You Can & Should Learn Something New Every Day

“You learn something new every day!”

You can & you should!

The instant that you think this is no longer true or relevant, then it’s time for you to retire, change jobs or just quit.

Seriously.

Or ⚰️…you should just be assumed up into Heaven (or whatever you believe in & whatever you deserve) as you’ve already immortal.

No such thing.

I would always challenge my people to “Go learn something new!”…or else, I’d (threaten to) give them a test & show them just how much there is still left for them to learn.

As a true leader, you must foster this learning environment & as always, lead by example.

Read. Voraciously.

There are industry newsletters & magazines for which I’m sure your boss will OK the subscription fees.

There are dozens of training seminars, in person or on-line, that can help with your technical expertise as well as with overall leadership skills.

Make sure you’re a member of LinkedIn (a professional networking application) which has tons of specific groups for your industry, plus lots of valuable studies & white papers.

Years ago, I subscribed to Boardroom Reports, an incredibly-valuable summary of different articles & ideas for business. You should check into Business Line, its successor to see if it can be useful for providing you with different ideas or spurring your imagination.

If your company offers access to on-line training courses, take them. As many as possible, even if they’re outside your own speciality, & try to develop some new skills.

If they have classroom courses (Do we still have those things?), then enroll.

Find yourself a popular business author & dive in.

I used to LOVE Tom Peters (“In Search of Excellence”, “A Passion for Excellenc, “Thriving on Chaos”, etc.) & attended several of his live seminars.

He is absolutely incredible & the ultimate contrarian. He’ll get you thinking about stuff, in such different ways, that it will “blow your mind, man!”

I used to come back from a seminar 6 feet off the ground with a thousand different & crazy ideas. Hell, if I implemented only 1% of them, I’m still 10 initiatives ahead of the game!

You gotta have a perceptible thirst for knowledge, but realize that there are no extra points given for being first or original.

I used to love going to training seminars & off-site classes as you’d get the opportunity to mingle with your peers at other companies. I’d often find the lunches, breaks & free time to be incredibly valuable in swapping success stories, tapping into their experiences on how they handle different workplace issues/challenges & seeing how they feel about new ideas & changes you’ve been contemplating.

Talk with successful leaders you know to learn how they got to where they are….more about their general approach to problems, opportunities, new assignments, employee engagement, motivating top performers & avoiding burnout than their specific career path.

If you get enough industry publications (many of which are free or incredibly inexpensive), you’ll be certain to come across a few gems that’ll help propel your business to new heights…

…and your career follows nicely along.

But you always need to be looking & seeking.

Take a peek at your boss’s bookcase to see if there’s something he recommends or has a book you can borrow.

People love to help…you just gotta go ask them.

 

As always, thanks so very much for listening!