No, not I love you. (Although I can’t argue against that.)
Three words I think we should say more often are I Don’t Know.
I mean this as individuals, as parents, as advisors, as mentors, as friends, as leaders, as employees.
We should say them more, and be okay realizing that we really don’t know everything.
In life, we all crave certainty. We want to know the plan. The projections. The results. The path.
We want to know because not knowing is scary.
And not only do WE want to know, we want OTHERS to know. We ask economists for predictions. Doctors for cures. Financial advisors for market forecasts. Pastors for doctrine questions. Mentors for advice. Realtors for exact prices.
And when we are the ones receiving these questions, it’s even harder to answer “I don’t know” when we truly don’t. People want to be given certainty. But sometimes we can’t truthfully give it. Clients, bosses, spouses, children – plenty of people ask us questions we can’t answer at times with certainty.
What’s the stock market going to do?
I don’t know.
What are the future tax rates going to be?
I don’t know.
What’s your future income need going to be?
I don’t know.
Daddy, how does electricity work?
I don’t know.
We need to be okay with not knowing all things.
Sometimes the answer is “I don’t know right now – but I’ll find out and get back to you.”
Sometimes the answer is “I don’t know for certain – but here would be my best estimate based on these factors.”
Sometimes the answer is “I don’t know – and I don’t think I can know.”
Even as I’m typing this out, a part of me worries: “Jeremy – your clients, prospective clients, and colleagues are all reading this. You’re freely telling them you don’t have all the answers. This is not a good business decision.”
But you know what – I don’t have all the answers. And I personally need to be okay with that as well.
Early on in my career, I was petrified to admit I didn’t know something to a client. I thought admitting such was just proof positive that I wasn’t qualified to be doing what I was doing. But I eventually embraced it, and if it was something that was actually know-able, I’d say something like “You know what – that’s a great question, and I’m actually not sure. But I’ll research it and get back to you.”
But now, I guess in middle-ish career, as my island of knowledge has increased, so has the shore of ignorance. I realize there are more things that I don’t know – and some of them simply aren’t know-able.
And that’s okay.
Perhaps paradoxically, there’s a tremendous amount of freedom contained in the words “I don’t know.” We free ourselves from an almost captive-state of HAVING to know everything. We don’t have to pretend to everyone at all times that we know all things.
Zooming farther back out – we should also embrace the I-don’t-know mentality when making our own financial decisions. As I’ve said before, I’m a big believer in that planning is more valuable than a plan. Things are going to change a lot in life – both things we can’t control, and things that we can – which is also why I’m a big believer in flexibility being the single most important component of a financial plan.
What’s important to us Today might not be as important to us Tomorrow. We simply don’t know these things.
There are plenty of things that we do know, and we can create processes and strategies around them. But we should always remind ourselves – and others – that we should also embrace the fact that sometimes, a suitable answer is I Don’t Know.