The Dunning Kruger effect is named after two guys, one of whom was probably a know-it-all and the other more of the quiet, introspective type. I am not sure which was which, but it feels safe to assume one had all the answers and the other just nodded politely. Either way, together they nailed one of the funniest mental biases we carry around: the less we know, the more confident we become. It is the reason our uncle with a Facebook account suddenly thinks he is a foreign policy expert after skimming a meme, and why the guy at the gym who just discovered kettlebells now wants to teach a “master class.” Ignorance convinces us we are brilliant, and our brains crown us kings with no subjects.
The tragic comedy is that this bias wrecks self development. When we think we already know everything, we stop learning. The loudest voices in the room are often the least qualified, and yet they believe they are the chosen ones. Meanwhile, the people who actually study and think deeply are quietly checking their notes, wracked with self doubt, convinced they need ten more years before opening their mouths. This creates a carnival where the clowns grab the mic and the real teachers are hiding under the bleachers.
This is why we need to be brutally honest in self help. When we write or speak about growth, we have to admit we are self deprecating, self doubting, and mostly just telling stories from our own messy experience. We warn readers we are often wrong. We do not take money in exchange for what we believe to be objective truth. Everything we spew is nonsense unless it actually helps us understand ourselves and the world. If we try to sound intelligent, ignore that part and look for the meat. We refine our writing and our teaching to what we actually know, but always with this warning: we realize we know very little, we are learning every day, what we call fact today we may trample tomorrow.
The best teachings are the ones that explain the nature of our anxiety, a word we anxious people hate, and then give us ways to regulate it. That, in a nutshell, is the whole life lesson. in the end, we are all a little Dunning on Monday and a little Kruger by Friday.