Lived Experience: Wisdom or Folly?

Dim Headlights... a story & a lesson

“What we learn from experience depends on the kind of philosophy we bring to experience.” - C.S. Lewis

Have you every been so caught up in your own ‘lived experience’ that you can’t, don’t, or won’t see an alternate viewpoint? It’s a very real struggle.

The experience I’ve gathered over the years contains some wisdom but to think it’s complete and 100% accurate is unwise and makes me an ineffective leader.

I was reminded of this recently while discussing car headlights with my 16 year-old son…

The Story

A few weeks ago, I swapped my car with my college son’s car. It’s a long story but the purpose was for me to take his car to our trusted mechanic. His car wouldn’t be available for a couple weeks and he needed a car to get around. So I made the trip one weekend to do the swap.

My son’s car is an older, basic car that a high school student could afford to buy with his summer job earnings. My youngest son who just got his driver's license a few months ago didn't exactly like driving this car instead of my car. Not that he thought driving around my 10-year-old Toyota Corolla was good for his image either. But, well... it does have four wheels and gets him where he needs to go!

But back to story… After driving the car around for a little, we discovered another issue… Driving at night wasn’t exactly safe. The headlights were dim and didn’t reach very far. And high beams weren’t much brighter either!

I was stumped. How was it possible that both the low beam and the high beam bulbs were dim?! That would mean all four bulbs were going dim at the exact same time… statistically impossible!

If you’ve read many of my other articles, you’ll know that I don’t claim to be very handy. The same goes for cars. The extent of my car work is changing the oil, checking/filling the fluids, and checking the tire pressure and topping off the tires. My personal viewpoint: I support the local economy by taking my cars to the local mechanic!

But I do have my 35 or so years of driving experience. I’ve owned a few cars and learned a thing or two. My 16 year-old said it was the headlight bulbs… We (meaning me) needed to replace them. I didn’t see how that could possibly help. Why? Because in all my years of driving experience, every time I replaced a headlight bulb I replaced a low beam bulb or a high beam bulb. Never both. And both the low and high beam in my older son’s car were dim. There was no way four bulbs could all be going dim at the same time.

One possibility was that one bulb controlled both low and high beam. But in every car I ever owned, one bulb didn’t control both low and high beam. My experience told me: low beam and high beam are always separate light bulbs.

The other possibility was that the headlights were aimed incorrectly, angled down so they didn’t point far enough down the road. So while his car was in the garage, I had them aim the headlights. They were a little off, but it didn’t solve the problem. Turns out, properly aimed dim headlights are well… still just dim headlights!!

I finally decided to try new headlight bulbs. Since my son was paying for the garage bill and the bulbs, I didn’t get him the highest priced brightest bulbs. I went with the mid-grade. When I gave the year, make, and model to the guy at the auto parts store and he pulled up the replacement bulbs, guess what I saw? Yep, one bulb combined both low and high beam!! This was a domestic car and I’d only ever owned Hondas and Toyotas… Who knew?!?

One of the truths about being the father of a teenage son is that eating crow is inevitable and as unappetizing as ever… but often necessary!

The Leadership Lessons

Many times we read or hear wise advice but don't apply it to our practical, everyday lives.

I recently finished two of the wisdom books in the Bible, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. Full of wise sayings and advice, these books can seem overwhelming. How do I reach this “high bar” of wisdom?! How do I apply them to my life?! Many times my learnings occur in drips and I only see what I need to learn and apply after the fact. Just like what I learned from my “dim headlight” experience…

Don't confuse lived experience with wisdom

Lived experience is limited to our own narrow set of life experiences and often times our own interpretations of the circumstances. Wisdom involves deepening our own understanding by reflecting on our experiences and identifying how we can do better or what we learned so we can continue applying these learnings in the future. Wisdom also means broadening and deepening our experiences by learning from others. And wisdom is a journey, not a destination. That journey may take some detours, some wrong turns, and we may end up stuck in traffic at times.

It’s not the years we spend in this life that make us wise, it’s what we do with those years. If wisdom was a bank, how we treat our years in this life either makes deposits or makes withdrawals.

We do well to consider the source of our wisdom as that impacts how we spend our years (hint: it’s not necessarily our own lived experiences).

Be curious

Ask questions. Be open to other options. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes (spoiler alert: you will!!).

We do well to have the mindset of a toddler who incessantly asks “Why?” and is always curious, always learning, always exploring the world around them. (Disclaimer: this is not about being childish! Seeing the world through a child’s eyes is healthy; being childish is unhealthy and unbecoming to a leader.)

Lead from a place of humility and courage

Having a humble heart doesn’t mean we’ll never be humbled (‘eating crow’). But it can sure reduce the frequency and necessity of circumstances that force us into humility!

The sooner we realize the world doesn’t revolve around us, the more we can effectively lead. How can we impact anyone else if we think everyone should be meeting our needs and wants?

The sooner we realize that we don’t have all the answers (and don’t have to pretend we do), the more we can authentically lead. How can we allow others to grow and develop if we are only seeking to elevate ourselves?

Humility isn’t weakness. To the contrary, it requires much strength, namely courage. Courage to admit we’re wrong, that we’re flawed people. Courage to suppress our selfish desires for someone else’s benefit. Courage to see our inadequacies and ask other people for help.

For Reflection

What are your thoughts on this “dim headlights” story and the leadership lessons learned?

My greatest struggle is thinking that the greater the years spent in this life, the greater the wisdom attained… How about you? Agree/disagree?

What are your thoughts on humility in leadership? Required or optional? Easy or difficult? I list some “Courage to…” examples for humility, can you think of some others?

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