Learning From Small Examples...

Once upon a time someone asked Sachin Tendulkar, what’s a difference between a good player and a great player. He replied, a player who has got all the strokes in his armory is a good player. A great player is the one who has all the strokes in his armory, but along with that he also knows when and where to use them.

That brings in light, an instance from Sachin’s career, where the Pakistani cricket bowlers started to place a fielder on off side and use to bowl short pitch ball to him outside off stump. Square cut from Sachin used to be in air, and the extra fielder on the off side use to come into play.

This way they used to plot his dismissal. Hence when Sachin played a fresh series against Pakistan, he played the entire series, without playing the square cut and did exceedingly well. Similar anecdote can be recalled for Virat Kohli when he played the series against England.

English bowlers planned his dismissal in overcast conditions. But same player when went there for the second time, he abstained from playing his favorite cover drive and hence scored lots of runs. In both cases player knew not only the strokes, but also their usage, and this made them stand tall as great players.

If we go a little bit deep into it, we will observe a very strong learning from these examples. The learning of knowledge vs wisdom. Just because someone knows something, does not makes him wise or worthy of using it.

Everyone who drives a car knows everything about the ABC of driving, that is the accelerator, brake and clutch, but still, we almost sleep while some one drives and we sit alert with eyes wide open with others. So knowing in a way is having information and registering that information into our subconscious.

So this information is there in the subconscious with certain other information. Basically it becomes a storehouse of information. Then our intellect processes that information and it spits that information depending upon who you want to entertain or serve. That is called knowing.

Wisdom is about acquiring the knowledge and then applying that knowledge in a timely way, or you can say a timely application of knowledge. So we should understand as to how do we take the knowledge and apply that into right time so that it creates a difference in my life. Let’s understand this with an example. I my workshops I often explain DISC analysis.

This about predominant human behaviors, where the human behavior on the basis of its response is divided into 4 different categories, namely Dominant, Influencer, Steady and compliant. Most of my participants get this knowledge by the end of the workshop. But one gentleman prepares himself before his next client meeting.

In his conscious behavior he analyzes his client, writes his behavior traits, and prepares himself accordingly. He might make a few mistakes at the start or in a few interactions, but he learns from every interaction and after some experience he becomes the master of the skill. He transcends the journey from knowledge to wisdom.

His confidence, clarity, experience and skill makes him wise. He moves from good to become great...and explores new possibilities....So friends all the best. Who the hell stops you, don’t just be good, start your journey to greatness......

(The author is a Lucknow-based leadership coach, corporate trainer and an Internationally certified Design Thinking Master practitioner.)