Could the voices of reason be drowning in a sea of sensitivity? Embark on a journey with me, as we confront a pervasive trend where the intelligent discourse is muted to spare the feelings of the misinformed. We explore the delicate balance between intelligence and common sense in our personal, business, and political communications. It's a candid discussion on the nature of intelligence, the importance of applying knowledge, and the essence of sound judgment in an age where facts often blend with opinion.
Could the voices of reason be drowning in a sea of sensitivity? Embark on a journey with me, as we confront a pervasive trend where the intelligent discourse is muted to spare the feelings of the misinformed. We explore the delicate balance between intelligence and common sense in our personal, business, and political communications. It's a candid discussion on the nature of intelligence, the importance of applying knowledge, and the essence of sound judgment in an age where facts often blend with opinion.
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Speaker 1:
I. This is unleashing leadership, and I'm your host, travis Moss, and welcome to the first quote day of season 4. We're in the infinite game with Simon Sinek. We're taking a break for a quote day and today's quote. We live in a time where intelligent people are being silenced so that stupid people won't be offended. I think this place throughout all of society, our personal lives, our business lives, our political lives. It's basically Everywhere. I don't know who said the quote, but I like the quote. I think the quote is worth talking about, especially as we're challenging our our internal status quo, the status quo of our businesses, the status quo, sometimes, of our entire industries.
Speaker 1:
Let's start with the end of the quote, though, and work our way back to the beginning. Let's get the, the verbiage correct in the first place stupid. I was growing up wasn't allowed to use the word stupid. It was to the meaning, but stupid means Having or showing a great lack of intelligence or common sense. So, yeah, you couldn't actually be stupid, but you've got to find intelligence and common sense first.
Speaker 1:
Intelligence the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills. I like that definition because it's not just about Acquiring knowledge and skills. A lot of people think well, I know a lot, I'm very intelligent you have to listen to me and the question is is how do you apply it though? How do you turn intelligence into skills? And then the common sense part sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of a situation or facts, and the and the prudent part is key. A lot of people think that they have sound judgment because of their own biases and perspective, but Prudency is more of a holistic view In comparison to other like situations, so it's a. It's a broader perspective. It means that your common sense common sense you say you know, well, that's my common sense, everybody else is stupid may actually be the, the stupid common sense, and that brings us to the last word of this as facts. So We've got to define facts, because you can't really understand common sense without facts.
Speaker 1:
Facts are how we form our opinions. Well, sometimes we're. It's a fact that somebody else has an opinion. We bought their opinion, so now we have an opinion. What we need to get back to facts, and facts are something that has actually Existed or an actual occurrence, or something that's done. It's real, it's tangible, it's not a Losing in our minds. Listen, there's a lot that we don't know. There are a lot of situations where we are going to think we are right, only to find out later how wrong we were. In fact, most of life is like that.
Speaker 1:
Did you ever notice on the news or social media, or maybe even a friend or a family member, someone who knows everything? They talk louder than everybody else. They yell at anyone who challenges them. Sometimes you do got to talk louder than anybody else. Sometimes you do got to interrupt. Sometimes you got to challenge people.
Speaker 1:
However, the second part of this do they ever admit their mistakes? When they were wrong, when they got a fact wrong, when their common sense was stupid, did they admit it? When they don't know, did they say you know, I don't know. That's actually the sign of intelligence. Or do they dig their heels in even when they're obviously wrong? You show them a hundred facts about why they're wrong and they still don't believe you. Do they deny even when you catch them? I saw you do that. Nope, I didn't do it. But I saw you. Nope, wasn't me, or you're misinterpreting. Did they shut down when they're showing evidence to the contrary of whatever they're pushing or peddling? What runs through your mind?
Speaker 1:
When you interact with somebody like that, you think I can't stand this person? Why is this guy such an asshole? He's exhausting to deal with. How do I get him to shut up? How do I keep him from being a bad influence? Well, let's slow down a little bit. Let's do everybody a favor. Make sure that you are not being the stupid person in the equation.
Speaker 1:
And there is a tool for checking yourself. Number one are you saddened or disappointed by what someone else is saying, or are you offended? Normally, when I hear something that I really know was wrong, I'm sad or I'm disappointed for the other person. I'm not normally offended. Number two are you trying to reconcile what you could do different? What could I do different to help this person? What could I do different to help this perspective? Or are you thinking, man, this person is such an ass? Because if you're concerned about looking inward, if you're concerned about your role to play, you are probably on the intelligence side. You're checking yourself. You're saying do I have all the information? Am I using the right common sense? Am I misinterpreting the facts? But if you want to hurt somebody or their credibility, or you're feeling like a victim, like somebody's infringing on you, you may just be the stupid person. So do us all a favor. If you're the stupid person, a fellow criminal.