I spent a week at “Fantasy Drum Camp” in Cleveland. I’m a drummer and it was 5 days of in-your-face, 14 hours a day immersion.

The teachers were the best in the world. Like Steve Smith who played on all the famous Journey songs, which don’t even hint at his jazz skills, and Peter Erskine with 600 albums including Steeli Dan, Diana Krall, Joni Mitchell and Linda Ronstadt.

I spent all day in class with each instructor. Then played music with them at night. Awesome.

You know what the best part of the whole thing was?

NOT being the smartest guy in the room.

Permit me to say, with a dash of tongue in cheek, that sometimes I am the smartest guy in the room. Especially within my realm, when invited to teach what I know.

AND:

Many times, YOU are the smartest person in the room too.

Admit it. It’s true. Isn’t it?

In fact, if you’ve achieved much of anything as an entrepreneur, you are, in your metron, the smartest in the room. Often. In marketing and business knowledge, you run CIRCLES around your friends.

Admit it. You enjoy it. And it is good. It’s what sets you apart.

But it’s also bad. Because you need people to challenge you on your BS.

At Fantasy Drum Camp, I was solidly in the bottom third of the class. Seriously. I’d only picked up the sticks 10 years ago, had taken some lessons. I’d gotten to be decent. But only decent. Many of the guys in that room had been playing 20 or 30 years. Some, semi-professionally or professionally.

Quite a few were fabulous. And I don’t mean the superstars. I mean the rank and file. It was SO GOOD, SO HEALTHY to be staring at the bottom of some other heap. One of the healthiest things you can ever do.

When I played in the concert, I dropped a stick. Managed to catch it without screwing up the groove. By the standards of all else in the room, flawed and unremarkable.

But it was fun anyway, because I was l-e-a-r-n-i-n-g. I was not there to show off or impress anyone. That would not have been possible anyway. I was there to soak up as much goodness as I could. It made me a better player.

A year ago at one of my seminars, a guy said to me, “I brought a friend and I asked him, “How do you like NOT being the smartest guy in the room?” They were both uber-geeks, both agreed it was thrilling to be challenged so much.

That’s why I wouldn’t be caught dead not in a mastermind. When I say mastermind, I don’t mean “six guys roughly as smart as you who guzzle some beers once a quarter.” I mean, multiple people in the room being light years ahead. Where you feel lucky that they just let you hang around.

That is why right now as you read this, I’m headed for Portugal to visit Richard Koch, author of the original 80/20 book for a few days. It’s why I actively seek mentors in other fields that have nothing to do with mine. So I can sharpen my saw.

So should you.

If you make this a practice, it will also confer another undervalued virtue to you:

Humility.

Because: When you run a $1 million or $5 million or $20 million company, you find yourself surrounded by people who…

-Flatter you, because they admire you
-Are afraid to tell you the truth, because they work for you
-Put a spin on facts, because they want something from you

It can go to your head. It grows harder to see things as they really are, because you live in a bubble. A “reality distortion field” of your own making. Running an online business can be lonely, because you live in a cave. And it’s lonely at the top.

You must actively and deliberately combat loneliness, isolation, pride, living in the bubble, drinking your own pink koolaid, suffering the poverty of your own imagination.

You must actively and deliberately question your own assumptions.

You must actively and deliberately re-invent yourself.

There has never been a time when personal evolution has been more vital. In the 21st century, everyone gets their 15 minutes in the sun. Yet even the most amazing stars can be almost immediately forgotten.

Make hay while the sun shines – and re-invent your tractor even as you plow.

Perry Marshall

About the Author

Perry Marshall has launched two revolutions in sales and marketing. In Pay-Per-Click advertising, he pioneered best practices and wrote the world's best selling book on Google advertising. And he's driven the 80/20 Principle deeper than any other author, creating a new movement in business.

He is referenced across the Internet and by Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, INC and Forbes Magazine.