Sometimes it’s good not to know stuff. To be unaware of how “things are done.”

Take the coach who decided to get into podcasting. He thought it would be a great income stream, so he learned how to do it, and put together a podcast. Then he charged 30 bucks a month to subscribe.

He was unaware that most people just gave podcasts away for free. Sure, he saw all the free ones out there, but just assumed other professionals and experts were charging for them.

He has expertise that people were willing to pay for (his going rate was $125 an hour). Since he was ignorant of the “podcasts should be free” concept, he ended up making a good amount of money from his podcast — by charging for access to his expertise.

The Ignorant Monkey Beats the Scared Monkey

As a consultant, having no previous knowledge of how “things are done” in a client’s organization — and frankly not caring — is an asset. You’re not [1] one of the scared monkeys.

You’re there to provide solutions and results, and [2] doing things the same way they’ve always been done is a sure way to not get results.

Just because things are always done a certain way doesn’t make it the right way. Most times, it’s just the opposite. Being ignorant of the way “things are done” is a good place to be — especially for innovative thinkers.

Sometimes ignorance is power.