There’s a famous story told about Marcus Aurelius hiring an assistant to follow him as he walked through the Roman town square; the assistant’s only role was to whisper to him 'you’re just a man’ in his ear whenever he was praised.
They say two things define us; our patience when we have nothing and our humility when we have everything. The greatest thinker on the planet think that they are perpetually learners; perpetual students of the reality and of life.
It was Maya Angelou who once said, “I have learnt that I still have a lot to learn”. The person that we will become five years to come is defined by the people that we spend time with today and the books that we read today. That’s why the people that we associate with, and spend time with, and who we absorb our energy with will really define what’s on our mind. Often what limits our learning is that we believe we already know; we believe that we already have the knowledge; we believe that we already have the answer, instead of actually opening ourselves up to learn from the people around us and selectively choosing people who can be guides and wise advisors.
.
We often find that this feeling of knowing makes us judge and criticize others, and that’s why we see that judging is critical but observing can be educational. Therefore, we should be so focused on improving ourselves, that we don’t have any energy to criticize anyone else. And the beauty of this is when we are focusing on improving ourselves, we surround ourselves with people who challenge the way we think and challenge the way we behave. That’s why when you look around and find yourself being the smartest in the room, then change rooms because you’re in the wrong one.
You want to be around people who lift up the way you think and lift up your mindset; people who take you to new dimensions and horizons that you could never ever imagine yourself. I believe that we should never get compliments get to our heads or criticism get to our hearts, because when we do prevent this then we start to build ourselves with genuineness and authenticity. When we are humble we can actually grow and rise up and we can always feel that we are learning and developing. We can always feel that someone can share insight at any moment that can change our lives.
Have you ever found it that similar situations keep coming into your life and actually nothing ever goes away until it teaches you what you needed to learn? So when we don’t extrapolate lessons from situations then soon or later we will have to learn that lesson again. Therefore, simultaneous repetitive situations keep approaching us in our lives.
When we realize that we are students for life, instead of making people see how powerful we are we want to make people understand how powerful they are, and we learn how to empower others. We will actually attract people to work with us to achieve our goals.
It’s better to know how to learn than to know, because when we know how to earn it becomes a habit; it becomes part of our mindset and how we navigate through life, and that’s why Brian Herbert said, “The capacity to learn is a gift, the ability to learn is a skill, but the willingness to learn is a choice”.
I really want you to be involved in this conversation as we think out loud together about our minds in this world. So please join the 