Accessing the Gold Contained in Your Experience

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Life is busy. Even busier for high achievers, as everyone wants a piece of your knowledge, skillset, and increasingly-valuable time.

This leaves precious little room for true development work.

It’s not that people aren’t trying to grow. If anything, we’re drowning in it. Scroll through your feed or browse a bookstore and you’ll see thousands of self-help books and development gurus telling you how to think, act, and lead. But when it comes to the specific challenges you’re actually facing – those messy, live, complex situations – there’s often not much that speaks directly to you.

That’s why we need a development strategy that’s practical, time-efficient, and powerful. One that meets you in the reality of your day-to-day, not just in theory. If you’re serious about staying sharp and continuing to evolve, this isn’t optional – it’s a non-negotiable.

It’s now widely accepted that most adult learning comes from experience. That makes sense given the time constraints of modern professional life. And it fits with the demands of high-stakes roles, where learning must prepare you for real-world complexity, not just abstract hypotheticals.

But here’s the thing: experience alone doesn’t equal development. It’s what you do with that experience that counts.

You’ve probably heard the saying:
“Ten years of experience without reflection is just one year repeated ten times.”
 That cuts deep. And for good reason. In high-pressure roles, it’s entirely possible to clock up thousands of hours without meaningfully learning from them.

Without deliberate reflection, the learning curve flattens. We fall into habitual ways of thinking and operating – not because they’re the best ways, but simply because they’re familiar.

That’s the trap. And that’s why a more structured, intentional form of reflection matters now more than ever.

Enter reflective practice.

It’s a term that’s been around for decades and gets thrown around a lot. People often say they reflect – but how deliberately are they doing it?

A few years ago, I delivered a session on reflective practice. One senior leader pushed back:
“Well, I think we all reflect, don’t we?”

In short, yes. We all think about our experiences. But do we all really explore things like:

• The different perspectives we could view a situation from?
• Which cognitive biases might be shaping our interpretation?
• How our emotional state is colouring the story we’re telling ourselves?
• The bigger picture this experience fits within, especially in light of our long-term goals?
• The baggage we bring into interactions that might distort how we perceive or respond?

Done well, reflective practice is a modest superpower: quiet, unflashy, and incredibly effective.

One of the most useful ways reflective practice works is by exploring the gap between expectation and reality.

But here’s the catch: you can’t learn from the gap unless you notice it.

And you can’t notice it unless you’ve sensitised yourself in advance, by clearly defining your expectations in the first place.

Most people don’t do that. They don’t stop to consider: What do I expect to happen here? As a result, they miss the signal when something significant plays out differently, whether better or worse.

So, what should you actually do?

Plan. But not just tactically. Go deeper.

When preparing for a task or interaction, don’t just ask, “What am I going to do?” Also ask, “What do I expect will happen?”

This is how you start to build a tentative theory – a working hypothesis that says: if I do X, then Y is likely to occur.

You’re stress-testing your assumptions. You’re refining your own mental model. You’re becoming a field scientist of your own leadership practice.

Then comes the moment in action. You notice something unexpected. You think, “This isn’t quite going to plan…”

So, you adjust. You course correct. You make a decision, draw on your experience, and move forward.

That’s already a win.

But the real gold lies afterwards, in the after-action review. The quiet few minutes most people skip. Because here’s what usually happens:

• You finish the task.
• Close the laptop.
• Jump on the next call.
• Move on.

And the learning slips away.

Instead, pause. Rewind the tape. Ask:

• What was I expecting?
• What actually happened?
• What does that tell me about the situation, the world, other people, and myself?
• What might I adjust next time?

Explore the gap between your prior expectations and your experience of reality.

• Set clear intentions
• Establish clear expectations (generate a tentative theory)
• Do the thing
• Notice whether it goes to plan, or better, or worse
• Adjust on the spot based on what you notice
• Reflect afterwards on what happened and why
• Seek feedback, mentors, or related content to help refine your theory
• Set new intentions
• Do another thing…
• Repeat
• Repeat
• Repeat

If you’re chasing that next step-change in your development, start with your own experiences. You’re not short on them. The key is learning to tune in, make sense of what happens, and use it intentionally to shape what comes next.

That’s how you extract the gold. That’s how you stay sharp. And if you ever want a thinking partner, I’m here.