Socrates distilled wisdom encourages us to “Know Thyself”, and I am on a constant journey of self-knowledge. I know I don’t have all the answers at any stage in life, I’m constantly curious and like to think I have a “beginner’s mind” and, in most areas, a Growth Mindset.
As we move through life, how do we know what we know? How can we learn more? What is our chosen method of learning on the lifelong journey of discovery?
Last year as I began my commitment to writing daily on this site, I asked my dear friend Carrie Bedingfield what she felt I could write about. She said :
write about epistemology?
You don’t write about things you can evidence in a repeatable study
But what you write has value and conveys knowledge
How do you know what you know?
And how do you know that you know it?
I then posted about this in “How do we know what we know ?“.
Two days ago I wrote “Trust that the dots will connect” in which I wrote about an inspiring session with Matt Clark and his partner in life and business, Alison Macondray, a session in which a crystal clear knowing came forward as to what my first book would be about. In addition, in that session a phrase came out of my mouth, unbidden:
“People are my library”
Confession time. Though I have read many, many books over my lifetime, I have not completed reading a book in over six months. My pile of unread books (actual books and online “stack”) is now quite vertiginous!
However, I continue to learn voraciously, reading articles, papers, even parts of books (!), podcasts, videos, documentaries, music, arts.
Matt told me when we met in Baja a few months ago that I was a “shamanic librarian”, which I didn’t fully grasp or own. When we sat down and focussed the other day, I evolved this to “people are my library”.
Life evolves constantly, though.
As I write this, last night I was at an inspiring event in NYC called “What Comes Now LIVE”, created, curated, produced and lead by my friend, the force of nature that is Rosie Von Lila. For more, visit vonlila.com or find Rosie on the usual platform @Rosievonlila
At that event, Rosie asked me to talk with a number of young people after she had interviewed the very real, inspirational, purposeful and passionate young NY Assembly Member Michael Blake. For the Caribbean people amongst this readership, anyone who was named Michael Alexander Blake by Jamaican parents, named after Manley and Bustamante, was clearly going to have a career in politics!
Mike Blake is amazing and I learned so much from him (you can check my twitter feed @tomcayman from June 26th, I kept posting learnings from him!). I also listened and learned to three 13-year-old students who had literally gone to Albany to lobby, as well as their passionate young teacher who they said was the most optimistic and positive person they knew. In addition, to a lady who has chosen to launch a charity to support survivors of human trafficking, an amazing young woman who is handling Rosie’s social media presence and who has a very bright future indeed.
Now, from those conversations, another learning for me.
Not only did I learn a lot from each of them, but in listening to them, it came to me in each case to share a lesson or two for them in a mentoring / coaching space. Some of them were my own learnings, others from people I’ve learned from over the years.
From that, I recognised that not only are people my library but also:
People are my Index Cards
Why? When listening to people, somehow what I hear turns a key to unlock a memory of something I’ve learned in the past, whether a quote, a model, an idea, a tool.
What else to share?
The deeper and longer I listen, the more this unconscious librarianship goes patiently through all the index cards of my memories and pulls the exact right one. Listen with patience.
As Stephen Covey says, “listen with the intent to understand, not the intent to reply”.
I listened deeply to Mike Blake as Rosie interviewed him, then spoke 1:1 with him, listening more and more. In the end, I asked if I could share one piece of wisdom with him I had learned from a master and that had meant a lot to me. There is a lot in my “library”, yet as we held eye contact, I shared only three words. I’d taken time to find the right index card to access my shamanic library.
We all have our own way of learning, our own ways of sharing. I hope this article has you curious to review and feel clarity on your own.