IT’S A MIND-SET
Teachability is an attitude, a
mind-set that says, “No matter how much I know (or think I know), I can learn
from this situation.” That kind of thinking can help you turn adversity into
advantage. It can make you a winner even during the most difficult
circumstances.
Sydney Harris sums up the
elements of a teachable mind-set: “A winner knows how much he still has to
learn, even when he is considered an expert by others. A loser wants to be
considered an expert by others before he has learned enough to know how little
he knows.”
Business author Jim Zabloski
writes, Contrary to popular belief, I consider failure a necessity in business.
If you’re not failing at least five times a day, you’re probably not doing
enough. The more you do, the more you fail. The more you fail, the more you
learn.
The more you learn, the better
you get. The operative word here is learn. If you repeat the same mistake two
or three times, you are not learning from it. You must learn from your own
mistakes and from the mistakes of others before you.
The ability to learn from
mistakes has value not just in business but in all aspects of life. If you live
to learn, then you will really learn to live.
—Failing Forward by John Maxwell
