I have had some interesting conversations with my wife recently about desirable traits in people. One thing we both agree on is that if anyone wants to become a better person then it is important that they accept others are often better than they are in general or at certain things. If we have that approach in our mind then we will be open to learning from others in an attempt to improve ourselves. However, if we don’t acknowledge the success of others or even desirable characteristics and give them credit for it how can we be open to learning how to be like them. Its a simple concept but its something that is not taught at school or University and I meet people everyday that don’t seem to understand this.
This is an important topic for me because when I was coming out of my teenage years and into my early twenties I was one of those bone headed people that thought he knows it all. Fortunately, through working in London with organisations that often had no mercy I learned some home truths and over the years figured out a few things about myself that needed improvement. The first was the fact that I unable to accept that I was not the best. Second was the fact that I was quick to dismiss the ideas of others before hearing them out fully. These two things held me back quite a lot in my early twenties but now that I’m in my early thirties I can safely say that I have totally changed, understand myself much more and feel 100% better inside myself. Now I like to look for people that are really great in certain things or have excellent person traits. I identify them and try to see what I can learn from these people and understand how they got to be the way they are or learn the skills they have. I also now like to listen to the ideas of others fully because even if someone comes with what at first appears to be a ridiculous idea, if we listen to them carefully with an open mind we can always see a new perspective that has value that we didn’t initially think of ourselves.