Does Experience Make You Wise?

Hey, what's up, everyone?

I want to take the opportunity to share from my experiences in leading people.

I've been in the game a long time. 20+ years pastoring, 30+ years in various leadership positions, so I know enough, I believe, to kind of help someone because I've made a few mistakes.

We hear the word wisdom tossed around a lot because people think just because I have experience means that I have wisdom, and that's not necessarily true because the only way you get experience is by making a lot of bad decisions. Experience is not necessarily the end goal to wisdom. It's evaluated experience that makes you wise.

Think about that. "Evaluated experience is what makes you wise", according to Andy Stanley. Why? If you never take time to evaluate the bad decision, then how can you take that knowledge into tomorrow?

So by me being able to evaluate the bad decision sets me up to make even greater decisions, and my prayer is that we find or rather help people look at the bad decision, evaluate it in its entirety, and then use that evaluation to springboard them into making better decisions.

Now, here's the thing. Why am I sharing this? I'm sharing this because any time you endeavor to become a leader, any time you make a decision to own your own business, a decision to lead others down the path of greatness, think about this.

You're going to have to make some tough calls, and if you haven't had enough evaluated experience, then you're going to continue to repeat the history. Think about it. If you don't have enough evaluated experience, you'll continue to repeat history. And that's why yesterday looks the same as today.

So go out there, make some decisions. Make evaluations, and then come back and evaluate that decision so that you can set yourself up for a better tomorrow.