Everyday Lessons for Effective Living

Someone told me recently that I have great stories, that I have experienced such interesting things. He said, “Your life experiences have taught you so much.”

I thought about this and, while I have led a colorful life and have worked very hard, I don’t think that my experiences alone are particularly exceptional. My wealth of anecdotes and reflections are not simply because of what I have experienced; rather, they result from my commitment to seek and find meaning in what happens around me.

Every day provides learning opportunities. I have never met someone from which I could learn nothing. Whether through successes or failures, joy or loss, everyone has stories to tell… stories that offer perspective that can teach us, at the very least, empathy. These stories occur all around us. If we listen and observe, there is no limit to what we can learn from them.

I am a firm believer that we all have lessons to learn. Those lessons will continue to be presented to us in a myriad of ways until we internalize and grow from them. Then we can move along to the next lesson, all the while becoming more of who we were created to be, accomplishing more of what we were created to do.

Those lessons may come to us in the form of college lectures, a stirring book or movie, a conversation, a personal success or failure or any other window we open for learning. As for me, I prefer to open as many of those windows as possible, because I want to learn those lessons and move on to achieve greater things. The day I stop learning is the day I am put to rest. In the meantime, I want to soak up as much as I can.

Clifford A. Bailey
lifelong learner, CEO, professional speaker