Smart People

I have always known that my husband and my brother, both professors, were smart people. They read lots of long and varied books, do major crossword puzzles--the kinds of things you think about smart people doing. The thing is, we (if we are lucky, and I think I am) are surrounded by smart people every day. Not necessarily the brain surgeon, rocket scientist, puzzle maniac types, but smart people nonetheless.
 
Nowhere is this as obvious as at a start-up endeavor. Today, I sat in a room with assorted people at work, trying to come up with a schedule to make one of our processes more efficient. While we didn't exactly generate a plan right then, I walked away feeling as though I had been in a room with smart people, in which I was considered smart as well. Each of us brought something to the proverbial table. Each of us had some part of the information that would go into making an effective schedule. And each of us respected the fact that without the contributions of the other smart people in the room, the schedule, and the resulting workflow, just wouldn't happen. Smart is not just about retaining knowledge. It's about understanding where that knowledge fits into the big picture. Understanding how what you know how to do can, in combination with what others know how to do, change the way things are done.
 
I will never be a brain surgeon or a rocket scientist, and I would venture to say that most of the people I see daily won't be either. Lucky for me, I get to work with smart people every day anyway.