What We Do With Experience

One of my earliest memories involves an oven door, two words, and a lesson I apparently needed to learn for myself. My parents told me it was hot and that it would burn. I understood their warning, or at least I thought I did, until I touched the door. That experience changed what those words meant to me. 
 
I’ve been thinking about that memory and about the many ways experience shapes our lives. A résumé may describe the jobs we’ve held, but it can’t capture everything we’ve learned through conversations, mistakes, relationships, and ordinary days. In this episode, I share what I learned while helping new managers interview candidates, and a photography lesson that taught me how much can change when we take one step and look from another perspective. 
 
I also want to explore the difference between repeating an experience and actually learning from it. A failure may not mean we can’t do something; it may simply mean we need to try another way. My hope is that this conversation encourages us to pay attention to our recent experiences, ask what they taught us, and use that understanding as we move forward together toward who we’re continually becoming.