The More You Learn…

One of my favorite books is a small, stock-stuffer of a book called Complete Live and Learn and Pass It On: People Ages 5 to 95 Share What They’ve Discovered about Life, Love, and Other Good Stuff by H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

It’s got funny thoughts from a number of people but it never tell you who said the quote, it just notes their age. Here’s an example:

The book is a favorite of one of my mentors (and #75 in my 101 Most Influential People), Kim Daugherty. He shares many of the funnier “lessons learned” with his classes he teaches.

What Matters Now

Last week, master marketing guru and best selling author Seth Godin released a free e-Book to the masses called What Matters Now. I spent the last few days reading this collection of one-page essays by assorted authors, speakers, bloggers, doctors and average people.

Some of the topics in the eBook interested me, some of them bored me, some of them challenged me to think and others motivated me to act. All of them inspired me to share the project with you but not without adding my own essay of sorts.

Lessons Learned by Sean Carpenter

What Is the “meaning of life”? Does anyone ever figure it all out? Do you think there’s somebody out there that has all the answers? When you reach the pearly gates of Heaven, do you think St. Peter asks you to sit down with a #2 pencil and take an entrance exam? If he did, do you really think anyone would ace the test?

A few years ago I was lucky enough to be certified to teach the Integrity Coaching and Selling Courses. The creator of those programs is a man named Ron Willingham. In one of his audio CD’s that came with the courses he said “the more you learn, the more you learn there is to learn.”

Ain’t that the truth.

I’ve also learned…

* You can’t put a price on a child’s laughter
* I hate snow but I love to watch it fall
* I don’t get as nervous, worried or stressed out watching a double overtime ball game if I don’t care which team wins
* People will read a hand-written note more than once
* Diet Coke tastes better from McDonald’s
* I have more energy after a strenuous morning run than days when I sleep in late
* You can’t make people learn anything until they want to learn it
* The more I listen to other people’s ideas, the clearer mine usually become
* One of the easiest ways to bring back childhood memories is to lick the bowl after making brownies
* I’ll never “know it all” but that shouldn’t stop me from learning more than I know today
* To stop writing when the blog post is feeling like it’s getting too long

What have you learned in 2009?