Experience Is Good, But Can Be Better

Experience is a great teacher. True. There is no substitute for experience. True. I can not avoid experience even though much of it is bad. Also true. Waking up and realizing you are a half hour late for work can be the first experience of the day.

Experience is learning the hard way. Being thrown into the deep end to sink or swim.

It is reality not theory. It shows what living is all about. How things really feel. Hurts, frustration, failure, embarrassment, success, pride, accomplishments, fun, love, fear are the result of experiences. We will remember some of them for the rest of our lives.

Grade school, high school and college teach us how to skip ahead and learn from the experiences of others. How to concentrate, absorb new ideas and use them. School is a good training ground for life but those who stop studying and growing afterward will soon be old fashioned and complaining that the world isn't like it used to be.

Big successful businesses didn't get that way by experience alone. They grew by learning, changing, improving constantly. When they become satisfied it is the beginning of the end. The same is true of small businesses, even individual proprietors. Stop keeping up and not only does the constantly changing world leave you behind but boredom sets in.

The 5000th repeat of the same comfortable day is not as interesting as the first no matter what you are doing. Mess around with something new. There are plenty of things to choose from and it will refresh your life.

When all else fails, read the instructions is a joke that is also a good reminder. Giving in to impatience and laziness by charging ahead without knowing what we're doing is usually a bad idea. We end up frustrated, having to start over and unlearn bad habits. Examples of that are driving, computers, public speaking, cooking. Have you tried getting a golf ball to go where you want it with no competent help? I rest my case.

The reward for learning to study first is getting more accomplished in less time with less grief. That is why successful businesses force new employees to go through a training process. Skipping some of the nine hundred usual mistakes saves far more money than the training costs.

Continued study separates professionals from amateurs, successful from failing, interested and eager from depressed and frustrated. Want to look forward to each new day no matter what your age or station in life? Start reading up on something you would like to know. We have the same basic brain as Albert Einstein did. He just chose to keep challenging his throughout his life. He never filled it up. You and I won't either.

Husband, father, grandfather, veteran, marketing management, major corporation manager, top salesman, business owner, toastmasters president, officer and board member in business clubs, writer, author, insatiably curious .