The Super Power of Strategic Idiocy

Meet Firas, our charismatic son. He is one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. He is not your typical “good boy” and definitely not a teacher’s pet, he is merely an above-average student with extreme honesty and an insane sense of humour (ahem, no DNA test required).

One day he came out after school, sad. “I was told off and was asked to sit on the floor” he said. I asked what he did, he said he couldn’t stop laughing remembering something, that’s it.

I gave him some of the most unfatherly and unfathomably deep advice.

Firas, it’s okay to be (mildly) bad sometimes. In fact, it is super important.

How?

Our brains run on a credit system, being too good always uses up those credits, and we burst. This can be devastating.

We need to satiate our need to be bad in a “controlled” manner. This being-bad helps us be good for longer.

But there’s more to that, something even deeper.

It satiates other people’s need to see the bad in us.

If you keep being good for too long, it makes your average hard to beat. Rather, it makes you “the average” and boring. Which in turn makes it very hard to see the good.

Then, like a hammer hunts for nails, you’ll be nitpicked on things that are not even your faults. So give them some faults to pick, now you control what they see.

Just imagine the power, you control what mistakes and flaws people see in you.

“If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail” - Abraham Maslow

Think of it as a controlled explosion. Like a controlled weapon testing. “Controlled” is the key here.

Let me explain. I started doing this in 2023, and man, a wild ride it has been since then. I call it Strategic Idiocy. It has helped me achieve my dreams in the wildest ways imaginable.

Remember, you don’t always have to do that, you just have to let it happen. Spot it, embrace it, own it. In other words, we’ve “idiocy” built-in - let them flaw(flow) and add the “strategic” control.

Let me tell you a real story.

One of my father’s friends had a thriving business. Some people had only one complaint about his place: it got really hot. He was one day giving us a lift. “Uncle, why don’t you make your place air-conditioned?” - my brother asked him sitting at the front. His response was profound.

“Our customers are small-market customers. Air conditioning will make entering the place uncomfortable. The glass doors will create a wall that will stop them from coming.”

I was in Bangladesh earlier this year. 20+ years since this conversation, I saw his business is still thriving, some big exhaust fans are keeping it cooler, but no AC. His competitors have, meanwhile, gone bust with their sealed and centrally air-conditioned places that can’t afford the energy price shock.

Don’t be that perfect kid, or build that perfect product. This is where you fall into that too-good-to-be-true trap. This is when other heads begin hunting your faults. Your frustration builds up, and you ask “why don’t they see so much that is good?”. Well, because you built that glass wall that makes them too uncomfortable to go inside and judge. Now they’re judging the smudges on the glass from outside.

Northwestern University Medill carried out a study on how online reviews affect online purchases. The study showed that if a product has some reviews, it increases sales massively. However, there’s a catch. They say:

“Purchase likelihood typically peaks at ratings in the 4.0 - 4.7 range, and then begins to decrease as ratings approach 5.0.”

Now, more than ever, we need to embrace imperfection. To be more authentic, to be more ourselves, to be more human. You’ve spotted some misstakes in this article, this is because this was written from my heart, not by some AI. That’s why it feels so relatable.

In 2023, AI was your superpower. Today, more than ever, “you” are your superpower. Yes, that authentic, imperfect, vulnerable, and strategic-idiot, you.