What One Con Air Movie Scene Taught Me About Work and Life: Learn.

Many years ago, I used to think I was one of the “dumb ones”.  I did! When co-workers would ask me a question, I’d simply say, “I don’t know…go ask so-and-so.”  If you’ve seen the movie Con Air (1997), you might remember the scene where the fugitives are trying to get to their next flight destination quickly and the character “Swamp Thing” looks at the controls…

“Swamp Thing”:  We’re draggin’, baby.  The landing gear ain’t all the way up.  We’re gonna be late.

Francisco Cindino: No, no, no.  Cyrus, that’s unacceptable!

Cyrus Grissom:  Check out the gear.

“Diamond Dog”: What the hell do I know about landing gear?

Cyrus Grissom:  Learn.

And that was it.  So simple.  Learn.

This movie came out about a year after I graduated college.  I hadn’t yet started my intended career, but I had held several jobs by this time.  When I saw this scene, I said to myself, “Yeah!!!  Why should I let everyone else be experts in everything?  Why can’t I be the expert?!”  It’s not that I necessarily considered myself to be dumb, it’s simply that I hadn’t yet realized I had an expandable mind.  I wasn’t really pushing myself to know anything new.  If I wasn’t naturally interested in something, I had no reason to find out more.  I was young, ignorant, had a lazy brain, narrow vision, and lacked the interest to care about anything other than what I already knew.  Further, I would only seek out information that impacted me directly – if I didn’t need to know it, why should I want to know it??!!

So many times we underestimate our abilities, stay in our comfort zones, or we’re simply too busy to help someone find the answer. 

One of the companies I worked for was terrible with documentation, meaning, there was none!  At first, I was really irritated at having to learn all this IT-speak that I’ve never been trained in or quite frankly, cared about.  One day it hit me – people spend thousands of dollars getting trained in these subjects, and this company is actually paying me to learn it!  Eventually, I became the documentation queen and earned quite the reputation.  “If you need the process…Jennifer’s got it!”  And if I didn’t, I’d find out and make one.

I’m no longer afraid to say, “I don’t know what that means” when I don’t understand something.

I’m not afraid to admit that I don’t know everything about everything.

I’m not scared to tell someone I don’t have the answer.

I no longer feel the need to “fake it” through a conversation with head nods hoping it ends before I get found out!

I don’t know what I don’t know – and that’s okay – because soon enough, I will know!

I no longer assume that everyone knows what I know, which has taught me patience with non-experts.

I can’t rest now if someone asks me a question that I don’t know the answer to or never thought about before.  My answer has changed to, “Wow, I really have NO idea!  That’s interesting – give me 5 minutes and I’ll see what I can find out.”  Of course, 5 minutes turns into hours of research, but now I know enough about it to help.

Learn.