There are always boxes or categories that society expects us to fit in. With assumptions driving the force of the direction you will be pulled or pushed in their mentality. Well, life truly needs structure but there is a secret weapon most of us overlook; “The Power of Acting Dumb.” The Basic definition of the term is pretending/ refusing to state you know a particular matter.

There are questions we need to ask ourselves would you rather be overestimated or underestimated? No one can truly gauge your potential. But if you oversell you lose respect and if you also don’t showcase your potential people may never see your value. The power of acting dumb comes into play to gauge the perceptions and attitudes of people around. As a step of establishing trust, aside from the social value, there is a corporate value of acting dumb.

Quoting, Secrets of Power Negotiating: Inside Secrets from a Master Negotiator Book by Roger Dawson, “To Power Negotiators, smart is dumb and dumb is smart. When you are negotiating, you’re better off acting as if you know less than everybody else does, not more. The dumber you act, the better off you are unless your I.Q. sinks to a point where you lack any credibility.

More is more, more is less but also less is more, and less is less. Do you believe in this “power”?