Know something? You're amazing. All through your life you've been absorbing information and ideas. You've learned and practised skills. You've formed beliefs, opinions and attitudes. Wrap that all together and you have a unique bundle of knowledge, abilities and experience that is… you!

Okay, so we're all amazing. But sometimes it's easy to close our eyes to what we really know, and the many ways that we can use that knowledge.

Experience counts
We all learned from our mothers, fathers and carers, whether it was about baking cakes, planting carrots or recognising numbers. And throughout life, we've continued to learn from others around us - family, friends and colleagues - as well as from the formal education that we enjoyed (or endured) at school and college.

Share your know-how
Now that we're more experienced and we've accumulated a wealth of knowledge, we can - and maybe should - pass it onto others. The problem often isn't that we want to keep our knowledge to ourselves. It's usually that we simply underestimate just how much we know and how valuable that knowledge could be to other people.

In fact, many of us are waking up to the importance of knowledge sharing. It's becoming a hot topic in the world of business these days. Organisations are investing time and cash into schemes and networks that allow their people to share what they know with their colleagues. After all, when training and staff development is so time-consuming and expensive, it makes good sense to share our learning and expertise, rather than keeping it to ourselves.

In the same way, a number of community projects encourage people to contribute their skills or experience to the wider group. They identify and involve individuals with a particular expertise - perhaps in fishing or photography or using email, for example - who help others to acquire and enjoy those skills too. And many such schemes stress the particular value of sharing knowledge between generations.

Connecting the generations
It's often said that both older and younger generations benefit from time spent together. Each fascinates and engages the other - and when we're interested and engaged, learning is easier and more lasting. If you're lucky enough to have spent time with a grandparent, you'll probably remember some of the special things they taught you, or stories they told. Memories like these can be rich and detailed - and the pictures they painted with their words can be very special indeed.

So the school that invites senior members of the local community to demonstrate traditional cooking methods, or to talk with pupils about living through wartime or working in a pre-computer world, for example, is offering children a precious and magical learning experience. What's more, the visitor can benefit enormously too. The pleasure of handing on wisdom person-to-person, answering real questions and watching children's responses can be priceless.

Get involved
The good news is that there are many opportunities for sharing your knowledge with others. The internet offers a whole new range of activities (take a look at Ride the silver wave for more information) but your own community is a great place to start. As well as local schools, you can get in touch with organisations and charities such as The Prince's Trust, SureStart, the Girl Guides or the Scouts Association, hospices, local churches, mosques and other religious centres. There are dozens of others out there who'd love to share what you can tell and show them.

So remember - you're amazing. Just don't keep it to yourself!

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