A few years ago, I had the pleasure of interviewing a wide range of creative and cultural entrepreneurs in order to try and identify some common trends between them.
One of the strongest ideas to come out of these conversations encompassed self-belief, ‘gut instinct’ and having the confidence to ‘jump’ into an opportunity. The concept is that of Intelligent Naivety.
Intelligent Naivety starts with frankly admitting your abilities and limits to yourself… “I know where I am strongest, and I know where I struggle. I have to be honest from the outset about this.”
Intelligent Naivety is in a very different space to ‘stupid confidence’, a naivety that drives an individual towards the ambitions that they feel they must achieve – the feeling that I was ‘born to do this’, even if very few others agree. This is the stuff of ‘X Factor’ car-crash TV.
Effective entrepreneurs master the art of balance; the art of Intelligent Naivety. Intelligence, expertise and experience on one hand, and naivety, a ‘gut feeling’ or a ‘hunch’ on the other. As one esteemed entrepreneur noted, if you are too expert or too experienced, you see all the risks and all the downsides. The challenge is to occasionally force yourself into quieting this inner intelligence… Just enough, but not too much.
