Life is full of examples that teach us lessons. That’s why stories and illustrations make learning so much more effective. When a story can be used to illustrate or demonstrate a valuable lesson, the story makes it much more understandable, relatable, and memorable. With that in mind, I want to take some time to do just that – share examples of circumstances and stories experienced in everyday life which illustrate leadership lessons that we can learn and apply. This is one of those examples, and it reminds us that opportunities to learn are everywhere.
Sometimes the little lessons are right in front of us are but not necessarily always in something that we are doing or something that happens. Sometimes those lessons are simply in something we read or hear. One of those for me came from reading the Bible.
My wife and I are in the habit of reading a chapter in the Bible together every night. When we were in Deuteronomy and got to chapter 6, I read a passage that I was very familiar with, one that I had used often in an educational context. That passage was Deuteronomy chapter 6, verses 6 through 9, which says:
“And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”
In a classroom setting, and in the application of biblical truth to teaching and learning, I always used this passage to point out integration, modeling, and both formal and informal instruction as essential to good teaching. Integration is the idea that biblical truth ought to be woven into everything. Modeling is the idea that the application and content of learning should be lived out and demonstrated. Including both formal and informal instruction is the idea that teaching and learning is planned and structured, but also spontaneous and relevant.
However, as I was reading this passage with my wife, what struck me this time was a life application lesson. The lesson was this: you are always learning. Or, at least, opportunities to learn are always in front of you. It’s your choice whether or not you learn from them, but they are always there. It might be in something you’re reading (which often happens with me). It might be in something you’re listening to or watching. It might be someone who is a mentor or model for you, a public figure that you admire, or even someone who is being a bad example. It might be something that you were experiencing in your own life, whether big or small. But the opportunities to learn are always there.
When I was in college and did a summer sales experience, Zig Zigler led a workshop in one of the training activities, and I remember him saying, “20 years from now, you will be the same person you are today except for the people you meet and the books you read.“ The truth is, you will be changed as you walk through life and experiences, but you get to decide if that change is for your good or not. If you choose to learn from what you experience every day, you will grow throughout your life. So the lesson on leadership from a little thing in life that I learned by just reading a chapter in my Bible is the reminder that I always have the opportunity to learn and grow if I choose to see it and take it, because opportunities to learn happen all day long and are everywhere around you.
