We are officially halfway through 2017, and most of us are having heart palpitations that the year will be done before we know it. This is a milestone month for us, ten years publishing PakMag, and I am so proud of our achievements to date. I’ve been reflecting a lot, and someone asked me what the biggest lesson is that I have learnt. I can tell you there are a lot. But the biggest lesson I have learnt is that we always need to be learning, or we are dying. Sounds pretty harsh, but it is true.
The thing is, we all have problems, we all make mistakes, we all have things happen to us that shouldn’t, and we all have learning opportunities around us every single day. But we have to choose whether we learn and become better people every single day. Sure there are things we learn that can drag us down, and we feel anger, self pity, resentment, regret and a heap of other emotions that make us not want to be in our own skin. Not to mention no one else wants to be around us either unless they are feeling the same way. And, we can learn things that make us better people, more knowledgeable, wiser and proud to be in our skin. And you know what, more people want to be around people like that.
I am no saint, and like you I’ve had moments of feeling like I’ve had more kicks than a soccer ball. And you wonder why the hell you are on the field and beg that the next kick is going to push you into the direction you want to go and into the goals. But this is the wrong way to think. Yes, I am all about trying to get into the goals, and live a life that I am working hard to achieve, but learning to play the game rather than sitting on the sidelines is actually the most important thing of all.
These days there are opportunities to learn everywhere, but so many of us are too busy getting through our day that we aren’t even thinking about learning. People often ask me how I have achieved so much, and I can honestly tell you, it is from my commitment to learning. Learning about myself, learning about others, learning to be a better parent, learning to be a better cook, learning to be a better business owner, and learning to get back on the soccer field even when I don’t think I can win. These are a few of the things I push myself to consciously learn every single day. I look for learning all day and I am obsessed with learning whether it be through reading books, listening to experts on a TED talk or watching my two boys discover their world. So many of us do not make learning a conscious part of our every day, and it’s really easy to fix. Ask yourself many times a day, “What did I just learn?”.
My commitment to my magazine PakMag is to help you as a parent learn more, that is why we exist and we have a lot of exciting plans for the future, and as a business we have to constantly be learning too. And, we want to learn from you, we want to get to know you better, and we want to empower you to raise incredible kids.
I hope you join me on my addicted-to-learning journey.
