Ever met a know-it-all?
I’ll bet some of you, over the holidays, got to interact with one or two family members who just seem to have a tremendous amount of wisdom and knowledge.
I mean no matter what the topic of conversation, they not only have an opinion, but they have studied and informed answers to everything. And they believe their manifold answers are a gift to your conversation.
When I interact with people like this, my first reaction is to get frustrated.
But I almost always have a secondary reaction of gratefulness. Why? Because I’ve been given the gift of being wrong so many times that I am always willing to be teachable and listen to a different perspective. I may ultimately end up disagreeing after hearing the case, but many times I’ll be grateful for having learned something new.
The know-it-alls, though, live a miserable life. No one can teach them anything.
They’ll dig in their heels and embarrass themselves if necessary to prove a point.
There’s power in saying “I was wrong.” (And if you’re never wrong, well, you’re probably the know-it-all :D)
One of the GREAT things about operating a community like Subscription Web Design is that it is not a firehose of information. Sure, as my students will tell you, sometimes I get a bit long-winded. But I’m always so intrigued to learn from YOU all as well. Everyone brings different life experiences to the table, and I like to think that my students get just as much value learning from their peers as they do learning from me.
You must beware of one thing, though:
Some of you may not think you are falling prey to this mindset, but you actually are. For example:
If you read or watch a lot of stuff, but don’t take action, you’ve succumbed to the idea that you know better
If you find yourself saying “yeah, but…” quite often, you’ve closed yourself off to new thinking
If your social media algorithms are only feeding you the information you like to hear, you might need to rethink and get some new perspectives
The businesses that don’t grow and change over time eventually die.
Guard yourself from thinking that you can’t learn something new. When you’ve learned something new, try it. Take action.