An interesting paradox happens as we become more successful.

The more experience we gain, the more we know.

We recognize patterns faster. We anticipate problems earlier. We know what has worked and what hasn't. People seek us out precisely because we have accumulated knowledge and perspective they don't yet have.

Experience becomes one of our greatest assets.

Until, occasionally, it isn't.

Because the very experience that allows us to see something quickly can also cause us to stop looking.
 

Think about the last time someone brought you a problem.
How quickly did your mind begin searching for the solution? Mine can move pretty darn fast. Not because we aren't listening. Because we recognize something.

Our brain connects what we're hearing to everything we've experienced before and says, Oh, I know this one. And sometimes we do. But what if this person is different, the circumstances have changed, or the thing that worked beautifully three years ago is exactly the wrong solution today?

What if there is information in the room that our experience hasn't given us access to?

That is where expertise requires something more. Curiosity.

Expertise + Curiosity is the magical combination!

I don't believe the answer is to diminish what we know. Quite the opposite. Experience gives us an extraordinary foundation from which to lead.
But the strongest leaders I've encountered bring their experience into the room without allowing it to take up every chair.

They leave space for:

There is enormous strength in being able to say:

Perhaps that's one of the less talked-about ways we continue to grow as leaders. Not simply by adding more knowledge.

But by becoming increasingly discerning about when to rely on what we know and when to become curious about what is true today.

Success doesn't mean we've reached a point where there's nothing left to discover. There is so much more available to us, if we are open and interested in growth.

May your journey of Still Becoming take you places you have yet to imagine and open up doors you did not know were there.