How To Be Smart

contemporary digital collage with horseshoe

I thought I knew.
I had a friend of a friend once who worked with President Bill Clinton.
He said, “the President was usually the smartest person in the room. And if he wasn’t, he always knew who was.”
That still sticks with me.
Smart is a loaded word.
She gets good grades. She must be smart. He runs a successful business. He must be smart.
Both are technically true. It seems so simple…
But there are all kinds of smart.
Street smart.
Book smart.
Emotional smart.
Intuitive smart.
Political smart.
Evil smart.
Cunning smart.
Motivational smart.
Clever smart.
Someone can be smart at one thing and totally clueless in another. In fact some of the “smartest" people I know, are oblivious in other areas of their life.
I’m no exception.
I was desperate and needed work.
I couldn’t stand my job so I quit. It wasn’t so much the job. My life was going nowhere, I felt like a failure, and I was afraid I’d never be anything else. Nothing in my life was working.
But instead of facing all that, because really...who would want to? I blamed the job. It was easier. I thought maybe if I shook things up, I’d sprout wings and fly.
Next time I leap to grow wings, I’m bringing blueprints. Just in case.
It was the mid-90’s and computers were just coming on the scene. I bought some books and tried to learn Photoshop and HTML code thinking I could make websites for money. Over the next few months, I got moderately proficient at both, but I couldn’t find any work.
Things got messy at home. My bank account balance dwindled and my girlfriend started paying the rent.  We didn’t get along all that well to begin with, which is a whole other story, but she was a good sport and tried to be supportive.
Unfortunately, for a slew of reasons, most of which are well documented in University Psychology Department textbooks all over the world, the situation at home continued to deteriorate.
I interviewed at Starbucks just hoping to find some work. My options were limited, but I needed to relieve the tension at home.
Then one night I met my good friend Jeff for dinner. I think he took pity on me. He said he owned a computer consulting company and asked if I’d want to stop by his office to see if there was anything I could do. I had a second interview scheduled at Starbucks the next day, but I postponed it to go check it out. What did I have to lose?
It was a nice little building in Santa Monica with no art on the walls and a couple empty offices. I don’t know how long the company had been there, but it was the office equivalent of a bachelor pad. It looked like someone just moved in. Computers on desks and a hallway.
It easily could’ve been the most depressing place on earth. Most corporate offices I’d been in were exactly that…hellish cubicle-ridden boxes of slow death. But in Jeff’s office everyone was smiling. They all seemed relaxed and genuinely happy to be there. And so was I.
They asked me to fix a network printer and I miraculously got it to work. To this day I still have no idea how I did it. I didn’t even know what a network was. I turned the printer on and off, clicked around in the control panel for a few minutes and then it magically started printing.It was either dumb luck or divine intervention. Both explanations are equally plausible.In spite of my utter ignorance of networking computers and how they functioned, Jeff asked me to come back. Then he offered me a job. Jeff and his partners were the kind of people who believed in people and took chances. A rare breed. That quality is even more rare today. I’m grateful they took a chance on me.
Before long they trained me as a programmer. Then the guy who trained me left, and I became Senior Programmer. As Y2K approached, the company expanded and hired new people. That’s when I met Doug.
Doug was brought in to work on the software interface we were installing at client sites. He was always quitting coffee. He’d swear it off for a couple weeks, then inevitably one day I’d come in and he’d have a Venti from Starbucks sitting on his desk with bloodshot eyes. He had been up half the night working. Again.
I’d say something like “Off the wagon again?
”He’d glance over, “Yeah, it didn’t work out too well.”
Doug could figure out anything. No matter what strange request came from a client, he was always working miracles from the server room. He was a genius.
I’d ask him questions about his solutions, and he’d explain them. Most of his explanations were over my head. How does he figure all this stuff out? Doug didn't have a high degree from a school or anything. He just loved it.
Whenever I hit a wall with a project I was working on, I’d go ask Doug for help. He always had a lighthearted, calm response, and would either give me a suggestion or flat out tell me what to do.
Finally one day I asked him…”how do you know all this?”
His answer?“
I don’t.”
“Huh?”
I sat down and he proceeded to show me all of the books he had in the office, as well as a whole series of websites, forums and previously written code by other people he regularly consulted.
When Doug didn’t know the answer. He knew where to look. He knew who the smartest people in the room were.
I realized in that moment that I didn’t have to have the answers at work or in my life. I didn’t have to know what to do. I just had to know where to look. It was the only skill I’d ever need.
Was I "smart" to quit my job? By most definitions of the word, no. And yet, somehow in sitting home teaching myself some basic computer skills, it was JUST enough to completely alter the trajectory of my life.
I try not to confuse “smart” with “wisdom” anymore. Our lives are some sort of bizarre balancing dance between free will and incomprehensible cosmic forces. The alchemy of which baffles me.
I’d rather be wise than smart. Wisdom wins in the long run every time.
As I get older and my bucket of experiences is filling up, I see things from a bigger perspective. I’m learning more about that dance.
Do I consider myself smart?
If smart means knowing all the answers, then, no. I don't consider myself particularly smart at most things.
But I think knowing where to look is a smarter play. Because then there is always a path up and forward.
I try to say open. Be aware…and be willing to be wrong. Because sometimes wrong turns out alright.
I think it’s smart to remember that.