The ultimate pursuit of life isn’t happiness, love, or success, it’s wisdom. Thankfully, wisdom isn’t information, intelligence, or talent.
Wisdom is practical know-how. (Nothing more, nothing less, nothing else.)
Wisdom is always useful in practical ways.
- A person with a string of broken relationships isn’t wise about building relationships.
- Leaders who are wise about goals, get things done.
- Leaders who are wise about the future, prepare for the future, even if it looks foolish from a short-term perspective.
7 ways to get wisdom:
- Dedicate your life to gaining practical know how. The beginning of wisdom is, get wisdom.
- Reject the notion that you have wisdom. You need enough wisdom to know that you need wisdom. Those who think they have achieved wisdom, haven’t.
- Seek solutions. The ratio of defining problems to finding solutions is 80/20. Spend 20% of your time defining problems and 80% exploring solutions.
- Listen to wise people. Wisdom is more often found in people than books. The answer is “who” not “what.” Fools think they know more than everyone else.
- Set lofty goals and learn how to achieve them. Wisdom gets it done.
- Listen to wise people with your goals in mind. How have wise people achieved what you would like to achieve?
- Eliminate what isn’t working. Persistent frustration means you’re persisting in things that don’t work.
Bonus: Try stuff. If there is reasonable certainty that it won’t make things worse, try it. After you try stuff, refer to #7.
Tip:
Get wisdom on the sly.
When I talked to Ken Blanchard I asked him about things I’m challenged with. I didn’t say, “Hey Ken, I’m struggling with running great meetings.” I just asked him how he would run great meetings. He thought it was an interview. I was gaining wisdom.
Enlightenment apart from skillful living is puffed-up blindness.
How might leaders gain wisdom?
What prevents leaders from gaining wisdom?