This ancient Chinese proverb is attributed to Lao Tsu. It may sound like a contradiction when you first read it. So read it again. And again, until you truly understand what this means.
Knowing something intellectually is not the same as experiencing it and developing your expertise and mastery of it. We kid ourselves if we think we can read a book, gain an insight from a training or a conversation and insist we ‘know’ that subject.
We can’t. That’s not knowing. Knowing, really knowing a subject takes time — sometimes many years of effort and precious life energy to master.
Yet how often do we take the easy route? Read a book, take a course or training and go back to ‘life as usual’, thinking we know what we’re talking about?
I see this often when clients come on a training — a day’s workshop, for example. They come away excited, eager to put what they’ve learned into practice. How often does that happen? If someone is especially disciplined, they will set aside time to implement that learning. Unfortunately, for most of us the urgent matters of the day take over all too quickly, and a week or two passes, and they’ve done little. It becomes more and more difficult to ‘get back into it’ until eventually, they simply give up.
This has nothing to do with how important or valuable that training may be, how beneficial being able to implement it could be. It has more to do with having an environment in which to practice that training. A time and place where you can explore, experiment, and play with ideas, apply systems and technologies or tools until you have a mastery of them. This is why the trainings and one-on-one work I do is always a longer term commitment. Long enough to ensure you know and do and know for real.
Knowing, truly knowing, means implementing what you’ve learned. Taking action and making that learning your own. And in so doing, stretch yourself. Learn, grow, develop your leadership skills.
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