King Bhumibol the great left behind many words of wisdom, not only for Thai people. His thoughts on learning are close to my heart.
King Bhumibol the Great did so much for the Thais that his example and wisdom will continue to inspire for a very long time. His thoughts have all been recorded and shared during his long and active reign. When it comes to learning, here is what he said:
“Learning through direct practical experience results in true and clear knowledge that can always be resorted to because of expertise, in contrast with teaching without practice, which often turns into learning just to pass the examination, or learning to be forgotten.”
I could not agree more, and Reg Revans who said “There is no learning without action and no action without learning” is saying the same. And we all agree. You don’t learn a language without actually using it, and you won’t succeed in driving a car by just watching Youtube. You need to learn and then apply, and make a bunch of mistakes along the way. Nobody would disagree with this.
So then where do we practice being a leader ? Where do we practice teamwork or motivating others ? We may be doing leadership or teamwork or we may try and motivate others, but we most often stick to what we have done before and fault others if things are not working. We say that “they” need to change or act differently. We learn so much in training sessions, or from books, or an engaging motivational speakers. But how much of that do we actually do anything with ? Moving into action doing something new is simply hard. But that is the only way to learn and develop oneself.