Why Quiet Experts Deserve to Be Heard: Neil Seeman on Humility

Dec 24, 2024

4 min read

Updated: 4 days ago

Most of what reaches us comes from loud people. Social media, the news, political forums. Neil Seeman, a Toronto entrepreneur and author, has spent his career on the opposite problem. How do you find the quiet voices, the people with real expertise who are not talking, and help the world hear them? His first company tried to solve that with technology. Now he does it in book publishing, looking for demonstrable experts who have spent decades in a field and mapped their work onto other fields. For founders and leaders, his point lands close to home. The quiet people on your team often hold the most useful knowledge. And the humility that keeps them quiet is the same trait that drives innovation and earns trust when things get hard.

https://youtu.be/5c1f-Ao7X7w

Inspired by Paper Napkin Wisdom Episode 202 with Neil Seeman.

What makes someone a quiet expert worth amplifying

Neil looks for a specific kind of person. They have contributed to a field over several decades. They are deeply respected in it. And they have taken what they learned and mapped it onto other fields, so it can work for a wide audience.

The model for this is his own parents. His father discovered the dopamine receptors in the brain linked to schizophrenia, Parkinson's and major addictions, and people did not take the work seriously for years until they all did. His mother was a pioneer in women's mental health. She treated severely mentally ill women as full human beings at a time when mothers were blamed for their children's illness, and she put them in group therapy. It worked.

Both of them looked at what was working and then worked backwards. Both cared about making their work accessible. Neil says that expertise needs to be excavated. He also says merit is everywhere. It is often sitting with someone who has not been asked.

Why quiet experts hold back, and how to draw them out

Some quiet people do not want the spotlight. Neil has spoken with many would-be authors who, for understandable reasons, do not want their story told yet. Often nobody has really approached them. They doubt that anyone wants to hear what they know.

He treats that doubt as a signal, not a flaw. In his words, "humility is the seed of innovation", along with questioning and self-doubt. He calls that questioning the entrepreneur's superpower, and he uses it as a criterion for spotting a voice worth amplifying.

I told Neil about Connor McDavid, one of the best hockey players in the world, who shared in a recent series that he is uncomfortable with the attention his skill brings. He knows he has to show up for it anyway. Neil hears the same tension from prospective authors all the time. Expertise brings attention, and the quiet expert has to make peace with that.

Why changing your mind is a strength in a loud world

Neil admits it is very hard to question assumptions you hold deeply, especially in an age of misinformation and echo chambers. Humble people keep questioning anyway.

His father is the example. He worked in brain chemistry and thought the genome was overhyped. Then he taught himself genetics and realized it was an important field. Neil sees the same need now with AI. The future rewards people who work across disciplines.

Neil also quotes the economist John Maynard Keynes on this. When the evidence changes, he changes his mind. In a loud world, changing your mind gets called lying. Neil's view is that we protect a conceit of consistency, and being consistent and angry gets you likes and followers. It does not mean much in the end. For a leader, the willingness to update is the more powerful trait. It shows the team you are following the data, not defending a brand.

What founders lose by hiding their doubts

Neil wrote about founder mental health in his last book, Accelerated Minds. He describes elevated rates of depression, bipolar disorder, intense anxiety and suicidal intent among entrepreneurs, across nations. It was not discussed openly even a few years ago. Now it is.

He notices a strange pattern. Many founders value vulnerability most in their employees and colleagues. Yet they are afraid to show it themselves, worried about how investors, the public or their own team will see them. They feel they have to be superhuman.

Neil does not think that holds up. During Covid, he points to data showing small business owners were among the leaders people trusted most. He calls them the quiet heroes of that time. They called employees late at night to give comfort and took on credit to support payroll. Leaders who are transparent and honest, he argues, are the kind of people employees trust and follow during a crisis.

How to empower the quiet experts around you this week

Neil names a few changes quiet experts can make, and each one has a version for your business.

Make ideas accessible. Neil admires Swami Vivekananda, who wrote in English rather than Sanskrit so his ideas could reach the West. Ask your quiet specialist to explain their work to someone outside their field, and help them do it.
Treat humility as part of expertise. When someone on your team says they are not sure, take that as a reason to listen more closely.
Test norms slowly. Neil contrasts this with the old motto of moving fast and breaking things.
Talk to the quiet person. Neil calls himself socially awkward. At events, he makes a point of talking to whoever is standing alone, and he always learns something.

Pick one meeting this week. Notice who has not spoken. Ask them directly what they see. Quiet experts are on every team, and small overtures of invitation are often all it takes.