Forests of Connection

Constant learning allows you to release your identity from a specific problem. To solve problems, and move on. It requires mapping your ignorance. Developing the capacity to change your skills and knowledge as the problems demanding focus change. Developing the capacity to step back and have a broad picture of how your skills and knowledge fit into the wider environment. 

Understanding that they aren’t who you are, but are part of a bigger, complex, organism. Your own learning needs to connect to others, and requires communication, to convey your ideas, to listen, and to take on new knowledge. Letting knowledge that is no longer serving you disappear. Rather than being defined by the specific thing you are learning, building the tools to take information in, process it, and make decisions. 

Not purely in a rational way, also developing the emotional capacity for environments that change. Being a decision maker requires real interaction with the world, practically and pragmatically. 

Active Career Management, means looking beyond your line manager or company for performance reviews. Mapping out your own path. How are you connected to your broader profession? 

You could end up working for the company that is now your competitor. You could become the client of your current company. Your employer could become your client. 

I enjoy going to Actuarial Conventions even though most of the presentations are painful, mostly because of the people and seeing their movement around the underlying companies. Even though I may be lost in talks about paths I haven’t followed, only partially recognising some of the symbols from university, I still connect to the names and faces. 

Being attached to that wider community releases some of the pressure of performing within a specific box. Your specific job in a specific company can wind you up. Perspective is helpful.

Forests of Connection