How to learn from other people’s experiences

This post and this subject has been on my mind for a while now. Learning from everyone around me — from my teammate to my competitor to the random person I bumped into in the coffee shop this morning — is something I find increasingly valuable.

And, as hearts, minds, and anxiety disorders have flared over politics throughout the past few weeks, it feels like an even more important topic to discuss.

I’m an entrepreneur with a media company and my company’s product is stories. Accordingly, I spend a lot of time sitting down, talking with people and learning their stories. I’ve definitely discovered that the way that I learn about the world is by listening to (or reading) how other people experience it.

I’ve learned how to be an entrepreneur through the stories of mentors’ successes and failures. I’ve learned how to run my company through conversations with small business owners about how they work and by listening to how a former boss learned how to be a good manager. And I learned how to be a teammate by reading about examples of successful teams.

Like many of you, I’ve been a bit of a mess in the weeks since the U.S. election. I realized in the moment the election results came out that there was a lot of topics that I didn’t understand. So I did what I always do when I don’t understand something: I drove to my favorite used bookstore and stared at the shelves for hours. At the end of the day, I had a stack of 20 books that I somehow managed to whittle down to just two to buy because ya girl has limited funds.

When I got home with my two books. I felt overwhelmed by the task I’d assigned myself: understand the world and then go make it better.

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But in the days since, I’ve found time to have hard conversations and read new perspectives and I’m reinvigorated by how much I’ve already learned. And come highwater, business struggles or political turmoil, I’m going to keep talking and reading and learning. I hope you will too.

Here are three of my favorite ways I convince people to tell me their stories and teach me about the world:

1 . Express genuine interest in the point’s of view of others

Any conversation that you’re going to really learn from has to be substantive. Which means both sides are going to have to push past niceties and initial judgments and open up. There’s a book that’s well known and oft-referenced in the business community called How to Win Friends and Influence People. In his book, Dale Carnegie writes, “You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.”

And while being interested in the person you’re talking to is a valuable technique for getting them to share their experiences and lessons with you, interest also helps you learn. In a paper called The Psychology of Curiosity, a Carnegie Mellon professor wrote that curiosity (or the feeling that you’re being deprived of knowledge) is a major motivator in learning. Which makes sense, right? If you’re having a conversation with someone but you’re focused on something that’s going on outside the window, you’re not going to learn. But if you’re giving your full and genuine interest to that person, you do learn.

2. Conversations are way better than interrogations

My favorite learning sessions are reciprocal. It can be a weird thing for the journalist in me to sit down for an interview and have it be a two-way conversation. In so many ways, my training tells me to keep my mouth closed and maintain a professional, one-way conversation. But when you’re really trying to learn from someone, you have to be able to give something in return.

I remember sitting in my fifth grade classroom and my teacher telling us that when we’re talking to someone we should make sure to regularly nod, keep eye contact, say ‘mhmm,’ and jump in with questions when we needed clarification. Those little tricks work as well in my life now as they did when I was a kid.

I’ve also found that it’s helpful to be as prepared for the conversation as possible. So if it’s a conversation that’s been set up in advance, do your reading. Learn as much about the person as you can. If you’re trying to learn business lessons from them, study up on the industry they work in. That way when you’re talking you can say, “Oh yeah that reminds me of X” or “Right which seems kind of like Y.”

If you want an example of someone who is really good at conversations, listen to the radio show On Being and pay close attention to the host. I think she’s an absolute genius, and I’m constantly using her techniques to guide my own conversations.

4. When they teach you a lesson, ask them to back it up

Occasionally you meet people who seem as wise as Grandmother Willow and who speak in life-lesson soundbites. If you’re trying to keep a log of perfect quotes then this person is your best friend. If you’re trying to learn from their life, then you want to get them to tell you a story, not a quote.

Studies have shown that the human brain loves a good story. A Harvard neurologist discovered that when humans tell each other stories, their brains release a chemical called oxytocin. Oxytocin, he wrote, tells our brains that “it’s safe to approach others” and it motivates cooperation with others.

So if you’re having trouble getting to the story-sharing part of your conversation, try asking more open questions. And then when they give you information, dig into it. Ask, “How did you learn that? What was your experience? What did you read?”

In my experience, it’s way more powerful to learn how someone else learned a lesson than to have them just flat-out tell you their takeaway.

I’m a founder of Driven Media, a roving girl-power newsroom. At 23 years old, I’m helping create the kind of media that young women want. I both create content for and…

I’m a founder of Driven Media, a roving girl-power newsroom. At 23 years old, I’m helping create the kind of media that young women want. I both create content for and manage the finances of Driven. As a writer, I use storytelling to make sense of the world. I graduated from the University of North Carolina in 2015 with degrees in journalism and Arab culture. I love new media startups, traveling and studying the Arab world, reading Joan Didion, watching Carolina Basketball and drinking tea.

And worth living.

Biographies, autobiographies, memoirs: they’re all windows into other people’s lives (though some windows are less clear than others). These books can help you read between the lines in real life.

Highlights are only half the story.

Listen for the narrative, not just the headlines.

Wikipedia lists someone’s main accomplishments, but not the difficulties, circumstances, and setbacks that made those highlights possible.

Family matters.

Listen to people, not press releases.

The way the world at-large describes a person and the ways their loved-ones describe them are never, ever the same, and the loved-ones are always more genuine and steady with their assessments.

Separate the story form the telling of it.

Listen closely to hear truth through the spin.

A gifted writer can make their readers feel empathy for even the strangest of characters, and a weak writer can convince you that great heroes are boring.

Time mellows everybody.

Listen for patience but try to ignore impulsively said words.

The longer the lifetime, the more reflective the character gets toward the end of it, and the more context their behavior gets, thanks to history.

Hindsight makes history feel inevitable.

Listen for gratitude in stories of success.

Most amazing stories were undertaken with far more hope than certainty. And because success is a better story than failure, most failed ambitions are only described as obstacles on the way to victory.

Genuine honesty is rare and refreshing.

Listen for humility and applaud it; it’s a sign of overall thoughtfulness.

Memoirs are far less critical of their subjects than biographies. The rare autobiography that’s not easy on the subject is better than the ones that aren’t.

I’m the artist behind the books: The Hustle Economy, The Art of War Visualized, How to be Interesting, and the blog Indexed. I draw charts and graphs that illustrate…

I’m the artist behind the books: The Hustle Economy, The Art of War Visualized, How to be Interesting, and the blog Indexed. I draw charts and graphs that illustrate everything from abstract philosophical concepts to concrete advertising campaigns. My work has been translated into more than a dozen languages and has been showcased in many major publications, from The New York Times to The Harvard Business Review.

Humans are better than any other animals at learning from one another. Take advantage of this superpower and learn from as many people as you can. At least, learn the good things and not the bad stuff.

by Michael Milone, Ph.D.
Educational Consultant, Research Psychologist, and Writer

Last Updated: May 3, 2016

Humans are better than any other animals at learning from one another. Take advantage of this superpower and learn from as many people as you can. At least, learn the good things and not the bad stuff.

You can learn from others both directly and indirectly.

Direct learning takes place when you ask people how they do something, listen to their answer, and try to imitate what they did. A good example is asking friends how they are going to find the time to do all the reading for a literature assignment.

Indirect learning is when you observe someone doing something and imitate the procedure the person follows. Suppose you notice that a friend doesn’t eat in the cafeteria, but instead brings lunch to a quiet spot and eats while studying. The friend is always on time for the next class. This seems like a good strategy, so you imitate it. By doing this, you have to give up some social time with friends in the cafeteria, but you think it is a reasonable swap.

When learning from others, you have to be sure to evaluate the effectiveness of what you have learned. Not everyone is successful with the same strategies. The evaluation should take place in two phases. In phase one, you determine the likelihood of the strategy working with you. If you think it may work, then try it. Be sure to follow through with the second phase of the evaluation, determine how successful the strategy was after you have completed it.

A surprising number of people are reluctant to learn from others. They feel it is somehow demeaning, especially in academic areas or life skills. Nothing could be further from the truth. All of us try to imitate the techniques of skilled athletes, business people, scientists, and such. There is no reason why we should feel any different about people we consider our peers. If someone is doing something effective, don’t hesitate to try it out.

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Learning from experiences is one of the ways in which we decide to cultivate more of what we like about ourselves as opposed to just randomly accepting every way in which we react.

Your habits, priorities, ways in which you interact with people and work that you love, even how your perception is being shaped… All of this partially came from learning from your experiences. We are sum of our experiences, hence they are priceless. What you and I are today is due to what we have experienced and how we decided to label that.

If nurtured, this process of learning from your experience can either promulgate progress by repeating what you liked in the past, or simply never bring the good stuff back again.

Always dedicate some time just for thinking

If you ask Robin Sharma, one of the best motivational speakers and book authors in the world, about what he thinks constitutes the secrets of success, he will mention, among other things, dedicating some time for yourself where you can just escape the clutter, sit down and think.

What this does he says, and I cannot agree more, is being able to prioritize about your goals, realize your potential, evaluate your experiences. And there it is- evaluating your experiences.

That’s how we learn about what we want from life; about what it is that makes us enjoy it even more; what pushes us more and more towards success and improvement. And learning from your experiences means taking all of that and bringing it back into your life.

Bring back the things that make you improve

You will discover that you will be amazed with the way you handled something the week before. The way in which you communicated with someone; the way you made yourself go and finish the workout; get up early; stick to a rigid diet and work schedule…

You will surprise yourself about how much there is to your potential and greatness just by reminiscing.

And once you find out exactly that, there is no turning back. You will want more of it. We all do.

When I remind myself about how I applied discipline one week before, I cannot but not try the same thing again. Couple of days ago, I worked for probably more than 6 hours straight on building a website for a client. And just thinking about it, I feel the urge to do the same thing again today.

Same goes with my diet, fitness, social life, myriad of things that I enjoy.

I find what it was that made me tick and just hold on that and try to bring it back.

Learn from your experiences but try learning from others as well

Listening to a video of Scott Dinsmore giving a TED talk, I learned a great way in which we can improve our life and what we experience.

It is rather simple really. You just take this concept of learning from your experiences and try to broaden it a little bit.

I extrapolated three ways that can guide you through this process more easily.

• First, you need to find couple of people who you admire for some reason.
• Then you take a notebook and write down what it is that you like about them. Their discipline, their passion, their dedication, how they talk to people, how they dress, their idea about leisure and enjoying spare time… Whatever it is that you like. Not the person as a whole, but specific part of his behavior which you like to mimic.
• And finally, you take the notebook and pick which of those values you will embed in your own life. Which of those experiences you will try to bring to your life too. Prioritize, set, and go.

What you have after a while is a refined picture of how you should act in many situations in life, and this inevitably translates into improvement and ultimately success.

For example, I recently read a tweet from a fellow internet marketer saying that he spent 6 hours working on Photoshop followed by two hours of writing, and had still few more hours to go. I was fascinated, and wrote this down in my notebook.

As time goes by, I will ultimately try and mimic this in a similar amount, and if I find the experience rewarding in the sense of improving my work, my discipline, or letting me tap into my potential I will try and bring that back into my life over and over.

See which standards, values and experiences lead toward improvement and success and try and make them a part of your life. Learn from your experiences. Over and over.

Editor and lead writer at Lifestyle Updated, and the co-creator of Fitness Updated. Married to my lovely wife together with whom I think about lifestyle design, personal development and smart fitness. I write long guides, detailed reviews, and health related articles. I also love to meditate daily and read whenever I can.

There is no doubt that everyone wants to succeed in life. The problem, of course, is how. While there are different approaches to answer this question, here I’d like to emphasize one principle:

As much as possible, you should avoid learning things yourself the hard way.

There are at least three reasons for that:

1. It takes a lot of time. Learning things yourself the hard way often means months or years of unfruitful efforts. That’s a large price to pay. Isn’t it better if you can use that time in a more fruitful way?
2. It’s mentally draining. Failure is a good teacher, but it can also make you feel miserable.
3. It consumes your resources. Unfruitful efforts may take not only your time but also your other resources, like money.

It doesn’t mean avoiding failure at all costs, though. Doing that will only make you too cautious to take action. Instead, what I mean is that you should minimize the chance of failure while continuing to take risks.

To do that, I believe it’s essential that you learn from the experience of others. Many people don’t take it seriously enough for two reasons:

1. They think they already know what it takes to succeed. Therefore, they don’t think it’s necessary to learn from others, or they do it only half-heartedly. That’s dangerous; it could take years of unfruitful efforts before they realize their mistake.
2. Learning from others takes time. For example, you might need to invest hours into reading a book (more on this later). But that’s time worth investing. It can save you from a lot of wasted time later on.

Learning from others should become a priority of yours. But don’t make learning an excuse for not taking action. What you should do instead is learn just enough, start taking action, and then keep learning on the go.

Now that we have seen its importance, here are three ways to learn from others:

1. Read.

Reading allows you to learn from a lot of great people that you otherwise wouldn’t have the chance to. You have limited personal access to them, but you have virtually unlimited access to their experiences through books.

If you think you are too busy to read, notice what General James Mattis once said to a fellow military officer:

The problem with being too busy to read is that you learn by experience (or by your men’s experience), i.e. the hard way. By reading, you learn through others’ experiences, generally a better way to do business, especially in our line of work where the consequences of incompetence are so final for young men.

We have been fighting on this planet for 5000 years and we should take advantage of their experience. “Winging it” and filling body bags as we sort out what works reminds us of the moral dictates and the cost of incompetence in our profession.

You might not be in the military, but I believe the same principle applies: being too busy to read is a shortcut to learning things yourself the hard way.

2. Listen to podcasts.

Just like reading books, listening to podcasts allows you to consume information. The nice thing about it is that you can do it while doing other activities. For instance, you can listen to a podcast while working out or doing chores. That way you can learn without taking extra time. It’s a good way to maximize the value of your time.

3. Find mentors.

Finding good mentors isn’t easy, but being able to find them is gold. Unlike the previous methods, you can interact with your mentors. They can then give you specific advice for your situation. The book Mastery emphasizes the value of having a mentor.

Whatever methods you use to learn from others (it’s best to use all of them, of course), there is one thing you should remember: write down the lessons you learn. I can’t count how many times I’ve forgotten an important lesson only to find it later in my journal.

So what do you think? What other ingredients do you think are necessary to succeed in life?

Jeremy Miller

Opinions are like noses, everyone’s got one. Experiences on the other hand are highly valuable.

In every culture elders hold positions of respect and honor. Their depth and wisdom make them a valuable asset, because they provide guidance and leadership. And their value is not based on their judgements or opinions, it’s based on their experiences.

You can learn so much from the people around you. We are a collection of our experiences. They form and shape us into the people we are today. And when you take an interest in others’ experiences you can grow exponentially.

Ask people for their experiences

Instead of asking people for advice or suggestions, ask for their experiences. If you’re facing a challenge, seek out people who may have related experiences and ask them:

1. Have you ever encountered a similar situation?
2. What did you do?
3. What worked?
4. What would you do differently?
5. What did you learn from this experience?

Approach each conversation with an inquisitive mind, and let them tell you a story.

The value of asking for experiences is in the story. Not only will you hear the facts, but you’ll learn about the context and emotions involved in the situation. You’ll hear about the players, and what influenced them. And you’ll gain insights you probably would never think to ask about.

You never know what you’ll hear, but you’ll often receive a pearl of wisdom.

Sharing experiences stops you from judging others

When you share an opinion or advice, you’re judging the other person. You may have the best intentions and share the advice from a very caring place, but you’re still judging.

When you give advice, you’re telling someone what they should do based on your experience. You’re interpreting the situation, and comparing it to how you approached issues in the past. You might give the advice based on actual experience, or you might give it based on a hypothesis. But either way, you’re making a judgement and telling someone what to do.

Sharing experiences changes the dynamic. Instead of judging, you’re sharing a story. You can talk freely about what you’ve done in the past, and how it may be relevant for someone else. You’re not telling them what to do. Rather you’re telling a story, and providing an opportunity for them to learn from your experiences.

They can take what they want. They can ask more questions. They can choose what to act upon. And what you think is a minor aspect of your story might just be the pearl of wisdom they needed to move forward.

Seek experiences / Share experiences

Experiences are all around us. Everyone has stories that you can learn and grow from. Some will come from people with direct experience, and others will come from tangents you may never have considered.

Choose to be curious. Seek out experiences so you can grow faster, and in return share your experiences freely. Experiences offer so much more value than an opinion.

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Highlights

Learning from others depends on the ability to integrate own and others’ experiences.

One instructional method to foster abstraction and integration processes are patterns.

Patterns highlight invariant aspects and structural features of situations and problems.

Patterns support the internalization of others’ experiences and the application to new situations.

Abstract

The interpersonal transfer of knowledge-in-use is necessary for individual and organizational learning. Learning from others depends on people’s ability to integrate their own and others’ experiences. In order to do that successfully, people have to abstract from single experiences (that they themselves or others have had) and recognize those features that different situations have in common. An established instructional method to foster these abstraction and integration processes is to use patterns. These are pre-structured text templates that differentiate between problems and solutions. By pointing to problem–solutions pairs they support individuals in considering invariant aspects of similar problems and identifying structural features of situations and problems. In an experiment (n = 81) participants read about other’s experiences in a pattern or non-pattern format and had to apply this knowledge to a new situation. Then they externalized this new experience by articulating them either in a pattern or non-pattern format. We further measured the knowledge transfer to yet another problem. Congruent with our hypotheses we found that patterns do support the internalization of others’ experiences and their application to a new situation. Externalizing the newly made experiences in patterns led to a stronger focus on structural problem features, which in turn fostered knowledge transfer to new situations.

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Do you ever wonder why some people are known as “straight A students” while other people struggle in school – even though they’re smart? Do you know people who didn’t finish high school, and have found great success in their careers?

People learn in different ways. And no one has a better learning style than anyone else. Some experts say there are as many as seven different learning styles; but it’s easier to narrow it down to three types of learning.

1. Listening learners
2. Seeing learners
3. Touch / experience learners

It’s simple really. Think about one of life’s earliest lessons – often taught by our mothers: The Stove Can Burn You.

1. Listening learners heard their mother, believed the information, and never touched a stove.
2. Seeing learners watched their brother touch the stove, and never touched it.
3. Experience learners touched the stove; but only once!

“My dad is a self-made millionaire with his own business, yet he can barely read the headlines in the newspaper. I don’t think he’s ever read a book. He’s probably dyslexic, but he’s 70 years old, and when he was young they didn’t know how to teach for that style of learning. He’s one of the smartest people you’ll ever meet, and most of his “learning” has been through experience and believing in himself.”
– A WorldWide Learn user

Most people combine the styles of learning

Here are some everyday problems you might want to learn about. How would you learn more? Think about them – no way of learning is better than the others. Remember, the way you learn is perfect for you.

Problem #1

You need to paint a room.
How much paint and what supplies do you need?

Interested in painting, design, home improvement or even real estate?
Check out these online courses that can help you improve your skills:

Problem #2

Your boss wants you to plan a summer barbecue for 25 coworkers and their spouses/partners.

You’ve never planned anything before. How would you learn what to do?

Do you like to help plan parties and meetings for a living?
You might like these online courses that help you improve your skills:

• Events Management
• Catering Operations
• Understanding Wine

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Learn more about online degree programs offered at this school:
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Problem #3:

You need to certify in First Aid so you can become leader of a Scout Troop.

You haven’t studied First Aid since you were a child. You decide to take a course at the YMCA.

Do you enjoy the world of health and medicine?
You might find these courses interesting:

• Medical Assistant
• Holistic Health

“Jody Brown was the smartest girl in my high school – that’s what I thought back then. She got perfect grades in every course. Her handwriting was perfect. She did really well in all the science classes, and always had a book in her hand. Today she’s a top-rate software developer.

On the other hand, I rarely read in school, and was sent to the principal’s office more than once. No one ever called me “smart.” I loved to talk a lot and make up stories. I’ve spent my life writing stories. Today they are published in magazines and newspapers, and people actually pay me for them.

I saw Jody recently, and she told me she couldn’t imagine writing stories. It turns out that we’re both smart, we just learn in different ways. And we both think the other person is smart!”
– A WorldWide Learn user

Learning Challenges

If you or someone you know has learning challenges, such as dyslexia or ADD (attention deficit disorder), never be afraid or ashamed to ask for help. Adults with learning challenges are still learning, just in different ways. There are probably experts in your community who can help improve reading ability and focus ability-leading to improved life skills. Contact the following for help:

• Reading improvement: call your local library-ask about adult reading improvement programs
• Dyslexia: contact your local branch of the International Dyslexia Association ()
• ADD: contact your local branch of the Attention Deficit Disorder Association ()

If you’re interested in working with people who have learning challenges check out the online programs in education:

• Child Development
• Child Psychology
• Teacher Licensure
• Special Education Degree Programs

If you’ve got a good feel for what kind of learner you are then you may want to look for what kinds of degrees are available to you. Browse our school listings below or use the search box on the right to get matched to a school.

No matter the type of person, there are lessons to be learned from them. People with disabilities are especially influential, as our hardships in life aren’t easily forgotten. We go through every day with determination and strength, which many people are bowled over by, with many secretly wondering if they could do the same thing.

People with a disabilities learn so much throughout their lives; life lessons that able-bodied people rarely get to experience.

Having a disability is definitely difficult, but it’s also one of the richest classrooms a human can experience, too. While these learning experiences are more profound experienced directly, there are some special tokens of wisdom we can pass along.

1) True happiness is really possible in a “broken” body.

Most say they would rather die than live with a disability, which makes me laugh. That’s because most able-bodied people can’t imagine being happy if their body was ever permanently broken. But the truth is that the human brain is very adept at transitioning into someone with a disability, if you let it, that is.

I thought I would never be happy again. But a few years after becoming paralyzed, I was happy. I found happiness through simply being alive, and through family and friends. I still wish I could walk again, but true happiness resides in me.

2) Patience can get you through almost anything.

You’re told as a little kid how important patience is and as an adult you come to see how true this really is. But when you have a disability, the patience required is at a whole new level. Very often we have to wait longer for all types of things and over time we become masters at honing in on it. Patience has even helped me emotionally get over my physical inabilities in certain occasions.

3) Accidents can and will happen.

When you hear about people becoming disabled through an accident, you always think it could never happen to you, and you almost look at it like a TV show or movie — something that could never be your reality. But the cold-hard truth is that accidents that cause disabilities happen every day, and they could likely happen to you or someone you know. The realness of this possibility is tangible in all lives, but when you have a disability you’re just a bit more aware of it.

4) Disability can happen to anyone.

Maybe no congenital disabilities run your family, but say your first baby had cerebral palsy. It’s shocking suddenly finding yourself in the camp of either being disabled or the family member of one. The wisdom here is to never forget we are all imperfect physical beings, and to never think you’re exempt. We will all die one day and we’re all human.

5) Don’t sweat the little things.

Since having a disability can be rather stressful — broken wheelchairs, health insurance cuts, caregivers suddenly quitting — we learn early on to not let our stress levels get too high. If we did, none of us would make it past 40. We are confronted with crazy things all the time, so we learn to prioritize what is really worth freaking out over. That is why so many of us seem so zen-like. The movie is sold out? The restaurant has a two-hour wait? No biggie. It could always be worse.

6) Being different is an opportunity.

Most people don’t like being different or standing out. You have the outgoing Venice Beach type people of the world, but generally most people don’t want to be noticed. However, it’s not as bad as you’d think. In fact, when you live the life as someone who’s different, you learn right away it has its cool moments. You get to meet amazing people and get in on special opportunities. When you’re vanilla, no one notices.

7) Fitting in is overrated.

When you have a disability, you pretty much have a free-for-all card to be exactly who you want to be since fitting in with the “in” crowd is impossible anyways and embracing this can be one of the most freeing feelings ever. You don’t need to fit in to feel good about yourself or to think you “belong.” You belong to yourself, we know this. And that feeling is amazing.

8) You can’t judge a person by their looks.

You hear it all the time, don’t judge a book by its cover. From Stephen Hawking, a man in a wheelchair who can’t speak and is one of the smartest people in the world to Francesco Clark, a quadriplegic and CEO of a huge beauty product company, don’t ever think a disability is equitable to someone who is not impressive or successful. You never know what someone with a disability is capable of.

9) Life is short. Embrace everything.

Having a disability can also, unfortunately, have an impact on your lifespan. For many of us, living to 95 isn’t probably going to happen, which is why most people with disabilities have figured out the secret to life — enjoy each day as if it were our last. We all try to do this in our own way, but many of us fail. People with disabilities however, have gotten it down to an art form, from enjoying the sun rays to a warm cup of coffee, we know how hard life can be so we know how to embrace the good things when they present themselves.

10) Weakness isn’t always a negative

Just like the notion “it takes a village,” being weak or disabled isn’t necessarily a negative thing. When living with a disability, you learn to be OK with receiving help, and over time, many of us realize that we all need help in our own way, even athletes and the President of United States. It’s unavoidable and part of the human experience.

There’s no getting around it, having a disability is certainly a difficult ticket in life, but the life lessons to be had without question make it a near VIP experience. And hey, the free parking is a nice perk, too.

What wisdom have you learned from someone with a disability?