Smart people aren’t your competition—they’re your secret weapons for success.
If you feel intimidated by them, it’s time to shift that mindset.
Here’s why surrounding yourself with brilliance accelerates your growth:
• They challenge you to think deeper
• Their expertise becomes your knowledge
• You learn new problem-solving approaches
• Their ambition fuels your motivation
• They connect you to networks and opportunities
• You develop broader perspective on things
• Their feedback helps you improve faster
But it’s not just about what you can gain—bring something to the table, too:
• Share your unique insights and experiences
• Offer your support when they need it
• Be an active listener for their ideas
• Build trust through collaboration
• Help them connect with your own network
• Recognize and celebrate their achievements
Tap into the intelligence around you.
Your future self will thank you for the connections you make today.
A giant ship’s engine broke down and no one could repair it, so they hired a Mechanical Engineer with over 30 years of experience.
He inspected the engine very carefully, from top to bottom. After seeing everything, the engineer unloaded his bag and pulled out a small hammer.
He knocked something gently. Soon, the engine came to life again. The engine has been fixed!
A week later the engineer mentioned to the ship owner that the total cost of repairing the giant ship was $20,000.
“What?!” said the owner. “You did almost nothing. Give us a detailed bill.”
The Engineer replied him “The answer is simple:”
Tap with a hammer: $2
Know where to knock and how much to knock: $19,998.
The importance of appreciating one’s expertise and experience… because those are the results of struggles, experiments and even tears.
If I do a job in 30 minutes it’s because I spent 20 years learning how to do that in 30 minutes. You owe me for the years, not the minutes.
Pericles is perhaps best remembered for a building program centered on the Acropolis which included the Parthenon and for a funeral oration he gave early in the Peloponnesian War, as recorded by Thucydides. In the speech he honored the fallen and held up Athenian democracy as an example to the rest of Greece.
HENRY KOTULA 