“Experience is a good teacher, but she sends in terrific bills.”
Minna Antrim
#ElevateYourself
There’s a very valid argument that says: If you are aware and open to what is going on around you, you can live other people’s experiences without paying the school fees.
The problem with this argument is that it is in the pain of the school fees that the lessons are learnt. We can certainly gain value from vicariously picking up the way others have done things, however, the cognitive processing that uplifts our decision making can only be gleaned from personal involvement.
When we gain experience from someone else’s decisions, we engage with the process on a mental level. When we gain value from doing something ourselves, we are engaged emotionally, mentally, and behaviourally. The experience becomes ingrained as part of us, and if we are aware of the process, we use that experience to better our choices the next time round. Rather than experiencing the neutrality of seeing someone else do something, our own actions become personal and meaningful to us.
Business is a myriad of concepts, challenges and decisions, based on unstable and often unknown factors. Business knowledge is easily available, business skills are more difficult, but can be acquired over time. Business experience is like a diamond. Opportunities present themselves in the moment, and only those who are astute enough to capture that moment is able to maximise the benefit of participating in the experience.
A business coach who does not have business experience is like a child giving driving lessons. They’ve watched the parent do this for years and they know the basic principles, so their belief is that they know what they’re doing. In reality, when that child sits behind the wheel there are numerous factors that they were not even aware existed when they watched from the side-lines. SO too with business coaching. Those who have lived multiple business experiences are able to enable others from the strength that they have gained through the trials that they have suffered.
“People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously.
This is how character is built.”
Elanor Roosevelt