Making Deposits In the Bank of Experience

For those times when you wonder what you’re getting out of practice and training:

“For 42 years, I’ve been making small, regular deposits in this bank of experience, education, and training. On January 15, the balance was sufficient so that I could make a very large withdrawal.”

– Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, pilot US Airways Flight 1549.

About the Bank

One of the first personal improvement books I read was The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People By Stephen Covey. The book had a big impact on how I worked. Covey spends time in the book diving into work and personal relationships. One of the concepts Covey espoused is the importance of making deposits in the emotional bank accounts of others. Basically, every time you build up trust or goodwill with another person, you’re making a deposit in their emotional bank account as well as yours.

Being a saver, the bank account analogy made a lot of sense to me. You build up deposits of trust and respect over time and occasionally you can make a withdrawal, possibly a favor or tapping into another’s expertise.

How do I make deposits and withdrawals at this bank?

Another habit Covey wrote about was “Sharpening the Saw” which is small but continuous self-improvement over long periods of time. Whenever you’re called upon to tackle a big challenge, you can put those skills to work. So, when I read the quote by Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, it really resonated.

“For 42 years, I’ve been making small, regular deposits in this bank of experience, education, and training. On January 15, the balance was sufficient so that I could make a very large withdrawal.”

Like a retirement contribution coming out of your paycheck, the bank of experience accepts small regular deposits you make over many years so that someday you can make large withdrawals. In Capt. Sully’s case, that withdrawal saved his life and that of many others.

The Bank of Experience

This is a great bank. So many great options to invest with proven ROI. It’s such a great bank that making deposits are often enjoyable. Think about all of the different investments you can make. I try to make regular investments in my writing, photography, business and investing skills. I really wouldn’t take the time to work on these skills if I didn’t enjoy them or at the very least enjoy the process and the outcome.

Accounts at the Bank of Experience aren’t just limited to skills, experiences, and education. One of the best investments is in health and relationships. These two types of investments are high return but take some regular efforts to really pay off just like everything else in life.

Convergence of skills

Unlike other banks, the bank of experience often allows your investments (skills you develop) to converge for even higher returns. For example, let’s say as a student you enjoyed painting and drawing but, as is often the case, life got in the way and you put these skills aside for quite a while. Later in life, the sense of color, design, and creativity could show up in other areas and converge with other skills.

Steve Jobs studied calligraphy in college. This experience showed up years later with the launch of the first Macintosh and started a desktop publishing revolution.

Skills and Time

The excuse we most often use is the lack of time to develop our skills. One of the deposits you need to make in the bank of experience is developing productive habits. You’ll find that just one habit could change your life. Even a simple habit like committing to finishing one book a month can have a great impact.

Just committing to one book per month often is not enough to establish a habit. For instance, to lock my reading habit, I listen to audiobooks while I’m walking. A few years back I started scheduling daily walks after lunch for about an hour. I can now really look forward to listening to an audiobook during that walk.

When you look forward to something that makes it easier to establish a habit. If I just sat in a chair listening to audiobooks I probably wouldn’t enjoy it as much.

Something may have to go to make room for productive habits. Maybe compare what you get out of reading to learn versus reading the news.

Have some fun

Not every habit has to be self-improvement related. I keep my walks interesting by also listening to fiction, some classics, and podcasts. If I just listened to self-improvement books that would get old pretty quickly.

Whenever I travel to a new city or foreign country, instead of buying something, I like to think I’m there to learn something new and bring it home with me.

The great thing about making these deposits is that there is no minimum. Ryan Holliday’s book, The Daily Stoic, 366 Meditations on Wisdom, was designed to be read one bite at a time over at 365 day period. Maybe starting with just one nugget of wisdom a day can set you on a path to developing knowledge, skills habits that will last a lifetime.

Three books I mentioned to get you started making deposits in the bank of experience.