Just because you know something and have heard it many times doesn’t mean everyone else knows it too.
This is a lesson that came home to me after reading a LinkedIn post last week. The post talked about something I first heard circa 2008 and I thought, yeah that’s good but everyone knows that.
Imagine my surprise when the post got great responses from people who had never heard of this particular self development nugget.
It was a big learning for me.
Firstly, it has made me review some of the content on the talks I give as I’ve previously removed things that I thought “everyone knows that”.
Secondly, it reminded me of the phrase Shelf Development or Self Development. I first heard this in the context of people going to seminar after seminar and yet their lives had not progressed. They were still struggling for results despite going to all the seminars and reading all the books. They were not implementing the learnings from the books and seminars they had attended. In essence their knowledge was left on the “shelf” and not embedded in the “self”.
Finally, I too had been to the seminars and read the books however I had made progress as I’d implemented the learnings I had picked from attending the events and reading the books. The one thing I hadn’t done was shared the key fundamentals of the knowledge consistently enough. I had left too much of that development on the “shelf” and shared enough of the development of “self” with others.
Every day is a school day however and that was a big learning for me this week.
What has been a learning for you this week?
What one piece of classic self development could you share with us?