CAN WE CAPTURE AND EXPRESS WISDOM?
In his article “Aphorisms,” John Stuart Mill said, “There are two kinds of wisdom.”
Expressing Wisdom
In his article “Aphorisms,” John Stuart Mill said, “There are two kinds of wisdom.” The first, he said, “depends on long chains of reasoning… The other is that acquired by experience of life.” And he adds, it is "....drawn by acute minds in all periods of history from their personal experiences.” Mill called this second type “the wisdom of the ages” and it is the type most often expressed as aphorisms.
Why are aphorisms important? They can be powerful teaching statements in our trainings. Akash Karla is author of How to Deliver a Great TED Talk. In this book he suggests “creating a repeatable power phrase” for your talks. Aphorisms can serve as these power phrases. Here is one from Epictetus that you might use during a meta-states training:
What upsets people is not things themselves, but their judgements about these things.
We can also use aphorisms to govern our behavior. Here are two:
The meaning of communication lies in the response you get.
The person with the most flexibility exercises the most influence in the system.