ask a stupid question

walk into taco bell and ask for a big mac. go to a fancy restaurant and ask if you can have the head chef's job. raise your hand in a meeting and ask the question everyone else is too afraid to voice.

watch what happens. nothing. nothing happens. and that nothing is the entire lesson.

the fear that keeps you ignorant

you don't ask questions because you're afraid of looking stupid. so you sit in meetings pretending to understand. you leave conversations confused. you stay ignorant about things you could have learned in 30 seconds -- all because asking might make someone think less of you for a moment.

do the math on that trade. a lifetime of knowledge gaps and missed understanding, all to avoid five seconds of mild social discomfort. that's insane.

the purposeful stupid question

this exercise isn't really about the question. it's about conditioning yourself to handle the anxiety of looking foolish. because that anxiety is controlling way more of your behavior than you realize.

when you deliberately put yourself in a position where you'll look silly:

you experience the embarrassment at full intensity
you survive it easily
your brain recalibrates its threat assessment
the next slightly-uncomfortable question feels like nothing

the hidden benefit

here's what most people discover: "stupid" questions often aren't stupid at all. they're the questions everyone else was thinking but nobody had the guts to ask. the person who asks them usually ends up looking brave, not dumb.

and even when the question genuinely is stupid? people forget in minutes. your embarrassment lasts longer in your head than it does in anyone else's memory.

today's assignment

ask one question you would normally suppress. in a work meeting, at a store, in a conversation. pick the one where you feel the most resistance. that resistance is precisely what needs to break.

the cost of asking is five seconds of awkwardness. the cost of not asking is staying exactly where you are.

if this resonated, share it with someone who needs to hear it.