Scaling Leadership with Biblical WisdomНамуна

Learning Posture

CREDIT:  LANE HICKENBOTTOM/ REUTERS

“Knowing what you don’t know is more useful than being brilliant.” — Charlie Munger

This is a great quote to drive home the point of self-awareness. According to industry-leading experts, self-awareness is the first puzzle piece towards unlocking greatness. And when it comes to self-awareness, I view Charlie Munger as an expert. 

If you’re not familiar with him, you’re missing out. Munger is the 95-year-old, right-hand man to Warren Buffett, and Buffett credits Munger for so much of their success over the last 60+ years they’ve worked together. Munger, even at 95, has a passion for learning in his career where many would already say he knows it all. 

"I constantly see people rise in life who are not the smartest, sometimes not even the most diligent, but they are learning machines. They go to bed every night a little wiser than they were when they got up, and boy, does that help, particularly when you have a long run ahead of you." — Charlie Munger

Scaling your leadership depends heavily on a learning posture. Daily we run into new situations that require new knowledge, new approaches, and new strategies. To maximize these situations, we need to have a deep reservoir at our fingertips. The best way to do this is to always be learning and be in a posture of readiness towards learning. 

Anne Frank said this so well in her diary;

“How noble and good everyone could be if, every evening before falling asleep, they were to recall to mind the events of the whole day and consider exactly what has been good and bad. Then, without realizing it, you try to improve yourself at the start of each new day; of course, you achieve quite a lot in the course of time. — Anne Frank

What Anne and Charlie both make clear is that it’s essential to have a posture of learning and to apply those learnings to our lives every day. If you desire to scale your leadership to be able to respond to our ever-changing climate, tell me about your end of the day routine. 

What are you doing before you fall asleep? 

Are you going to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up? 

Do you have eyes to see all that is happening around you?

Are you filtering everything through the lens of truth, which is God’s Word? 

Here is a takeaway: each and every day we have opportunities all around us to learn, grow, and develop into better versions of ourselves. This growth does not always come in a nice package that is easy to digest and consume. Oftentimes, this growth and learning come from times of struggle, trials, and situations we honestly wish we weren’t in. The other reality is that we learn from voices and perspectives that, on the surface, don’t necessarily appreciate or agree with. 

No matter our situation or circumstances, having a learning posture puts us in a humble position to learn and live our lives where we desire to go to bed wiser than we awoke. If you want to know what I am learning, check out my website, I write about it daily and have a free weekly email dispatch you can learn from. I really hope today and the coming days you unearth more takeaways, and that God brings powerful revelations that He has in store for you. 

God, prepare my heart for what You have for me today. Your Word is alive, and I believe You will meet me on the pages of it.