Everyone has something to teach, everyone has something to learn

Everyone we meet in our lives, has something to teach us if we are receptive towards learning. Our growth as human beings doesn't merely depend on what we do and how we carve our thoughts and actions, but also on what we learn from others around us. Provided however, we have the quest to learn and grow. 

Right from the day we are born, we learn from others. We learn basic life skills from our parents, our first and lifelong teachers. We learn basic education from our school teachers. We learn what sharing and caring is from our family and friends. Learning process from others continues even as we step into adulthood. We meet people, build connections, find mentors and learn from them. Their attitude, responses, thoughts, and experiences play a vital role in our perception towards our goals and life.

"Experience is a master teacher, even when it's not our own."

 - Gina Greenlee

Here's how we can learn from others:

1. Communication, collaboration and connection: Communication is our basic need as human beings. It's the communication we have in our daily lives that gets us through and truly defines us. To survive and thrive in a society, it's absolutely necessary to communicate. 

"The way we communicate with others and with ourselves ultimately determines the quality of our lives."

 -Anthony Robbins

2. Building meaningful relationships: Perhaps the best way we can learn from others is by making efforts and investing in meaningful relationships. Finding the right people who will support you and help you achieve your goals is of prime importance. It's these bonds that we nurture that help in our growth.

"Our greatness comes when we appreciate each other's strengths, when we learn from each other, when we lean on each other."

 - Michelle Obama

3. Indirect learning: By observing how people around you respond to certain circumstances, the books they read, the things they think even the food they eat. 

"Everyone you meet knows something you don't know but need to know, learn from them."

Here's how learning from others can help us:

1. Understand perspectives: There can be several approaches to how we deal with things in our lives. Communicating and observing others can help us understand them, and perhaps give us better choices. 

"The best ideas emerge when very different perspectives meet."

 - Frans Johansson

2. Identifying our strengths and weaknesses: Our communication with others helps us better understand the areas we need to work on so that we can improve ourselves and add value to others.

 "Strengths and weaknesses are the main elements of our characters. While it's dumb to think you are fault free, it's also harmful to see yourself worthless."

 - Asma Dokmak

3. Learning from mistakes: None of us are here forever, and we may not live long enough to make all the mistakes and learn from them. So we must learn from others' experiences and deal with failure. Success is not guaranteed, but neither is failure.

"Learning by making mistakes and not duplicating them is what life is about."

 - Lindsay Fox

4. Developing skills: Perhaps that's the primary role teachers play in our lives. From learning to read and write in our early childhood years, to fundamentals we need to learn and understand, and the skills we need to acquire to shape our career, we need people. 

"No one lives long enough to learn everything they need to learn from scratch. To be successful, we absolutely, positively have to find people who have paid the price to learn the things we need to learn to achieve our goals."

 - Brian Tracy

Learning is incessant. We can learn from everything and everyone if we have that will. Being a teacher, I learn everyday, not only to teach, but also to grow. And maybe create an impact.

A few quotes that I truly believe in:

"The best thing about being a teacher is that it matters. The hardest thing about being a teacher is that it matters everyday."

 - Todd Whitaker

"Your work is not to drag the world kicking and screaming into a new awareness. Your job is to simply do your work… sacredly, secretly, silently … and those with 'eyes to see and ears to hear’ will respond."

–The Arturians