For a lot of people, there is nothing scarier than raising their hand—in the classroom, in the boardroom, wherever.
“What if I ask a stupid question? Everyone will think I’m totally lost…”
“What if what I’m asking for is outrageous? Everyone will think I’m greedy, delusional…”
We’ve known plenty of teachers who trot out the old line that “there are no stupid questions.” Our fear of judgment, of facing what we don’t know, of owning our dreams—that feels way more real than pretending that no one will judge us.
Sometimes, though, we are our own best foil. We talk ourselves out of what we want before we even let ourselves say it out loud! We go into negotiations muzzled by our fear, so we ask for less than we want. We refuse to raise our hand, so we never get the answers we need.
But we’ve got a trick for this, and we practice it in every conversation. Whether we’re working with each other on the staff, with you, or with our friends and colleagues at LPL, we wield a powerful tool that can defeat any stupid question.
Curiosity.
Curiosity is by far the best treatment for that fear: you just have to let yourself be more interested finding solutions and gaining understanding than you are afraid of how you look.
And clients, we think it applies to you, too. When we work on your financial plans and planning, honest answers take us farther. Where are you headed? What are your dreams? What ideas and questions do you have?
Why lowball our goals before we even get to work on them? Let’s give them a fighting chance.
Clients, when you’re ready to talk about this or anything else, write or call.
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