Success is just one dumb question away

I don't have many secrets to success - not because I'm not a treasure trove of useless tips, but more due to the fact I'm not successful.

But what I realise I often get away with is the ability to sound uninformed, appear ignorant, and yet get credited for it. That's right - I get praised for asking dumb questions. But is it even possible? They say there is no such thing as a stupid question - only the unknowledgeable person who dared to articulate it.

Now here's a question - who's birthday is it?

So at the risk of sounding like I hadn't been awake for the last thirty minutes, I stick my neck out and ask a question. One apparently on everyone else's lips, the query that they've been pondering in their head but unable to form into an intelligent-sounding string of words.

Sometimes there is silence, but I can hear the words in their minds, over the Zoom link - "What a weird question. He hasn't been paying attention. This was covered in the previous slide." But it's ok, we are all humans and are allowed to doze off every once in a while.

But sometimes it triggers a reaction, opens up a new level of conversation, resulting in other questions that were previously not apparent. My statement opened up a floodgate of comments which others didn't dare to ask - I asked the first dumb question, giving people to ask silly questions of their own!

So if you have one of those, go ahead and ask it - you might be doing someone else a favour!