Wisdom: Education, Experience & Openness

Someone unintentionally implied that I was no more capable or wise than my 26 year old self. (or I was just overly sensitive :-) ) That got me thinking about how people become wiser and more capable with time, and why some people do not.

Being a naturally self confident know it all, I can say now that I lived on "Mt Stupid" when I was young.  I am sure that I was very annoying to my parents, siblings, friends, co-workers, bosses, etc.  Times were so easy back then because "I knew everything and it was all Black and White".

Then came the education, experiences and interactions over the last 30 years.

• MBA courses, 6 Sigma Courses, and more
• Supervisory and interpersonal training self study
• Decades of marriage and the raising of 3 children
• Suffering a major panic attach while travelling (ie anxiety)
• Distinctly different position in 3 different companies
• Being laid off out of the blue
• Working and negotiating people all over the world
• Working and socializing with people from many cultures
• Dozens of home improvement projects
• Oh so many errors and screw ups (ie learning opportunities)
• Researching so many topics for G2A
• etc

Now I likely seem to still be a self confident know it all to you, however I can tell you that I now have more questions than at any other time of my life.  The world is much more gray and the solutions all come with benefits, costs and unknown potential consequences.

I thought the curve below explained things well.  When we start out as young adults, many of us live between the "Peak of Mt Stupid" and the "Valley of Despair" depending on the day, the topic and our personality type.

Then our education, experiences and interactions, and our Openness to learn from them and challenge our confirmation bias and existing beliefs determine how "wise and capable" we will become.  For example:

• If one does the same things in the same town in the same ways for 60 years, they may be wise in a very narrow band.
• If one travels the world and is not open to learning from the people in different cultures they may get limited benefit.
• If one watches only FOX News you may actually lose wisdom. :-)
• If one actively pursues life long learning, pays attention when in new situations and is willing to challenge their prior beliefs, they likely will be very different at age 54 than at age 26.

Now please look at the shape of the "Slope of Enlightenment". Like most things we learn quickly at first and then things slow as we get older.  And I think that is where "Openness" and a willingness to push our comfort zones become most important and make the biggest difference if you want to continuously learn and grow..

As always, I thank my G2A and Facebook friends who keep challenging me and forcing me to research, analyze, learn, consider, etc... :-)  Thoughts?