Quiet
My father's instruction was simple: be quiet and listen. It took decades to understand what he was actually teaching me.
When I was a small child at family gatherings, my father, grandfather, and uncles would sit in the living room and discuss all sorts of fascinating subjects. I was lucky that my father often allowed me to join them, and he would always say, "Be quiet and listen." I remember listening with fascination to conversations about politics, business, life, and many other things I didn't yet understand. Looking back, those sit-downs were the foundation of an important lesson I wouldn't fully grasp until much later in life: to be quiet is to go deep, whether by listening or by reading.
This was not a strong suit of mine for years; my mind always wanted to jump ahead. It was through reading that I learned to be patient — to listen more and talk less, and to consume material from all sides whether I agreed or not. The deeper you go, the more you realize you really don't know anything.
Everyone has an opinion and thinks they are well-versed on most subjects because they "read the feed" and speak with self-assured hubris. Socrates said it best, and I'm certain he was right: "I know that I know nothing."