Part 2 of 3 · The Principle of Brain Activation series
Everyone on the journey of growth is learning. What makes the difference is where we learn from, and how long it takes us to come to realize. Part 2 of the Principle of Brain Activation opens up the three levels of wisdom, and why learning from the success of others is the shortest path to growth.
Three levels of wisdom
The wise point out that whether a life is long or short does not matter; what matters is when we come to realize. And there are three levels of wise people:
- A wise person learns lessons from their own failures.
- A wiser person learns lessons from their own successes.
- The wisest person learns lessons from the successes of others.
Three cooks and one pot of soup
Imagine three people learning to cook the same soup. The first tastes it, finds it not quite right, and remembers to season more lightly next time. The second makes a delicious soup and writes down what they did so they can do it again. The third sits beside Grandmother, watches her season, asks her why, and brings a lifetime of her experience into their very first pot.
All three arrive at a delicious soup. The third arrives soonest, and receives the most.
Learning from the success of others is sitting down beside a fire that those before us have already kindled.
Three paths of learning
Alongside the three levels of wisdom are three paths of learning that anyone can walk:
- Learning through experience: going through it yourself, tasting it yourself. Learning through experience usually costs time and effort.
- Learning through reflection: becoming still, contemplating and seeing for yourself. This is a noble path, open to people with special blessings.
- Learning through study: reading books, listening to those who have gone before, sitting with a teacher. This is a simple way to grow while limiting how much we must pay along the way.
All three paths lead to growth. Study is the path open to everyone; anyone can step onto it today. Growth still happens from within, like a butterfly opening its own cocoon; study is the warm sunlight that helps the cocoon open sooner.
If we can practice learning from others’ success, we can experience sudden awakening — realizing at once — and shorten the time it takes to grow.
Why learning from others’ success brings more pearls
When you place yourself beside the success of those who have gone before, the three pearls come faster and more often. Lessons come from how they do things. Takeaways come from what they have lived and proven. Realizations come when the answer they found shines right onto the question you are carrying.
Others’ success is also often the trace of a natural law lived in harmony. Learning from them is learning to travel with the current.
Teachers are all around us
There are more teachers around us than we think. You can begin from the four corners of the house of life:
- Inner life: observe someone who always keeps their peace and joy, then ask how they nourish it each day.
- Health: learn the way of life of an older person who is still quick and healthy: their schedule, their meals, how they move.
- Relationships: learn how a harmonious family talks with one another at the dinner table.
- Finances: learn how a kind business owner creates value and keeps their word with customers.
In each area, look at what they have achieved, ask about what they sowed, and bring home one small thing to try in your own life.
The friend whose success became my teacher
I have a friend I once studied with in a personal growth course. Although we rarely talked directly, I often followed her life on social media. One year, I saw that her awareness had changed enormously — in the language she wrote with, the way she treated the people around her, and her reflections on life.
When she sent me a course and shared that it had transformed her life remarkably, I joined almost immediately, because I believed that what had helped my friend change would surely bring me some value too. That decision opened an entire journey of learning life wisdom for me, and from it I found the inspiration for the Chuyện Bên Mâm Cơm project. To this day, I feel deep appreciation and gratitude for my connection with this friend, because through it I have learned and come to realize so many beautiful things about human life — answers that, on my own, might have taken me many years to find.
Practice for today
- Choose the area of your life you most wish to grow in right now.
- Think of someone who has succeeded in that area: a relative, a colleague or the author of a book.
- Write three lines about them: a lesson from how they do things, a takeaway you will apply, and a question you would like to ask them in order to realize something.
Reflection question: Whose success could become my teacher today?
Frequently asked questions
What is the value of learning from my own failures?
It is already wisdom, because each time leaves a precious lesson. When we also let our own successes and the successes of others be our teachers, we grow faster and more lightly.
Does learning from others’ success mean copying them exactly?
We learn the root: how they think, what they sowed and the laws they lived in harmony with. Then we apply it to our own circumstances, so the result carries our own mark.
Where can I find successful people to learn from?
The closest places are your family, your workplace and books. Anyone one step ahead of you in the area you care about is already a teacher.
How do the three levels of wisdom relate to Cause, Condition and Effect?
Others’ success is the Effect of the Causes they sowed. When we learn from that Effect, we see the Causes and Conditions that created it, and then sow similar Causes in our own life.
The Principle of Brain Activation series
- Part 1: Lessons, Takeaways and Realizations Every Day
- Part 2: The Three Levels of Wisdom (you are reading)
- Part 3: The Five Levels of Learning
This essay is an English rendering of the original Vietnamese article on Chuyện Bên Mâm Cơm.