“Experience is the only thing that brings knowledge, and the longer you are on earth the more experience you are sure to get.”
L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
A life of continuous learning and exploration of what could be is essential to growth. But here’s the thing – no one is going to give you permission to keep learning. It’s up to you to surround yourself with the right teachers – those individuals that support you, building your mastery and knowledge so that you can become better every single day. This is essential to your success. Successful people know this – they have an insatiable desire and commitment to learn more and always.
However, most people don’t invest in their own mastery. They live in a life of stasis – of thinking they know all they need to know. They leave school, complete their apprenticeship, get their degree and then stop. The continuous learning piece? Well quite simply it’s lost in a sea of excuses – too hard, no time, where to start, what’s the point! This attitude is quite frankly dangerous. The world is moving at an incredible speed making current knowledge obsolete at a faster rate of knots – and if we don’t at least try and keep up, if we don’t attempt to remain relevant and current – well then we, individually, become defunct and tossed out with the ‘maybe I’ll recycle that later’ pile.
Darren Hardy, the former publisher of SUCCESS magazine, wrote in his article ‘Leadership For A Changing World’ that, “By 1900, it had taken 150 years to double all human knowledge. Today it takes only one or two years, and by 2020, knowledge will double every 72 days.” Just think about that!
It continues to amaze me how many people invest in building financial freedom but fail to invest in personal development. We outsource our money plans but don’t’ outsource our learning plans. Worse still, when individuals do invest in personal development (either out of their own pockets or at the expense of their businesses) it’s always astounding how many don’t put in to practice the learnings, they fail to do the required work, they don’t even commit to making a 1% change – they give up or move on, searching for the next learning fix. Again, this attitude is dangerous.
It was organisational psychologist, Karl Weick who said that the best advice a leader can give is ‘I don’t know’ because by saying this, a leader is challenging herself and others to think and explore more. Tom Peters calls is cultivating ‘towering competence’, Matt Church calls it ‘Thought Leadership’. Essentially to continually learn more, hone your skills and develop yourself and your thinking to the point that you become known for knowing something – is the key.
Learning doesn’t just happen in the classroom. It’s not necessarily about building up the letters after your name. It’s about recognising what you are doing and how you can do better. This is where others can help. There is a simple way to learn – make a point of finding the teachers within your personal network;
- Find a Mentor who will help you see ahead and navigate a course forward.
- Find an Accelerator who can fast track your vision.
- Find an Influencer, that someone who has been there before you, achieved what you want to achieve and who has the want and the willingness to share their knowledge, insights and own learnings.
Ultimately teachers want to help us become better. They will push and stretch thinking, challenge ideas, encourage momentum, action and resilience because they know that on the other side of learning mastery, flowing with the art of constant curiosity and wearing a new ‘what if’ lens lies opportunity for more growth, more achievement, more success.
Learning is a self directed desire and a choice. It is continuous. This is where we acquire skills, accelerate our thinking, widen our lens of questioning, embrace the curiosity of learning from others and best of all we learn from our own and others mistakes.
We must keep on growing after all our formal education is done – maybe in actual fact our real learning starts the day we leave the safety of the formal education system and enter the education that is life.
And to do this we all need teachers. Because they really do rule – ok!
