One life to live but many lives to learn from

The path to good leadership is riddled with failure. But it doesn’t necessarily have to be your own failures. The trick is to learn most lessons from other people’s experiences.

“Managers who have learned much from personal experience in the past usually are destined to learn much from personal experience in the future." — Warren Buffett

This type of learning is a chemical reaction. It needs both time and some active elements. Conversations. Books. Podcasts. It needs catalysts. Humility, hunger and a growth mindset.

Last week I learned from the experiences of a business owner, a bank executive and a professional photographer. This week Seth Godin is mentoring me in marketing. And next week Annie freaking Duke will be teaching me about risk and probability!

I’ll never stop making my own mistakes. But the good news is neither will other people. And I can fast track my own learning and development by listening to their life stories and applying their advice.

Ask yourself: Whose mistakes am I learning from? Only my own? Comment or send me a message and I’ll send you some individualized book or podcast recommendations.