“My father would tell me that there is a plan for me. My mother still tells me that all of my dreams will come true someday. Their hair is now as white as flames on candles. Wonder if they got everything that they wanted in life? Theirs is the greatest achievement of all, a love that has lasted a lifetime. My candle is burning too. A flame can go out at any moment. I’ve still got time.”
— Paul Reid
I have discovered a new resource that keeps me sharp and learning new things. After a week of multiple conversations with individuals working things through, we found the common theme of their personal and professional success was their desire and ability to learn, retain, apply, and teach what they have learned. It has been a week of stories and situations that illustrate how essential it is to stay in a learner mode in all phases of your life. The more I think about this trait, the more I am grateful that I never tire of learning something new, especially about myself.
As this theme kept popping up in my week and conversations, I reflected upon how I learn and what resources I have as rituals in my day to expose me to content, perspectives, and new ways of approaching work and life. The pandemic sparked an avalanche of content offered remotely, via all forms of media. My email inbox is full of things I plan to read because I think they hold some value. I need to make a “Read Me” file to clean up my inbox. But my concern is the minute I file them away, I will not return to reading them and they may hold a precious key to a gnarly issue. Oh my!
I have the same issue with the hard copy books, articles I print, and other content I have acquired that grow in mushroom-like piles around my laptop. I like to think of it as the cockpit of piloting my work-life and life-life. Everything is within reach; I know where every piece of paper lies. Yet, it looks like a hoarder or a very poor housekeeper has dumped trash on my dining room table.
Can you relate to any of this?
Are you a learner and gatherer of content?
Do you surround yourself with inputs that keep you fresh?
Do you have your own unique way of organizing yourself and the time you spend taking in new information?
I fear that the challenges of the Pandemic have put learning into the backseat for many people. We are not convening groups or holding conferences. We may even have put the development of our workforce on hold because of how we work today.
Has this happened to you?
It is time to bring the habit of learning back into the ritual of our lives if it has taken a backseat during the Pandemic.
I started this blog referring to a new learning resource that popped up on my phone. I was offered a free trial for an app called Blinks. Blinks provides a daily summary of a book based on my selection of preferred topics. While I prep in the morning, I listen to a well-crafted summary of a different book each day. This morning it was a book entitled “Boundaries” by Drs. Henry Cloud and John Townsend.
My selection of books is varied and diverse, yet not a day goes by that I don’t learn or relearn something. This morning the book started with this statement “When life spins out of control and relationships feel unmanageable, it could be the result of a lack of boundaries.” This got my attention. Whose life today isn’t spinning out of control with relationships on a roller coaster ride of highs and lows? The words of the reader and the good content of the authors whispered into my listening ears and into my mind where I hope they take root.
This one new learning habit, which starts my day, has put a new spring in my step and fresh energy in my desire to stay on my path of working and contributing.
What are you doing to:
• Find your energy and desire to keep finding new and renewed approaches to creating healthy working environments, working relationships, and the best relationship with work that can be found?
• Be the best version of you that you can be in all your relationships?
Stephen Covey, author of the classic book “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” said the basic motivations of people that keep them vital are To Love, To Live, To Learn, and To Build a Legacy.
It was in Covey’s book that I was first exposed to this quote by George Bernard Shaw:
“I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no ‘brief candle’ to me. It is sort of a splendid torch which I have a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it over to future generations.”
This quote inspired me then — at the beginning of my career — and guides me still. It means something different today because I am now in the late mid-life of my career and life — and the minutes, hours, days, months, and years fly by too quickly. And the unexpected challenges and responsibilities that we are all confronted with have affected my original vision of what and where I would be by now.
I am charting a new course; learning is my mode and optimism is my chosen attitude. I find myself surrounded by wonderful people and my life bucket is full of experiences that give me the confidence to take the ‘path less traveled’ one more time.
Will you join me in one more adventure?
Leslie
“The most successful people in life are the ones
who ask questions. They’re always learning.
They’re always growing. They’re always pushing.”
— Robert Kiyosaki
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