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Saturday Musings – Unlocking One of Life's Mysteries
I was talking with one of my daughters the other day and she was sharing about some plans she was forming for her future. As a father, there is no greater privilege when your children feel they can openly share with you about their own life.
In the course of the conversation I shared about what I thought was one of life’s greatest mysteries and that is learning about yourself. It sounds quite introspective but I’ve found that learning about myself, my strengths, weakness and capacities is extremely satisfying.
Along life's journey, I can learn how to augment my strengths, guard against my weaknesses and be very aware that I have a limits.
For example, when I was a child I had a really bad temper. If my brother or sisters said anything I didn’t like then I let them know about it in no uncertain terms…..in short, I would lose control.
Over the years I’ve learned about my tempter weakness, worked on it and I’m somewhat proud to say that it now takes an exceptional situation for me to lose my cool. To come to grips with my problem I first had to recognise I had one and then work away at it (maybe the subject of another blog).
A number of people have asked me why I invited a partner to work with me in ParkLogic. When ParkLogic first started I didn’t need any money and what I recognised was that I had a set of skills in one area but needed help in others.
I made the decision to essentially gave away half the company to help me learn about my own weaknesses and improve myself. A great bonus is the fact that David Gibbs (my business partner of 10 yeas) is a fantastic guy to work with and I’ve now learned an incredible amount from him.
There's one thing I've learned over the years, money will come and go but your character will stay with you for ever. So the fact that I could sway some money to help me improve myself was an awesome investment!
All of us have strengths, weaknesses and limits to what we can do. Being aware of these things is the first steps in the adventure of life. Improving all three of them is the second, third, fourth and onwards steps.
What will happen is life will inevitably bring people or circumstances across your path that will challenge you in infinite numbers of ways. How we approach these challenges will really show how far we’ve learned about ourselves and how much we’ve developed our character.
So as I was chatting with my daughter I said to her, “Remember there is no such thing as a mistake, only opportunities to learn about yourself.”
This immediately removed much of the pressure to make the “right” decision from her shoulders as she fully embraced the adventure of learning about herself. She opened her eyes up to how circumstances and other people were teaching things about herself.
For me, I was rewarded with my daughter’s smiling face as she began her first steps towards understanding one of life’s greatest mysteries.
Have a great weekend!
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