So, when do you know enough to know that you can stop learning? 

I have no idea when I’ll know enough to believe that I essentially know it all, or at least know all I need to know. I do know for sure that I still have much to learn, in fact, I doubt I’ll actually live long enough to know as much as I need to.

But I’ve have come across people who do know enough…at least they think they do.

I’ve written before about a marketing consultant who I was thinking about hiring to evaluate the effectiveness of some training we were doing. He noticed the credentials after my name and asked what they stood for. I explained what they were and then said perhaps he might be interested in the marketing certification. He politely told me that he already knew “all there was to know about marketing” so he wouldn’t be interested. 

I knew in that moment we wouldn’t be using his services. Successful people learn something new almost every day and believing that you already know it all can make it very difficult to learn something new. If you can’t learn you can’t grow and if you can’t grow it is unlikely your success will continue for very long.

Recently I had a conversation with a similarly minded person. They have done very well for themselves, advancing up their organization’s ladder very quickly. By anyone’s measure they certainly appear to be a true success….at least for now.

There were a few of us talking and the subject of this blog come up. Someone asked this highly successful person if they subscribed to my blog. The successful person looked a bit puzzled and then said “why would I read his blog, I’m far more successful than he is, and “besides I know pretty much everything I need to know to succeed already.” In defense of this person they did not say it with apparent malice or contempt, they clearly meant me no harm. They simply said it in such a way as to indicate that they truly believed it.

Probably because of what I do for a living I instantly wondered how this person had achieved their level of success with that kind of attitude. I also knew immediately that this person had in fact much to learn. They needed to learn a bit of humility but beyond that they needed to learn that everyone knows something that they don’t. That means that there isn’t a person a earth that we can’t all learn something from. The most successful people know that, they also know that learning never stops. 

In my book the day you stop learning is the day you start declining. I wish nothing but continued success for that highly successful person but it appears they believe they have already reached the pinnacle of their success. Maybe someone should tell them that once you reach the top there is no where to go but down.

If success is your goal feel free to stop learning the moment you think you’ve achieved success. If long-term success is your goal then you need to know that you don’t know enough. You don’t know enough today and you won’t know enough tomorrow.

Keep learning and keep learning from anyone and everything you can. Learning is a life-long endeavor and here’s hoping you have a very long life!