Growing
There are some things we all need to learn because we all share the burden and the privilege of constructing a life: being kind, listening, reading, writing, math, geography, history, storytelling, and more.

There are also specific things that each of us need to learn because we each start this construction project with different gifts, deficits and challenges. These might even change over time.

There are many things I need to learn more than most, starting with patience,

I like action more than deliberation and analysis. Often I feel in my gut that I have the solution to a problem early in a conversation.

Waiting to come up for tenure required me to listen more and I frequently discovered that the idea I had was ok, but incomplete, and had I not been patient I would have short circuited the conversation and gotten us onto a less productive path.

Creating space for growth by listening patiently makes me a better person. The ideas I then choose to bring and vet more thoroughly have more value in this context and often I can offer ideas on how to implement someone else's idea.

Along with patience, I specifically need to learn to be more humble.

Working on stepping back, listening, and being patient is an important first step for me.

And it makes possible an even more important second step: rejecting the default self-centered perspective on life to amplify the value of working together with humility and appreciation.

I am a smart guy, but rarely the smartest person in the room. A failure to see my own limits and to see too easily the limits of others makes me a less good person, a less smart guy, less patient and less kind, less aware and less humble.

Others may need to learn to speak up or find their voice, to speak with confidence or be more willing to step into a leadership role. But these are not the specific skills I have needed to focus on. Patience and humility, listening and appreciation, have been and remain the tools I need to be attentive to rebooting in my tool box.

I am a better man today as a result of recognizing this, working on these, even as the challenge remains, each day, to be a good person today, which for me means to be more patient and kind, to listen more and be more deeply humble and appreciative.



I think it is interesting that we each need to learn different skills. This makes it even more important to see the importance of learning from each other, particularly from those unlike us. Confucius said 'three people walking, one must be my teacher.' and when I am open to that things work out well.