Learning is vulnerable

It’s back-to-school time.

With fresh notebooks and new routines, there’s something about September that makes learning very visible.

But there’s something the back-to-school photos don’t quite capture:
Learning is vulnerable.

Learning requires us to admit, at least temporarily, that we don’t know something. That we can’t do something yet. That someone else might know more than we do.

Somewhere along the way, that gets harder.

We learn to value competence. Expertise. Knowing what to do.
We hesitate to ask the question everyone else seems to know the answer to.
We nod along when an acronym comes up in a meeting that we’ve never heard before.
We stay in our lane instead of asking someone in another department, “Can you show me how this actually works from your end?”

We defend an idea instead of getting curious about why someone else sees it differently.

At some point, not knowing starts to feel a little too much like not being capable.

And yet, not knowing is where learning starts.

It takes courage to be a beginner. It’s vulnerable and maybe uncomfortable at times, but it opens the door to curiosity, growth and possibility.

Maybe that’s something worth carrying with us into this fall.

What if we brought a little more of that “beginner’s mind” into our work?

Ask the question you think you’re supposed to know the answer to.
Get curious about why something works the way it does.
Spend time with someone whose role is very different from yours.
Let someone else show you a piece of the picture you haven’t seen before.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot as I prepare to deliver a keynote to more than 200 professionals working in care roles about systems thinking. One of the most powerful ideas in systems thinking is also a pretty human one:
None of us sees the whole picture.

We each occupy a different place in the systems we’re part of. Our family members, coworkers, clients and communities aren’t just participants in the systems around us. They are people we can learn from.

When we approach one another with curiosity rather than certainty, those different perspectives become a source of learning. And when we connect what each of us sees, we have a better chance of creating the outcomes we’re collectively working toward.

So while the kids head back to classrooms this September, maybe there’s an invitation in it for the rest of us, too:

Be a learner again. Ask the question. Let someone teach you something. Be willing to say, I don’t know this yet.

And let’s see what becomes possible when we do.

Rachel
The Connection Lab 🧠♥️