Never Stop Learning

Knowledge. Education. Experience. These three things go hand in hand. You could say they are one and the same. Possibly. What I know is that knowledge, education and experience opens our eyes and opens our world. If we let them.

I recently read a quote stating,

‘Sixty years ago I knew everything; now I know nothing; education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.’ – Will Durant

On first reading, I found the quote somewhat negative if not demeaning of the education process. However, I don’t think that was the intention. If you go to Stephen R Covey’s book ‘The 8th Habit’ he describes the same concept although a little differently,

‘As your knowledge increases, what happens to your ignorance? It obviously becomes larger, or at least your awareness of it becomes larger. So the more you know, the more you realise you don’t know.’ (p296)

There are similarities between the two but Covey is at least acknowledging the increase in knowledge.

I have often said to clients, ‘if knowing this helps you to achieve much more easily why wouldn’t you want to know it?’ Increasing our knowledge and education and experiencing different things helps us to see situations in a different way. It helps us to look at different options and be more creative in our endeavours.

The increasing of knowledge, education and experience obviously enriches a business. It enables a business to be innovative and step out of their comfort zones to try new things. You know the old saying, ‘if you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you always got’. That’s a dangerous place to be.

As for your employees, providing them with knowledge, education and new experiences enables them to provide new insights to the business. It opens their minds to new ways of doing things. The investment in their development is also part of retaining them in your business.

How much time do you invest in learning, for yourself and your employees? Can you afford not to do it?

Never stop learning. It makes it easier to achieve.