Moses has gotten himself to very fascinating spaces where he would find himself with very smart people and not measuring up to the discussions in the room.

Although he would be fascinated by the discussions and learning so much from them, he would wish he could contribute to the discussions at the same level as the smart people in the room…

But his confidence levels would be so low because he thought:

“I don’t know as much as these people in the room know. This is way beyond my league.”

Sometimes he would be asked to share his opinions on a matter and he would just vaguely mumble something that will just reinforce already stated views in the room.

And he will silently kick himself as to why he couldn’t contribute something new or a new different and fresh perspective to the discussion.

“How stupid was that, why am I in the room if I can’t contribute positively.” he would reprimand himself.

Ordinarily a person would leave such spaces because they will feel intimidated, or inferior.

But he would sit still in the back of the room, keep quiet, listen more and observe more, and learn more, and will go home, spend hours and hours reading more on the topic, taking notes, learning more, observing more, and just going deeper on these interesting topics.

And then he will again go back to those discussions, with those smart people, sit at the back, keep quiet, observe more and listen more and learn more.

He will repeat this over and over again on things he found fascinating.

And he will get more fascinated, will practically try things on his own, iterate here, break things there, try again and then… will start writing his thoughts, ideas, learnings and then start seeing gaps in these discussions, and then start formulating his own thought-through opinions.

The more he did this, the more he learnt, and his confidence grew, and he is able to add to the discussions, find his unique path, pioneer new initiatives and do work that matters.

A few lessons from all this:

• There are no shortcuts to life, you have to put in the hours;
• When you don’t know ask, ask for help, ask questions, get a mentor, seek enlightenment;
• Be in the room, show up, be there;
• It’s okay if you don’t know something, not knowing is not the problem, it’s when you don’t do something about it and remain in the dark that’s the problem;
• Read more books;
• It’s okay to say I don’t know, you can’t possibly know everything;
• Humble yourself and listen more;
• Adopt a life-long learning attitude;
• It takes time, it takes patience; and
• No manipulations, no shortcuts.

PS: You can apply this to studies, starting a business, relationships, family, life.