Learning From History (AKA You Aren’t Special)

As humans, we inherently believe that we are special. 

And that means that we think we are living in an entirely different world than our parents and grandparents and great grandparents experienced. So, we assume that the lessons the older generations learned aren’t applicable anymore. 

We’re wrong. 

It took me a long time to realize that I’m not special -- I’m not all that different -- and that most of the lessons I’ve had to learn are the same ones that my parents learned and everyone else had to learn throughout history. 

And if we don’t learn from those who came before us, we’re doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over again. 

So here are three things I do to keep myself in check and learn from others: 

1. Set physical and mental guardrails: There are things I do frequently -- like creating presentations -- and every time I have to remind myself to go back and learn from the patterns that have worked before. So, I set guardrails for myself. I put a book that I rely on for storytelling as one of the only things on my desk. And every time I go to start a presentation, I make myself open that book so that it becomes muscle memory. If you have read The Checklist Manifesto, you know that it’s not just the idea of having a checklist -- but it’s the location of the checklist that matters.
2. Get feedback early and often: I like to say that every idea we have is wrong. And that could mean an idea is 1% wrong or 100% wrong -- but our job is to figure out how wrong we are, develop a feedback loop and iterate accordingly. Committing to a feedback loop also ensures that I’m not just sitting around by myself, believing I’m special, developing perfect ideas. At Drift, we try to get that feedback early and often by sharing our work -- not just when it’s done, but when it’s in progress, as well. So if someone is working on a new idea, they’ll share it in a Slack channel and people can comment and give feedback in real-time. 
3. Be a curious learning machine: I always talk about this. But at Drift we’ve tried to create a culture in which we are all learning machines, and we reinforce this by having  guest speakers come and talk to us, and through our internal book club. The idea is that listening to others and reading books -- even those that have nothing to do with the domain that you’re in -- continues to show you that you aren’t special and that you can and should learn from history. And as you read and learn from others, you can start to recognize patterns of how and where things -- like the thing you’re trying to tackle -- have been tackled before.

How do you set guardrails to ensure you’re learning from history and not repeating mistakes? 

-DC

P.S. If you want to hear more about this tune in to the latest episode of Seeking Wisdom.