It is always a surprise to me how life presents us with so many learning opportunities. Often I find they are buried in familiar situations. I was working with my business partner in one of our seminars when he came up with the quote about the most dangerous three words in the English language: “I know that”.
Thanks for that Kevin! I have been thinking about that for a few days now. Whenever we think that we know something, it really gives us an excuse not to pay too much attention and means we don’t have to try to learn. It can also be dismissive of someone else’s efforts to help us – “Oh, I know all that”.
Herein lies the problem. Even if we think we know something really well, there is always and I mean always, something new to learn. Some new angle, someone else’s perspective that we hadn’t thought of etc.
Worse, saying we know something implies that we don’t even need to get better and/or there is no growth to be had in this area. Now, all things change. Even if we do know something today, who is to say it won’t change in some way tomorrow? If we assume that we already know we are actually wrong.
I guess the point of this post is that is about raising awareness. Every time you hear yourself saying that you already know something, how about re-framing that thought in terms like: “Knowing a lot abotu this already, I wonder what new perspective this information brings and what will I do with that?”
