Time for a confession. There are times when I’m not the upbeat, energetic guy many of you may think I am.  

While I often draw energy from people, there are plenty of times when people can drag me down. There’s a certain type of person who can zap my strength. Those who either swear they’re the smartest person in the room or who work hard to convince you they’re the smartest person in the room. They really put me in a bad place.

You know what I’m talking about. They’ll tell you all the things they know. Then they’ll share the best way to do this or that. Committed to proving their point, they are sure of their facts and their opinions. (Sometimes it can be hard to tell the two apart.) They’ve been to the best places, impressed the most important people, and they know exactly how everything works. There’s absolutely nothing they can learn from you. 

I think it’s that last thought process I find most objectionable. When I consider how a person can truly believe that, it gets me thinking. So, to pick at that concept a little more, I looked up some statistics I had heard tossed around and confirmed something I had surmised.

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Pay attention to who is asking questions and who wants to learn more.
When you do that, you start to determine who is actually the smartest person in the room. According to Forbes, only 15 to 25% of adults spend time asking questions. The same survey determined that roughly 75% of all children ask questions. Apparently, when we become adults, we know everything (or think we do).
Where did the curiosity of our youth go?

 Start by figuring out what you’d like to learn. Be determined to ask more questions.Listen to the answers and then ask more questions. That’s the best way to grow as a person, a marketer, a leader, and a business owner. Once you stop asking questions, you become the person who thinks they’re the smartest person in the room. The know-it-all.

 However, don’t stop there. Start paying attention to other people and the times when they ask questions. You’ll come to the same conclusion I did; in fact, very few people ask questions. It’s a sad commentary on our world when there is so much we can learn from others and so many places to access information. We go to Google instead of going to each other. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve left a function or a dinner and commented to my wife that not a single person asked me a question.

 The most interesting people ask the best questions.

 Think about that and then work on your inquisitory skills.