How to look smarter than you really are

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

It's good when you are a competent and confident employee. But during meetings or conferences, the pressure is so great that you involuntarily lose the remnants of your mind. Life hacker shares tips on how to appear smart when even the cerebellum refuses to work.

Want to look like your employee of the month at every meeting? We'll have to roll up our sleeves and work. Of course, it would not hurt to engage in self-development and professional development, but today we are not gathered for this. We will learn to simulate violent activity and look very smart.

1. Go for water. Be helpful

Anyone need something? Water? Coffee? Tea? Have a snack? Maybe tea after all?

Before the meeting begins, stand up and ask who needs it. People will think you are so kind and caring! Plus, you can disappear from the conference room for ten minutes. Even if no one needs anything, walk away and come back with a couple of bottles of water.

Place the water bottles on the table and your colleagues will feel the need to take a sip. Your discernment will impress them. It looks like you know how to predict the future.

2. Take a piece of paper and start writing

Notebook paper is best. Grab several of these small pieces of paper at once and start writing something while your boss talks about what will be discussed at the meeting. Your colleagues will look at you with interest. It seems that you know what you will be talking about today, and your ideas are so complex and multilevel that you needed several pieces of paper at once.

Plus, you look like a person who is ready to support the topic of the meeting before the agenda is announced to everyone.

3. Make analogies. The simpler the better

Declare profoundly, “So we have bread. We need oil. What. Such. Butter?"

When everyone is trying to describe the problem, start drawing analogies. The simpler the better. Your colleagues will start nodding their heads even if they don’t understand what you’re talking about. You will look like a creative, intelligent, strategic person. Even if in reality you just love bread and butter.

4. Ask if we are asking the right questions

Nothing can help you look smarter than asking if we're asking the right questions. If someone asks what exactly you think is the right question, proudly answer, "You just asked it."

Nice Bonus: A Quick Guide to Killing Little Ideas

Ask questions that will literally destroy any initiative in the bud. Use one of these templates.

• Is this the future?
• And what will we gain?
• Hasn't Apple done it yet?

5. Use idioms

Idioms need to be embedded in questions to appear smart and discerning. For example, you can use them like this.

• It seems to me that it's like shooting at sparrows with a cannon.
• Don't you think it'll be like a dead poultice?
• Why are you asking for trouble?

6. Create an unusual habit for yourself, thanks to which you "awaken creativity"

Create an unusual and even eccentric habit that you use to awaken creativity in yourself. Convince others that this ritual helps you generate new ideas.

Change into your pajamas for your lunch break, meditate on the floor, run in place, throw a ball against the wall, drum on the air with your favorite drumsticks. You can do everything at once.

Even if a creative idea does not come to mind, you will definitely impress those around you.

Nice Bonus: A Quick Guide to Killing Big Ideas

Carefully ask if this idea is too big. Then your boss will appreciate how much you care about company resources.

Use expressions like this:

• Isn't that too much?
• Does this fit with our plan?
• You are targeting the international market, right?

7. Say what you think your boss would say

Make your coworkers think that you have a lot of communication with your boss. Voice what you think your boss would say. Call him by name when talking to coworkers. Say that you will convey the opinion of the team to the boss when you meet. Sooner or later, people will start thinking that you are at least the boss's right hand.

8. Say you need to develop your own platform or model

Say with confidence, "We need a proprietary platform."

Your colleagues will think that you think more globally than anyone else. You want to grow your company. You think strategically, look to the future. This is a very convenient and simple way to literally “blow the mind” of colleagues and disguise the fact that you do not understand at all what people around you are talking about.

9. When someone likes an idea, exclaim "Give me two!"

Sooner or later, you will come to a point where people around you will unanimously approve of some idea. You just have to catch the moment and be the first to say something like "Wrap it up!" or "Give me two!" First, people will start laughing. Secondly, you will attract attention to yourself and help your superiors make decisions. Thus, you and colleagues will like you, and show off in front of your boss.

Voila!