My first business coach used to always say “You never learn anything until you get your head handed to you a couple of times.” I’ve since learned that this statement is true, over and over again.
I’m sure we all have learned something in this “unintentional” way, but I’m here to ask you another question. What have you learned “intentionally” over the past few weeks and months?
Recently I was on a phone conversation with a business and strategy coach I had done some work with. We have stayed in close contact over the years and use our conversations now to keep each other motivated and energized with regards to our various business ventures and projects.
Like all of my conversations, we started off with “Tell me something good.” Not too surprising for those of you that have spent any time with me at a live event or one on one coaching session.
Both of our something goods revolved around the work we were doing with new coaches we had enlisted to help us in areas that we wanted to gain knowledge and expertise: His being a deeper understanding of being present and engaged with his clients to help him create more value. Mine with a Social Media expert to help me expand and grow my business using various social networks to get my message out there.
Clearly we were both excited about the work we were doing and what we had learned as a result of working with our respective coaches. At one point I felt like a schoolboy sharing my cool new toy with my friend.
What struck me as interesting was that as far as expertise in a respective field, I believe that both of us are at the top of our games, and yet rather then share something we had accomplished in our businesses, we chose to share something we had learned. Clearly we are both serial learners.
This intentional type of learning comes out of clear desire to “want” vs. “need” to keep adding knowledge and skills to your arsenal. Nothing charges me up more than finding a great new book, article, blog, video clip, ted talk, or anything else I can dig up that teaches me something new.
It’s this type of intentional learning event that allows me to synthesize the information into something of meaning and value so that I can share it with others I come into contact with at my seminars, conferences and coaching calls. And since I can’t be everywhere at once, I am committed to creating opportunities to support people virtually – like this blog, my book Quarter Turns, and my 100 Day Coaching Program.
With only ten weeks left in the year, my goal is to get you as fired up as possible with new tools and knowledge so that 2016 will be your most successful year ever!
I will start by asking you these questions:
What have you intentionally learned recently? Not because you “had to” but because you “wanted to?”
What sources do you visit on a regular basis to keep pushing the limits of your knowledge and expertise?
Whom are you surrounding yourself with that inspires you to “want” to learn something new?
What will you commit to this week that firmly places you in the “life long learning category?”
Please post your responses below so we can all benefit from your learning!
Thoughts for the week:
“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can never live long enough to make them all yourself’ –Groucho Marx
“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young.” -Henry Ford
“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” -W.B. Yeates
“You’ll never know everything about anything, especially something you love.”
-Julia Child
“I read my eyes out and can’t read half enough…the more one reads the more one sees we have to read.” –John Adams
“The education of a man is never completed until he dies.” –Robert E. Lee
Looking forward to our next conversation-
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