Thursday, May 15, 2014

Quote-A-Day: Day 135

The truest meaning of is one new thing each day.

When we boil it down to its "simplest" parts, success is really just about having gained knowledge and skills we didn't have before.  That's it.

So, if we want to truly gauge our success for a given point in time, we simply have to ask the question, "Did I learn anything new today?"

If the answer is yes, then we were successful.  If no, then we were not.

Note that this ideology encompasses all the micro successes and failures we encounter throughout a day, week, month, year, etc.  If we can honestly say that we have learned something new, then the rest doesn't really matter, does it?

So, how do we make sure that each day holds something new for us?  Here are two tips:

First, make sure that you always place yourself in situations where you don't already "know everything."  I know, I know, we can never really know everything about everything, but, we do sometimes find ourselves becoming the "experts" in a field.  When that happens, and we find ourselves playing a role in every decision about a certain topic, then it is time to delegate, and start exploring something new.

Second, we need to dig below the surface of the areas we explore.  As a leader it is possible to suffer from breadth/depth syndrome, where we know very little about quite a bit.  The danger here is that if we only skirt the surface, then no new learning ever really takes place.  This means we have to delve as deeply as our lives will allow into as many different areas as we can.

Success isn't meant to be easy, and realistically, learning something new everyday isn't a guarantee.  But, if we make it a mantra, then it does become an easier benchmark to reach.  After all, why wouldn't we want to learn to the infinite power?

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