The Ultimate Pursuit
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?
How can it be wisdom if all some people want in life is happiness?
Thanks erzaallain. The pursuit of happiness is misplaced. Happiness is a by-product, not an end itself.
The pursuit of wisdom comes before all other pursuits. Wisdom brings the other things we want from life with her.
Thank you
I’m wondering where the ratio of 80/20 in seeking solutions came from – why 80/20? I would have expected more effort spent on understanding the problem to ensure the solution is informed. My experience of leaders is that they often jump too quickly into solution finding.
Thanks Roisin. I applied the Pareto Principle to this topic.
The actual amount of time spent analyzing a problem depends on the complexity of the problem. Perhaps, technical problems require more analysis than others, for example.
My experience is, leaders come up with a single solution and then defend it. My suggestion is develop several solutions. Try one and see how it works. My experience is solution-finding quickly moves to closed mindedness because people don’t spend enough time seeking solutions.
Thank you for sharing an important insight in this discussion.
Listening more.Talking less. Enthusiastically seeking knowledge through interaction with those who may know more than you do. Accepting they do in fact know more than you do. New destinations, new experiences, fresh perspectives. BOOM.
Thanks themike. I appreciate your practical suggestions. All useful. I particularly like “New” as important way to the gaining of wisdom, if we stay open to learning.
In the pursuit of wisdom – read some great blogs 😉
Thanks Allan. Reading is so helpful. When I read a useful book, it’s filled with notes on other topics. A great book helps me think new thoughts that are totally unrelated to the book. It sparks my imagination.
As far as great blogs go, no comment. 🙂
I think that you become wise not because you purse it but that you learn from whatever you experience and by internal reflection.. You can become wise by talking to wise men or even reading and internalizing what these wise men over the centuries have learnt from their experience..
My personal take is that the moment you start to pursue wisdom, it starts to slowly but surely evades you
Thanks Mukesh. I’m glad you left your insights. I wonder if you are talking about enlightenment and I am talking about practical know-how?
The moment one stops chasing wealth and power, wisdom dawns that there is more to life.
Thanks Subramanian. You remind me that we can block our own development with pursuits that get in the way. This seems more challenging than we might think. Seduction is common.
In order to accept wisdom, you must first be humble. This is the one major stumbling block I’ve seen over and over for many leaders. Hubris gets you nowhere. Get passed that, and you’re golden!
Thanks Dr. Pinzon. It seems that the pursuit of wisdom includes knowing that you don’t know.
Thanks Dan. I wanted to give you a thumbs up but hit thumbs down by accident. Now I can’t change it! Sorry!😁
By asking with curiosity and humility, a leader gains wisdom. A leader’s big ego is always the stumbling block to wisdom. Thanks for the sharing, Dan.
Thanks Albert. Ego knows. Those who know, don’t. Wisdom learns. You help me think about openness.
Great post! I find that curiousity, persistence and patience and seeking out those that have the same qualities can be very helpful in gaining wisdom.
Thanks Mim. As I read your comment, I get the sense that seeking wisdom isn’t a one-time act. 🙂
Well said on getting wisdom!
The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding. Proverbs 4:7
I would just add to the discussion getting self-control as well and in tandem with wisdom. Or maybe you considered it with #5?
Thanks Nine. What’s old is new. 🙂
Your comment makes me think about the cart and the horse. Does self-control come before wisdom or express it?
I think the commitment to seek wisdom is the starting place. From there we learn about humility, self-control, etc. But, first, we must choose to make the pursuit of wisdom a priority.
Quoting: “Wisdom is always useful in practical ways.” The critical distinction is between knowledge and wisdom! To me knowledge becomes wisdom when it becomes useful and only then. If I knew the names of all the counties in Pennsylvania as well as the names of the county seats, that’s knowledge I have. But it is (and probably never will be) useful – or as the quote says, practical. It will never be considered for me at least as wisdom.
In education, the goals of the teachers need to be facilitating the development of wisdom related to the core knowledge (aligned with appropriate standards) AND the facilitation of the skills of effective learning. Teachers are often pretty / quite good with the first goal; but the second goal, equally important, seems to allude far too many teachers – and that’s very sad and damaging.
Thanks John. I find your observations about knowledge and wisdom helpful. You’re making me think about people who know a lot but can’t do much.
They’re the ones who may not even know their problems! Even worse, they might think they’re really well ‘educated’ because their teachers didn’t understand the difference, assessed for knowledge, the student got good grades, and presumed they did well…
How can we apply this principle of leadership to global issues like climate change? How can any of us lead when there does not seem to be a unifying movement that takes specific action to stop the destruction of the planet?
“Leaders who are wise about the future, prepare for the future, even if it looks foolish from a short-term perspective.”
… are we left to make our own preparations or is there hope that there can be leaders to show us the changes we need to make in our lives and in our businesses?
And, the people said, “AMEN!”