15 February 2022 — The biggest lesson I learnt was how much I don’t know.
That was Emma’s takeaway after 3 months of interning.
My daughter is taking a gap year before university. She said she needed the time and space to figure herself out after the rush and gush of major high school and college exams over the last few years. I’d say if that was her objective, then mission accomplished.
We laud and celebrate victories and breakthroughs of success. But we undervalue lessons that are underwhelming. The ones that tell us what not to do, insights that point out what we don’t know and revelations that show us what don’t add up.
Those are learnings too. As Thomas Edison said, “I didn’t fail. I just found 10,000 ways that something won’t work.”
Emma has come out of the short experience with so much more humility, an appreciation of the details that go into planning the apparently simplest of tasks and the dogged discipline of following through on a single of piece of work.
There was no reward for good work but there was something more valuable – insights and self-awareness. That’s a combination that can set her off on a higher trajectory than any recognition of a job well done.
We seldom work further on our triumphs. Instead, we plod on in the ones that elude success. In the pursuit of tangible and praise-worthy achievement, we gain greater knowledge, finer skills and enduring persistence in the negative space of the what-not-to-do’s.
So, here’s a thought – In our team appraisals, we could start asking the question what were some blind spots you discovered over the past year? What will you do about these?
Knowing what you don’t know is the beginning of wisdom.
Image credit: Emma Lim