Tag Learning for Life

When You Know It All

Steve Keating 3 Comments

A while back I was meeting with a representative of a company that helped learning organizations measure the effectiveness of their training. We got off track a bit and were discussing various certifications and I mentioned a certification for marketing executives that I had initially earned several years before. I told him that there was a lot of education and testing involved in earning and maintaining that very challenging certification. 

He stated that he wouldn’t need anything like that because he already knew all he needed to know to succeed in his career. I was polite and finished out the meeting but I knew in that moment I would not be using this person or their organization. 

If he already knew everything then it meant that he had nothing left to learn. It may have even become impossible for him to learn. I couldn’t help but wonder how this know it all would ever learn enough about my organization to actually help us. I figured if we used him we would be getting some cookie cutter measuring system that was a “one size fits all” deal. That was not what I was looking for… at all.

Talking with him reminded me of the story about the United Sates Patient Office closing in 1899 because “everything that could be invented, already was.” The office never actually closed but there were “know it alls” at the time who recommended that it should.

Truly successful people will never be a know it all. They know they can’t know it all and they know that they don’t have to. They also know what they don’t know. 

Truly successful people learn something new every day. They are always looking for the newest idea. The best idea doesn’t have to be their idea, they will use and benefit from good ideas no matter where they come from.   

The most successful people are in constant learning mode, they are as far from a know it all as you can get. 

The biggest problem with being a know it all, other than annoying everyone around you, is that once you believe you know it all you see no use in trying to learn anything new. Much like the patient office, you have learned all there is to learn. You’re done!

When you’re done learning you’re done period. Whatever success you’ve had will begin to wane. If you’re not pushing your limits to learn, if you’re not trying new things, if you’re not taking risks then you may be playing life to safe… or you may think you already know everything you need to know. 

Either way, you’re likely seriously limiting your potential. 

You can’t possibly know it all, the good news is, you don’t have to. The great news is you can learn something new this very day. Keep your knowledge base fresh and your success will always be fresh too! 

Leaders are Learners

Steve Keating 13 Comments

Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other. – John F. Kennedy

A leadership position is not a destination. No one should “arrive” at a leadership position and just sit tight. A leadership position does not make you a leader, it merely gives you the opportunity to grow into one.

To grow as a leader you must learn. Continually.

The most successful people learn something new everyday and so do the most effective leaders. It doesn’t have to be an epiphany every day but you should add to your knowledge base each day.

If you want to be a better manager then learn something about stuff, if you’re intent is to become a better leader then learn something about people. Learning something about people in general is good, learning something about your people specifically is great.

Invest time each day to learn what motivates your people. Learn what their goals are, discover their challenges and even more important, how you as a leader might help them overcome those challenges.

The best leaders are not afraid to show the gaps in their knowledge and the very best leaders do not believe it is a weakness to learn from the people they lead. It’s pretty tough to learn when you’re struggling to keep your “I already knew that face” on.

So open your eyes, open your mind and perhaps even open your heart to new discoveries every single day. Never forget this basic leadership fact: when you stop learning you likely stop leading too.

Never stop leading!

Learning for Life

Steve Keating 15 Comments

The most successful people learn something new almost every single day. They never stop, their level of success, their age, their already substantial wealth of knowledge does not stop them from learning more. 

In all of history there has never been an easier time to learn something new than right now. The internet alone is a vast and ever growing source of knowledge. Google estimates there are currently 637 million websites and 250 million blogs. The depth of human knowledge has never been so easy to find and transfer from one person to another. Now, it’s important to keep in mind that not everything you see and hear on the internet is true. I know that might be hard for some people to believe but the fact that not everything on the internet is true is one fact that is most certainly true. 

There are certainly other sources that are available too. 

Read newspapers, books, magazines, and periodicals. Everyday! Here’s a pretty well documented fact: the most successful people read more than less successful people. Technology allows us to carry a ton of books with us right on a laptop, tablet, or even a smart phone. Everyone “waits,” either at a doctor’s office, for a sales call, for the plumber, and the most successful people don’t waste that wait time. One of the more effective ways they use it is to read. 

The “boob tube” more commonly called the television is another great source of knowledge. If you make it so. There are programs available that inform and educate, truth be told they aren’t the most watched programs but perhaps they should be. When was the last time you sat down and watched something that did more than just entertain you? 

Talk to your mentor. Here’s a problem for most people… they don’t have a mentor. Most people don’t but the most successful people do. If you don’t have a person whose brain you can pick and who you can bounce ideas off of, you should find one today. 

Meet someone new and different. If you’re only associating with people like you, who think like you, then you’re limiting your potential to learn something new. Interact with people different than you, people who you do not always agree with. You can, and should, learn from people with different backgrounds, from different cultures, and with different perspectives. 

However you choose to go about it understand the “success imperative” of consistent, constant learning. If you haven’t learned anything from this post the keep looking, you only have 249,000,999 blogs to go.