Hi there Reader,
Welcome to this edition of Meaningful eMail with the most recent takeaway and updates linked here at the top, and then a full article for your consideration.
Grab what's helpful today, then save others for future reference. You never know when you or someone in your network could use a boost!
Recent Takeaways & Updates
|
|
"Supercommunicators" by Charles Duhigg
How we can connect more powerfully through conversations.
|
|
|
Talks Downloading...
One of my 2024 goals was to experiment with speaking as a way to encourage meaningful career development - for our work to express who we are, not define who we are.
Happy to report this experiment is going well! Podcast interviews and the recent conference presentation have helped paved the way to the next phase: corporate talks. First one is scheduled for this summer!
Want to see the full list of talk topics? Just reply to this email!
|
Let's Explore
What Is Wisdom Anyway?
In the last email we explored career curves - why some careers tend to peak around 20 years in and how to find a second, longer peak by leaning into wisdom.
Wisdom sounds great, but let's explore how we can define it and give shape to it. That will then help us recognize our own and use it more intentionally.
Wisdom As A Thing
As I've been studying and writing about wisdom, especially from the aspects of neuroscience, social science, aging and careers, I've gathered some interesting phrases for my own working definition: distilling our experiences and knowledge for compassionate connections.
This definition emphasizes a few big components I see discussed when it comes to wisdom - learning from our own experiences AND using those lessons and knowledge in a way which creates meaning and impact.
Let's take a look at these components and see how they hold up.
Side note: Please challenge my thinking and theories! Send me your ideas and questions so we can create impact together.
Distilling our experiences & knowledge....
So we definitely need to have experiences and knowledge in order to have wisdom. Let's call these a given.
But how do we treat those experiences and knowledge? I love "distill" in that there's a 'boiling down to the essence' as one dictionary definition calls it.
There's also a fun connection to distilling spirits and then 'aging' and 'mellowing' as we see in bourbons and whiskeys - two spirits tightly connected to my Kentucky and Tennessee roots!
....for compassionate connections
For this section of the definition, I'm aiming to highlight the power of using our experiences and knowledge to serve a greater good.
It's one thing to have the essence of our experiences and knowledge, but then what we do with that essence is where we can make a positive difference.
Wisdom is definitely not about pontificating our opinions (huh, wait a minute, am I doing that in this very moment?). It's about truly understanding a situation, its impacts and the people involved. Then if our 'essence' is helpful - and the people are open to receiving wisdom - beautiful things start to happen (hopefully you feel understood and that I'm compassionately connecting!).
Compassionate connections also covers discernment I think many of us associate with wisdom.
Take the Serenity Prayer:
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.
Wisdom there is discernment - knowing the difference.
This wisdom shows up at work in how we discern when and where to speak up in a meeting for instance - knowing the difference between what comments and insights will help the situation and which comments might just muddy the waters.
It takes compassion to discern.
Your Take
As you've been helping others with your experiences and knowledge, what does wisdom feel like to you?
What other aspects do you think we need to integrate so we can really lean into our wisdom? To build and use our wisdom?
Send me a reply or grab a connection call - I'd love to explore this with you!
