We do it all the time. Ariana Huffington, Clayton Christensen, Nandan Nilekani, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala…we have something important to learn from each of them.
And yet, each of them may be flawed in some (or many) ways. This doesn’t mean they have nothing to teach.
And yet, when we encounter non-famous, also flawed people, we are often quick to judge. We instinctively treat them as people we have little to learn from.
They also have a lot to teach us.
There’s something they are great at, something that comes naturally to them, something that makes them special—if we’re open to it.
If nothing else, we can learn from how we find ourselves reacting to them—having a quick mind is one thing, being quick to judgment is something else entirely (and yet they often go together).
Generosity of spirit is a better way to go through the world for so many reasons. One of these reasons is that it helps remove our blinders, allowing us to learn from the person standing right in front of us.
The one who, despite his flaws, we haven’t written off.
