With all the self-help articles on the internet (filling your Facebook feed, if you’re like me) it can feel like the market is completely saturated. And it is. But also, it takes us a long time to learn and change. And just as we need to gear up for new experiences, even when the newness is wearing off and we’re still not comfortable, we need to hear the same messages of advice and motivation over and over again.

In an interview with Tim Ferriss, Seth Godin talked about audio books he listens to regularly, one he listens to once a month. There’s value in repetition, not just in hearing something once but instead letting it wash over your brain again and again.

The key, in this, is to find messages which are truly valuable. Getting a shallow, cursory understanding of an idea is not going to change your thinking. Big ideas, too, take time to unpack, to extract the meaning within them.

So often, I take in so much content, but do not truly sit with it and ask “How can this idea change the way I think?” And perhaps more importantly, “How can this idea change the way I act/live/work?”

I’m still figuring out how to make use of the great ideas I’m encountering every day. Not to mention the wisdom of ancient texts and ideas that have been passed down through time.

It’s reassuring, at least, to know that even small threads of ideas can prompt your brain to see the world in new ways. But how much more exciting would it be if we let ideas transform us? And if, as transformed people, we used our time and energy and resources to do amazing things?

What messages are you tuning into? What messages do you think are worth listening to on repeat?

Recently, I’ve been struck by how vital it is to our growth that we have voices of wisdom we can tune into.

These voices can be personalized, for example a friend, family member, or mentor. Or they can be authors or podcasters who are speaking directly to you, their audience. These voices don’t have to be personalized, though. They could also be art or literature, music or films which inspire you and make you think about the world around you in a different way.

When I use the term ‘wisdom’, I’m not necessarily referring to a moralistic or ‘this is what I learned’ message. Wisdom, in my mind, is something that is true. When wisdom is shared, you think — ‘this makes sense’ or ‘that explains x’. In some ways, wisdom is an articulation of how humans are wired and how the way we’re wired makes us interact in certain ways, be motivated by certain things, be inspired by certain things. It’s a level of understanding beyond facts, though — it’s being able to link facts together to create meaning. Wisdom helps us gain a greater understanding of the world we live in and this thing called life.

What you’ll come to realize, or may have already noticed, is that there’s “nothing new under the sun.” Because so many writers and thinkers are tapping into wisdom, the messages they share are similar. As you listen to more people, you’ll realize that they’re each marketing a similar message. Rather than dismiss new voices as unoriginal, we can rest assured knowing that these new voices of wisdom will serve to bring greater nuance to our current understanding.

Is there space for completely new ideas? You could say that. There’s space for ideas that are completely new to you. And when you are faced with these ideas, and convinced by these ideas, your understanding of the world will change in light of the understanding you now hold.

The more often you seek wisdom, the more often you will find familiar themes, explanations, and truths. But it’s important to continue seeking wisdom, so that you can more firmly develop our own wisdom. Rarely will someone recite an essay or argument they heard verbatim. Even their attempt at paraphrasing will be a version of their own understanding of that essay or argument.

When you infuse your life with wisdom — exposing yourself to ideas and art that seeks not just to entertain you, but to make you think — you will become more wise. And you will share that wisdom with those around you, even if it’s simply by the way you live your life and interact with them. It can’t be helped. Ideas change us.

What sources of wisdom are you seeking?