All night the others at the table listened to him talk about himself, his achievements, opinions, stories of success and fortune and generally how amazing he was.
I had a similar experience last week. Had to listen to a bunch of nonsense, from someone who's extremely limited, but he thinks he's the best of us all. Smartness is not his strong suit, but only we know that as he can't see it.
That's it for this week, a thousand year-old Viking quote about the benefits of listening more than you talk in certain circumstances and the value of knowing when to be silent. Our quantity of words spoken don't determine our wisdom or knowledge, our wisdom and knowledge does! We have two ears and one mouth, if we used them in that proportion in social and professional environments I think it would make for much better interactions and more value harvested.
Wise words my friend, I wish many would read this post and reflect on what you've just said here.
Hey Erika, thanks for dropping by.
How damned annoying are people like I mention, and you met last week? That's rhetorical as I know the answer. A lot.
It's a pretty difficult situation to watch right? I always feel like kicking them under the table, but then that probably wouldn't work...and a throat punch is my preferred asshole-mitigation technique anyway. I'm actually just joking though...Or am I?
We are all different and human so will make mistakes or do things others don't value but presenting as the smartest person on the room is self-limiting and certainly not the way to build rapport...especially in a room full of smarter people who will generally allow it to continue in silence...because they're smarter people.
The worst part of these cases is when you can't tell them how stupid their behavior is. I just sat there, listening to how he went on about how much money he has spent to build something. Smart people don't talk about money that way. Imagine this guy is still talking about millions, while the last denomination was in 2005. He has not been able to adapt to the new system in 17 years, yet he thought he was the smartest. 😳
You are right, we are all different and that makes this world so colorful. I am always quiet in the company of such people as I have very little to say. It's obvious whatever one says to them, that can be overwritten by something bigger they bring up 🙂