Quote-A-Day: Day 292

You don't truly know something until you know it from experience. #QuoteADay #Day292 #edchat #edu #ASCDL2L

I've been thinking a lot about my contribution during meetings lately.  I tend to be an active listener, but I speak quite a bit too.  One thing I do that I have been very conscious of over the last few weeks (and that I'm working towards moving away from), is I tend to share information that I "know" but I haven't yet "experienced."

There isn't necessarily anything bad in doing this.  We have to share information, and regardless of how we came across it, any information we share can be helpful.  However, when we speak from "knowledge" rather than from "experience" we're speaking from someone else's eyes, not our own.

This is a challenge, as a situation seen through someone else's eyes changes reality.  We can speak to an idea or situation we know about, but we can't do more than that.

When we've actually experienced something, we can speak to it, and we can also speak "through" it.  The power of the latter is that we can embody the situation, and that, in itself, builds trust, capacity, and understanding.

I've had a lot of experiences in my personal and professional life.  But, I haven't experienced everything (and who could).

Two goals?  One is to keep building on my experience base by taking risks and trying new things (that's the only way we can move from "knowing" to "experiencing").  The second is to spend more time speaking from experience rather than speaking from knowledge.

In reality, very few people want to hear what we know.  But no one can ignore what we've experienced.