The head barista who teaches you latte art isn’t giving away an edge. Good mentors want to be outgrown.
LEADERSHIP
WHAT THIS MEANS
Knowledge is not a fixed quantity that shrinks when it gets shared. Somebody secure in their own ability can teach you everything they know without feeling smaller, because their worth never rested on being the only one who could do it. The opposite behaviour, hoarding small techniques, tends to signal insecurity rather than value. Being outgrown is the point of teaching rather than the risk of it.
Notice which people around you share what they know and which guard it. Learn from the first group and do not take the second personally. Then pass something on yourself, especially a trick you feel protective of.
A QUESTION TO SIT WITH
Have you held back teaching someone because they might surpass you?
MORE IN AMBITION, SUCCESS & LEGACY
- Many top orchestras audition players behind a screen. When it really counts, the work has to speak without your face.
- The dancer who learns everyone’s part, not just her own, is the one who gets asked to run rehearsal.
- Being busy and building something look the same from the outside. Only one of them has a direction.
Free, with nothing to buy inside it.