Do me a favour and tell me what you think. Please.

Feedback is an essential element of learning, everyone’s learning, including my own. I’m asking for your help here to increase my own learning and to perhaps increase other people’s learning too.

With my first step into book publishing and with my many blog entries, I throw all manner of arguments and opinions out into the world. Being human and all, it’s unlikely I’m right about everything I write or say or believe. Much of what I previously said and believed was mistaken, sometimes a little bit and sometimes a lot. I have learned more and subsequently changed my beliefs because of feedback I received, or from feedback others received about beliefs I (also) held or disagreed with. In either case, that pushed me to drill down deeper into issues and learn more.

In the search for truth about any issue, a willingness to be corrected is required. No one likes to be wrong or shown as wrong, including me. Yet, it is required no matter how uncomfortable that may sometimes be. In other instances, I could be right and if you have something to help me see that even more, I’ll be equally grateful and, frankly, far more comfortable with the feedback. Either way, feedback is good. That includes feedback on sources I cite.

Have I thought of every angle of a topic or source of information when writing what I have? The odds are very much against that. Potential sources of information are vast in number, sometimes-contradictory in nature, and often evolving over time.  Your knowledge, personal experiences, expertise, or general knowledge could strengthen or weaken several of my expressed beliefs, if not most of them. So go for it.

Very little of what most people write comes from a vacuum. It comes from other people’s words and thoughts and actions, lots of contemplation on those, some homework, and some venturing of ideas. What comes out can be brilliant truth or misguided rubbish. Feedback helps in either extreme case.

Discussion of issues or opinions or arguments shouldn’t be about the people airing those, rather about the ideas and words expressed by those people. That said, if you get a little personal I’ll have to handle it because one has to develop a thick skin when throwing one’s self out there in any form, words included. I’m working on that.

As Abraham Lincoln once wrote, to newspaper man Horace Greely (on August 22, 1862), “I shall try to correct errors where shown to be errors, and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.”  So, show me where you think I’m right or wrong. I won’t necessarily like being corrected but once I pull myself out of the fetal position I’ll probably drill a bit deeper into your feedback and learn something. If you or others learn something too, that will be a bonus.

So, whether you have an opinion on my book, my blogs or something else let me know what you think. Thank you in advance.