I love learning and sharing what I have learned with others. It’s one reason I blog. Stephen Covey encouraged people that anytime they learned something, they should teach it to someone else within 24 hours. I’ve tried to do that over the last ten years of my life and it has been extremely beneficial.
However, one problem I have is that when I meet with people, I feel responsible for filling their cup. What do I mean by that? I want them to walk away from a meeting with me feeling like they learned so much that they feel like they can conquer the world.
As good as my intentions may be, it is not a realistic goal. Why? While I may be able to encourage people and teach them a lot, nobody can get everything they need from one person (outside of God). We all need multiple mentors and peers in our lives teaching us what they know.
So if we can’t help people learn everything they need to learn, what then is our role when we meet with people?
Andy Stanley tells his staff this often, “You are not responsible for filling people’s cups, but you are responsible for emptying your cup.”
In other words, our job is not to teach people everything they need to know, our job is to teach people everything we know! That is all we can ever do as leaders and mentors. We have to get over this notion that we have all the answers, we don’t. We have some.
So, that being said:
- Are you emptying your cup on a consistent basis?
- Are you teaching others what you are learning within 24 hours?
- Who are you investing in?
- Who could you start investing in?
- Who is investing in you?
Thoughts? Comment below.
If this post helped you and you believe it could help others, please recommend it on Facebook, Twitter, Stumble Upon, and the other social media sites listed below. Also, I would love to hear your thoughts on this post. Leave a comment below! Thank you! I would also encourage you to subscribe to this blog via RSS feed or e-mail! You can sign-up for e-mail by typing your e-mail address in the box on the left hand side of this site that says “E-mail updates”.
