons for Young Adults

CHAPTER SEVEN

DON'T BE AFRAID TO ASK STUPID OR PROVOCATIVE QUESTIONS

We're all insecure in certain ways. Even the richest and most powerful people on the planet have secret fears and self-doubts they would never share with the public or the media. I have had chief executive officers of large companies say to me in moments of confession, “I often felt during my career that I was a complete fraud, in totally over my head. But I wouldn't tell anyone; ‘Show no weakness’ has to be the mantra. Or you're finished.”

All of us go to meetings in our businesses and professions. Every business has a jargon all its own, with acronyms rampant. People who have been in the company longer than you know all the acronyms. You hear the acronyms in meetings and have no idea what they stand for, but you don't want to appear clueless. So you nod as if you completely get it, spend the rest of the meeting wondering if you'll ever be in with the in crowd, and you lose your sense of the meeting's flow.

My mind wanders in meetings, especially when people drone on just to go on the record as saying something, anything to prove they're awake, even if it adds nothing substantive. If you're running a meeting, assume that not everyone knows those acronyms. Don't gloss over them if you're the boss.

Raise your hand if you're new to the company. “What does SA mean?” I once asked.

“Sorry, sales assistant, I thought you would know,” someone said to me when the term was bandied about and I had no idea: it was a new ...