Why Acting Like a 4-Year-Old Will Make You Better at Your Job

Why Acting Like a 4-Year-Old Will Make You Better at Your JobWhy Acting Like a 4-Year-Old Will Make You Better at Your JobIt doesnt matter how smart you are, you will undoubtedly encounter things in your career that you are just completely lost on. You may be an incredible editor who doesnt understand the first thing about your sites code base. Or you may have a deft touch at making clients feel special but elend get the first thing about invoicing. Heck, youve probably been in a situation at work where someone said something that sounded like a foreign language. And you probably nodded the entire time in agreement- then ran to your computer to Google what the hell they were talking about. Most of us fear coming across as incompetent or not smart enough, so the natural reaction in this situation is to pretend you understand something, rather than admit you are confused and lost. Problem is, every time you do that, you miss a chance to learn something from an expert. Think about it li ke this Would you think it was bad if someone asked you to explain something you know a lot about? No Youd feel flattered and great because you got to help someone. I know hardly anything, so I ask people to explain things to me all the time. And further, I always ask them to explain it to me like Im a four-year-old. Literally. Why? Doing this accomplishes two things One, it makes a joke about not knowing something, which can lighten the conversation. But two, and more importantly, it forces the person to simplify things down their most basic elements, so you can more easily understand whats going on.For example, the other day someone was explaining a very technical SEO problem we were having. I probably should know this stuff, but I dont. So I stopped him and said, explain the problem to me like Im a four-year old. He looked at me like I was joking, so I insisted. The result? Rather than launching into a diatribe about meta tags, crawling, and site mapping, he simply said, basicall y, your pages arent telling Google they exist. Boom. That makes sense. And I could better contribute to the conversation moving forward.No, you shouldnt use this in all situations (if youre a PR manager and ask your boss to explain press releases to you like youre a four-year-old, theres a problem), but next time youre talking about something thats outside of your wheelhouse and dont get, try this little trick. Youll be amazed at how much easier it is to understand new concepts and actually learn. Photo of child courtesy of Shutterstock.