I love connecting with people.
It is what makes me come alive.
- like when I connect with a stranger on a plane,
- on a train, or
- at a party.
I discover treasures every time I talk to strangers.
But sometimes, I fail to connect with someone new.
The reason? I fall into a personal trap, a weakness, a bias.
However, due to my failure to connect with someone new,
I've learned some powerful lessons from these mistakes.
Personal innovation is really how to turn our headwinds into tailwinds.
Failing to connect with others hurts me deeply because I am a people pleaser.
What I have learned is how to take pain and turn it into wisdom, empathy, and strength.
Falling isn’t failing. It’s wisdom. It’s part of the process. I learn more from falling than I do from rising. Falling teaches me patience. - Thomas Oppong
Thomas’s quote reminds me of what I tell my kids.
In skiing, if you aren’t falling, you aren’t improving.
In reflecting on why I didn’t connect with some folks, this is what I learned:
- My subconscious sometimes still overrules my conscience.
There are times when I judge the person, and they sense it.
I am ENTJ, and my judgment part of my personality is a weakness.
There should be no judgment - we are all doing our best.
- Sometimes, I’m not driven to help and serve someone, so I don’t give it my all.
- There was a time when I wasn’t confident enough to take more control and exert more leadership in the situation, so I lost the potential client.
It shows me what I need to change. That’s wisdom — pulling lessons out of the fall.
Each fall is a clue. Wisdom is collecting those clues, turning them into fuel for the next rise.
“The most important thing to do if you find yourself in a hole is to stop digging,”
says investor Warren Buffett.
Personal innovation comes from reflecting on your mistakes, biases, and failures and gleaning what you can learn from them.
But there were also some good wins - letting others be the hero, and
I am just the guide.
We can’t tell someone to do something even if it's in their best interest, and
we need to let them figure it out themselves.
Neurologist Sigmund Freud once said,
“One day in retrospect the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful.”
During my college senior year, I fell when taking a jump.
I was leaning too far back in my skis, and I tore my ACL.
It sucked, but my weak knee made me get into running to strengthen my legs.
Now I love running, and I can’t imagine my life without it.
Thank you for reading!
Happy Holidays!!
Tiffany Kent
Your Friendly Wealth Engagement Guide
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