The more I learn, the more I realize how little I know…

My father used to have a bumper sticker in the garage that said, “The more I learn, the more I realize how little I know.”

This seems to be my life story – especially as of late. The more I grow, the more I realize I have SO MUCH MORE to learn.

It’s really hard for me to come to terms with this! I’ve always had the attitude that I’d like to work super-hard at first, get to desired solution, and then sit back. With growth though, it just doesn’t happen that way. It’s never-ending.

I met a guy I really, really respect back in June. He’s super-successful and full of amazing advice. I thought he was absolutely brilliant, wise, enlightened… and then I talked to his wife.

She was madly in love with him, which I expected… but she also told me some not-so-stellar things about him. Things that revealed a lack of confidence, insecurity, etc…

It left me feeling so unsettled!

I know nobody’s “perfect”, but it’s almost like… like, I’ll continue to do this growing… and there will never be a “stop” point. There will always be something I need to work through.

I mean, I could sit back and be happy with where I’ve come in a few short years – I used to tear up (even in casual, party-type situations) whenever I had to talk with two or more people at once. I felt so unworthy of attention. One-on-one I was awesome, but forget about more than that. I used to be ridiculously judgmental and used my book smarts as a shield to hide my insecurities. The list goes on and on…

But now that I’ve gotten past that, there’s whole new levels of things to go through – such as why I’m so picky, why I place my worth on some really foolish things, and so forth.

And I totally understand the benefits of continuing to grow – you raise your vibrations, you attract higher quality people, you can serve more people, etc…

But it’s still hard to come to terms with the fact that there’s no “end goal” (unless you count enlightenment).

I recently did an exercise with a good friend that I really trust. We’re both incredibly into development, so this was a super-fun exercise for both of us. We filled out categories about each other and then about ourselves. We promised each other that we’d be extremely vulnerable, and figured we’d have an average of 1-2 paragraphs for each section.

Here were the categories we used:

Business
Friend Relationships
Love Relationships
Self confidence
Goals in life
Direction
Self awareness
Emotional Life (how in touch with emotions you are)
Character
Spiritual Life
Quality Of Life
Top 5 Challenges
Top 5 Strengths

The exercise was unbelievable. My head’s still going into overdrive – both with the results he gave me (which were incredible, and it’s great to get someone else’s view – especially if that someone is empathetic and intelligent enough to not only see/feel things and put himself in my position, but to articulate them), but with what I ended up writing out about myself.

I realized that I have way more to get through than I ever thought, especially confidence-wise… but I also was given new focus, and understood a lot more. Coupled with some recent feedback I got from someone I met on a message board, and… wow.

The results are going to dramatically improve who I am, my relationships, and my business… which in turn will help me serve others more.

I highly recommend doing this exercise with someone you trust. I’ve read a million books, sites, etc… but very little (the only thing that comes to mind is Warrior Camp) has given me such concrete, power-packed information like this.