Possibly the Most Important Question You Can Ask

“Most people, including ourselves, live in a world of relative ignorance. We are even comfortable with that ignorance, because it is all we know. When we first start facing truth, the process may be frightening, and many people run back to their old lives. But if you continue to seek truth, you will eventually be able to handle it better. In fact, you want more! It's true that many people around you now may think you are weird or even a danger to society, but you don't care. Once you've tasted the truth, you won't ever want to go back to being ignorant”
- Socrates

Let's be teachable, let's be curious, let's seek wisdom and truth and be open to allowing our own ignorance to be known.

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Transcript

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Welcome back to another extraordinary week. This is Julie, and thanks for joining in. I'm glad you're here today listening, and I hope that you will take some time to let me know what this podcast means to you. Maybe some takeaways. I'd love to hear it. Uh, you could do that through reviews or just scroll down to the notes below this podcast. Podcasts, wherever you're getting it. And there are lots of ways to connect. Uh, if you get on my email list, I will send you the content along with any worksheets and these episodes will come right to your inbox. So that's a really great way for us to connect as well, but I'd love to hear from you what you're creating and how you're showing up, what it means for you to default to yes, to your extraordinary self. I had an opportunity to, we got to spend some time yesterday with some really good friends of ours from, oh, 26 or more years ago when we started a church in La Crosse, Wisconsin. And that experience bonded us to a group of people that are still my favorite humans on the face of the planet. And for so many reasons, and they all are still out there just showing up, defaulting to their extraordinary selves, making a difference in the world, uh, in the way that only they can. And I just. I just loved getting to spend time with them. Yesterday, we walked around Nashville and, Centennial Park and talked and got to enjoy a meal together. And I just, again, really enjoyed it. Well, I didn't have a topic planned, necessarily, for it. And so as I often do, I asked my friends, what should I talk about today? And, uh, the topic of teachability, came up. So I said I would talk about teachability on that little bit of a challenge. And it's not too much of a stretch for me. I have talked about it before. We talk about growth mindset, we talk about staying curious. And so it's kind of a theme of personal growth. If you're going to grow and you're going to summon the best version of yourself, being teachable is crucial. So my question is, are you teachable? It's one of the. most important question that we can ask ourselves is, are we staying teachable? what we were talking about over lunch, my friend, Neil, shared a quote about how important it is for us to be willing to let our ignorance show. And that is what will lead us to wisdom. This led me to do some research about, first of all, the growth mindset and dive into that a little bit, but it led me to the Socrates quote and And then from there, just I kind of went down a rabbit hole of all of this. I'm going to read to you the quote, and then I'm going to pick it apart a little bit and how it might apply to us and how we can use it to really make sure that we are showing up in the world in the way we want to, that we're training our brains to stay curious and to stay in that. Teachable mode. Okay. The Socrates quote, it's kind of long. So just bear with me here. he says, most people, including ourselves live in a world of relative ignorance. We are even comfortable with that ignorance because it's all we know. When we first start facing truth, the process may be frightening and many people run back to their old lives. But if you continue to seek truth, you will eventually be able to handle it better. In fact, you want more. It's true that many people around you may think you are weird or even a danger to society, but you don't care once you've tasted the truth, you won't ever want to go back to being ignorant. And if you know the story of Socrates, you know that this was a hill that he was willing to die on and literally did. So I'm going to pick apart a lot of that, um, First of all, Socrates observed that the awareness of ignorance is the beginning of wisdom. And this is really the topic of conversation. one of the many topics of conversation or things that came up about the willingness to let our ignorance be shown and how maybe difficult that is for a lot of people to be teachable is to face that uncomfortable truth that we don't. No, it's a process that we might feel a little, uh, fear around at first, but ultimately, like Socrates is saying that it will transform us into wiser and more capable individuals. I, a lot of times we'll talk to my clients about doubt and self doubt and to lean into that. when we talk about issues of faith, doubt is something that we need to embrace because doubt will always lead us to truth. And this. Ignorance and being able to bring it to the light is what is going to make us also be able to embrace truth. So teachability is defined as the willingness to learn, grow, and embrace feedback. So it may be one of the most crucial qualities for navigating life's complexities. And being Like I said, showing up in the world in the way we really want to, but what does it really mean to be teachable? Why does it matter? And what are the consequences of ignoring this really crucial trait? You might be thinking this is a no brainer, especially if you're here, you're somebody who probably embraces personal growth as a lifestyle, but we're going to talk through it because it has some cultural implications as well. Teachability begins with humility. Socrates also famously declared, I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance and this humility is really the cornerstone of being teachable admitting that we don't have all the answers opens the door to growth while refusing to acknowledge our limitations will lock us into stagnation and we see this a lot in I would say, um, it's really obvious on the political landscape. I have been trying to learn, things get said, and I want to understand why people feel one way or the other. So I look into it. And then some of the people, some of my friends, I will ask them, because they, because they They seem to come down solidly on one side of the argument, and then I find out that they don't really know and don't want to say that they don't know. And I think that's too bad, because we could have a really good conversation. If we could both just acknowledge that we don't know that there is a lot that we don't know Dr. Carol Dweck's research on growth mindset really underscores this. Principle people with a growth mindset believe that their abilities can be developed through dedication and effort, and they embrace challenges and view feedback as opportunities to learn, and they persist through setbacks. So those are the things that we have, we need to look at. Do those things, does that describe you? do you believe that your abilities can be developed through the dedicate dedication and effort? Or do you think that you're just done learning? Do you embrace challenges? Do you get feedback and then turn that into an opportunity to learn? Or do you resist it and blow it off and say, you don't need to hear this from this person? Do you persist through setbacks or do you give up on your dreams all of that is in a fixed mindset because a fixed mindset avoids feedback because of fear and that it will be able to expose ignorance and that just reinforces Socrates assertion that admitting One's ignorance is the first step in acquiring knowledge I'm not a philosopher here, so I'm not an expert on Socrates. So if you are, I bet you could bring a lot to this conversation. I also like to bring in some psychology. Uh, some neuroscience, because I think that really gives us a really well rounded, uh, jumping off point for this conversation. Now, from a neuroscience perspective, we know that the brain's neuroplasticity, that ability to form neuro connections, thrives on curiosity. And openness, right? So on the other hand, growth is stunted. When we cling to this ignorance, as Socrates warned, there are two kinds of disease of the soul, vice and ignorance. Now, teachability doesn't just transform individuals. So that's, it's not just about us. It has profound implications for culture. As I suggested earlier, leaders who model humility and openness, They're the ones that who can create environments where innovation and collaboration, environments where we like to exist. We like to relate to others. We like to work. According to research published in the Harvard Business Review, organizations with learning cultures outperform their peers in creativity, adaptability, and employee engagement, and that is something, if you are a leader, you're leading a team, really. Spend some time evaluating the culture that you've created or are creating, and how can you make this kind of environment happen? Socrates reminds us that the dangers of unchecked ignorance to believe without evidence and demonstration is an act of ignorance and folly. I find that a lot of times we are believing things just because we saw them on social media or somebody told us and we don't do our own homework and we don't really think about, is this aligned with my values? Is this something that I believe? And where's the evidence for this, this thing? Train of thought, or is there, do I know that this event is true? I've had friends, I've sat across from the table from friends that have told me a story about our culture or things that are happening in our culture as if they're fact. And you go to check them and it's widely known that they, this is all made up. And then, We have to acknowledge that while AI is a factor, sometimes it's hard to tell on social media, what is true and what is not. So we need to be teachable. We need to stay open. And organizations that are resistant to feedback, This manifests as. micromanagement, fear of failure, and there's cultures where employees feel undervalued and unheard, and over time, this just erodes trust. It stifles innovation. It drives away top talent. I believe that this is the leading cause of, of burnout if you're working hard at something, especially if something you care about, and you're invested in to not feel valued and not feel heard, at least on the level to influence your own practice is very, um, very discouraging. It's very emotionally hard to work in environments like that. So on a societal level, teachability promotes that inclusivity, the progress, the innovation, the belief. Sense of belonging, communities that are willing to learn from diverse perspectives also can tackle those complex challenges more effectively. As we met with our friends and we're talking about the past and reminiscing about our experience in church planting, we really started to think about all of the diverse, Uh, people that came together and are still together and connected in some way and staying in touch and valuing each other a year, all these years later, and created something that was sustainable together. And I would say we all look back on that time very fondly, that it was just powerful. To the point where some of us have had a hard time even finding communities like that, and finding churches that, that operate that way. And I think a lot of it was because we allowed different perspectives to come in. We didn't pretend like we knew what we were doing. We were just trusting God in the process and entertaining all of the different perspectives. And I think about that, the projects we talked about that too. We talked about some of the projects we took on and the diverse perspectives and, uh, the experiences. The life experience that people brought to the group, we had, people from different belief systems, people from different age groups, just all over the place. We just started to marvel at how God would bring this group of people together and what held us together. And it was that common vision and that willingness to be teachable and open and vulnerable to let our ignorance go. And to just follow that journey and go on that journey together, work it out, create the culture that we really wanted. and there were some tense moments. There were some things that came out of that, that I still look back. And I think that was probably not anything I needed to really resist on. But. Again, it was, it's, that's what happens when you stay teachable and you're open to just letting your ignorance be known. You're gonna be wrong sometimes and that's okay. The really powerful community, really powerful things come out of that Way of living, it leads us to wisdom and truth and to live and to walk in that. And isn't that what we really all want? We want that powerful experience of life. We want open communication. We want relationships that feel safe and feel loving. And we want that grace and peace and to be able to walk freely in the direction of gaining the wisdom and insight and understanding the world that we move about in. so all of this comes back to societies or environments or groups, or even people that resist learning are prone to stagnation, polarization, and decline. And I'm going to suggest that this is a lot, down to root cause problems. We really just need to have good discourse. When we first start confronting our ignorance, the process can be really unsettling. When you don't know something and you wade into something because you thought you knew, and then all of a sudden you realize, I don't really have anything to back up, back this up. It can be really uncomfortable. Well, as Socrates observed, when we first start facing truth, the process may be frightening and many people run back to their old lives. Let's not do that. Let's not run away from it. Change requires courage And a lot of times it involves unlearning deeply held beliefs and stepping into the unknown and being open to see that what we believed really wasn't true. and then as Socrates reassures us, if you continue to seek truth, you will eventually be able to handle it better. In fact, you want. More, and I can attest to that. The more I'm open to my own curiosity, the more I learn, and the more curious I get, and that might be really annoying to some of the people around me, I know that I can't help it and I value it as well. So I'm probably not going to back off. I'm going to learn how to manage that. But teachability transforms fear. Into curiosity and ignorance into understanding. And there are a lot of things that I hold ignorance on that I want better understanding on. And so I love it when I have those friends that I can have this conversations with. Once we experience the growth that comes from being teachable, we just really don't want to return to the comfort of ignorance and it's boring. So, the consequences of being unteachable, I think, are clear. Stalled growth. Socrates said, The bad one is that way because of ignorance. Therefore, he can be healed with wisdom. I think that's a pretty hopeful statement, that a lot of times I need to be open to that there are people that are just stuck with some outdated mindsets and struggle to adapt to new challenges. I think that has happened a lot in our culture, where we Get into groupthink, and maybe we've grown up with a certain, believing a certain way, and maybe it's time to open up and see where did that originate from? And, Am I continuing to learn in this or am I stuck? So that's something that we always have to evaluate ourselves. Another consequence is toxic relationships. Teachability is vital for emotional intelligence, for one. and that is foundational to healthy relationships. because those who reject feedback a lot of times alienate others, creating those barriers to trust and to collaboration. I know that I'm less likely to talk to somebody who just declares that they don't want to learn anything or that they say, I just don't care or I don't. And those are the people that I just I lose interest in talking to them about it, because where are we going to go with that anyway? And it just creates that barrier, right? So another thing is cultural decline, and I feel like we're experiencing that in a big way right now at the organizational level, the societal level, that absence of teach teachability just leads to stagnation. It leads to hostility. It leads to division. As Socrates cautioned, the true wisdom is in recognizing our own inability. ignorance. And that is not a fun thing to think about. That is not something that any of us want to do. None of us want to broadcast our ignorance and we're not very tolerant of others when they express their ignorance. We, we are, as a culture, aren't very good at letting people express their ignorance in public and then come back from that. but without this progress halts and the cost of inaction compounds over time and pretty soon, we're just getting soundbites and for us to come down on the right side of things for us to unite around common ground, even now becoming teachable requires intentional effort. Like I said, it might be preaching to the choir here, because if you are on this podcast listening, and especially if you're still listening, here's somebody who cares about personal growth and are probably already open and teachable either that, or you're getting really ticked off of me right now. And you're wondering who do you think you are, um, but here are practical ways to develop this critical trait. And this might be something that is leaders. Even if you have this, you feel like you're very teachable, uh, personally, and maybe you're trying to lead a group of people, So these might be things that you can take into your group of friends or your family or your, uh, the group that you're leading in some way to begin to really build into this. that environment and create that culture. First of all, practicing humility, acknowledging that you don't know and approach life with curiosity. As Socrates advised, I must first know myself as the Delphinian inscription says, to be curious about that, which is not my concern, while I am still in ignorance of my own self would be ridiculous. And does this not go to people who, who like during the pandemic suddenly became medical research experts and during the war became, expert war strategists and foreign policy experts. We have to be able to acknowledge what we don't know and approach with curiosity. I think that would help our conversations a lot if we could just get curious and, and be okay with, we're not an expert on everything. The other thing is to seek feedback. This is probably one of the first where you could start, actually, is just actively invite input from others and then view critiques as opportunities for growth. You might have to set the intention when you go into meetings with people Saying that out loud to yourself, maybe as you go into a meeting, tap the doorframe and remind yourself that you are open and curious and that critique is opportunity for growth and that input from others is valuable. All right. Adopting that growth mindset, of course, embracing the challenges is viewing failures as stepping stones to success and then investing in learning. Continuously seek knowledge through books and courses and mentorship and experiences. I have one friend that probably we leave every conversation with, with I'm going to probably end up watching a couple different TED Talks or a couple different YouTube, um, things that she's read, or I'm going to be ordering a book that she's reading. And I, I do, I love that. And that was how, like, anytime you leave a conversation and you're all with a, with Wanting a new book or ready to look something up or watch a movie that you never wasn't even on your radar screen before that's a good, that's a good sign. So continuously seeking knowledge through the books, through books and courses and mentorship and experiences and make sure and make sure you, and then sharing that with others, not, not just regurgitating that this is how you feel now, but saying, I learned this from so and so. What do you think? That's a good way to, really cultivate that culture of curiosity and teachability in your friendships, in your family, in your workplaces. Ultimately, being teachable is about recognizing that our journey towards wisdom begins with humility. Socrates reminds us that once you've tasted the truth, you won't ever want to go back to being ignorant, but the truth doesn't always come on the path of least resistance. we have to cultivate it. we have to open the door for truth. We have to lean into our ignorance and to our doubts to lead us there. By cultivating teachability, we not only enrich our own lives, but we also contribute to a culture of growth and innovation and progress. So ask yourself today, are you teachable? The answer may be the key to unlocking your fullest potential. Ask yourself, are you creating that teachable environment in the groups that you lead? As you mentor others, as you make that contribution and show up in the world in the way you really want to, are you promoting that teachability? Are you opening the door for others to feel safe, to let their ignorance be known, to be open and curious with you? So those are good questions to ask ourselves this week I hope you will show your share this episode and get this conversation started in your community and ask yourself those questions and start to see what relationships need a little bit of cultivating as far as creating that openness and those safe spaces for letting that letting the ignorance be known, getting vulnerable to all to just be truth seekers and get curious and lean into that with grace and peace as you go out every day and default to yes, your extraordinary self.