Day 213 of The 365 Day Experiment. The Dumbest Person In The Room.

I like to think I am reasonably intelligent.  And yet it is mornings like today where I sit, pause and think, wow. I feel really f’ing stupid.

I walked into our Cambridge office at 6 AM today to help judge and celebrate the end of an all night Hackathon.  The sun was rising above the heads of about 75 super bright technical minds.  While our office is literally steps away from the MIT campus which some of our people attended, it's a safe bet to assume the majority of them could have gone there had they chosen to.  And I stood out among them.

I didn't just stand out because I was the only one who had showered in the last 24 hours. I didn't stand out because I was one of four women among this sea of men in now-smelly hoodies.  I stood out because I only understood about every sixth-word that came out of their mouths.

This is my second security company.  I understand the threats to our we face from a cyber standpoint, and some basic fundamentals our our field.   At one point, I had enough street cred to play the role of best man in a hacker's wedding.  I even know how to pick a lock.  But when these guys started presenting their projects this morning, I felt like a freshman in high school mistakenly sitting in an AP calculus class.

I tried like hell to follow along.  I really did.  And I truly enjoyed the winning team's presentation…primarily because it was designed for people like me.  It was a two minute video about one of our products, its business value and why it's so important you that you must download it now.  And then the team they partnered with then presented a far more complex solution that went way deeper into the technical pieces and they lost me again.

And yet, I was still into it.  I'm old and wise enough now not to be intimidated by this kind of brainpower.  What they have in technical acumen I have in other forms of intelligence.  I'm even certain some of them might look at me and say "Hmmm.  I have no idea how she knows that.  Or how she could do that." Or maybe they don't. Maybe they think "She has no idea what I'm talking about, therefore she's an idiot."  If so, screw them.

My daughter came home from school at the beginning of the her fifth grade year and told me how they had explored different types of intelligence in her class.  I'm sure it was intended as a self-esteem building exercise, but it's an interesting one nonetheless.  As I went to research "The Nine Types of Intelligence" (I believe that's what they used), it reinforced my belief that we are all gifted somewhere.  Some people are off the charts in one areas.  Some show incredible strength in several.  I've yet to meet anyone in my life who is brilliant across all nine.  Aptitude maybe.  Excels, certainly not. 

The point is this.  I may have sat in a room of incredibly bright people with "number and reasoning smarts" today.  They shared the room with a woman who has some smarts none of them will ever be able to wrap their heads around.  And yet I'd like to think that's what makes companies like mine special.  You value the gifts and talents of all, and you balance and respect it.  Everyone has a place, and a role to play.  You just need to figure out how to understand each other, how to partner together and then work towards a common goal.  

That's a language we can all speak.

Interested in learning about the 9 Types of Intelligence?  Check it out:

http://yourbrainatwork.org/the-nine-different-types-of-intelligence/