Time for another episode of “Johnny dispels a folksy truism!” Today’s example: “If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” (First, there’s no evidence that this was ever actually said/written by Albert Einstein, the person to whom it is commonly attributed.)
Okay, so this one isn’t entirely wrong, but it’s woefully incomplete and therefore unhelpful. Yes, if you judge someone by what they can’t do, they’ll seem incompetent. That’s so obvious it’s pretty much tautological, so I don’t know why that alone would be helpful to anyone. The intended meaning seems to be that you should judge people by what they’re good at when evaluating their overall competency or intelligence. To that extent, that’s true – but the analogy is terrible.
If you judge a fish by its ability to swim, it’s not a genius – it’s normal. All fish can swim. And in fact, that’s where people mostly lose the power of their own special talents.
See, in the life of humans, people specialize into all sorts of skills and abilities. But simply by nature of how things work, people with similar talents mostly hang out and work together. In other words, if you’re a really great engineer, you probably mostly hang out and work with other engineers. You’re a fish hanging out with other fish. You might be a fantastic engineer, but you’re normal.
This is how people end up radically devaluing their own skills. They’re hanging out with the exact tiny faction that is least impressed by whatever they can do, because the other members of that faction can all do it, too. Other fish aren’t impressed by your ability to swim. But to most other animals, it’s amazing!
So yeah, if you’re a fish – the monkeys won’t think you’re very smart if you try to climb a tree. But if you can show them how your ability to swim is valuable to them, then suddenly you’re the most incredible thing they’ve ever seen, because they can’t do that. But it was always the monkeys you needed to impress. Trading them something that can only be found on the riverbed for something that can only be found at the top of a tree enriches you both.
In other words, the fish that hangs around with monkeys is more likely to be thought of as a genius. Not because it can’t climb trees like everyone else, but because it can do something they can’t do at all. The missing piece is the ability to explain the value of that unique skill. And that’s the trap – the fish often hang around with other fish because at least the fish get it. The other engineers don’t think you’re special, but at least you don’t have to explain to them why engineering is a useful skill. But that’s called the “comfort zone” for a reason. You’re too comfortable there to be special, valuable, needed.
Try hanging out with the people that don’t get it. Help them to. Once they do – you’re a genius.
The Opportunity Machine 