In Your Own Words (I)

Some food for thought for this early morning coffee on learning. First, the natural approach to learning is imitation. You see something and you try to do it as you read or see it.

I was in my mid-10s, and I heard a comment about someone who knew a lot, but what people admired about him was not only that he knew, but that he was capable of using simple words to get his message across to people in a way that his knowledge would help others to improve.

Educating, which is sharing knowledge, gives people the opportunity to execute well and even excel at mastering that execution capacity. And something else.

Today, I’ll just pick that Modern Times scene of a worker tightening bolts quicker and quicker.

Your energy is focused 100% on doing, 0% on conscious thinking.

Complete the action here: If you’re happy and you know it…

Imitating, replicating is good, but it will always take you to clapping your hands or tightening bolts quicker and quicker.

Educating, which is sharing knowledge is also thinking of what we learn and what we’ve been shared.

How about taking learning to the next level? Are you in for it? The choice is yours. If so, keep reading. Find the right time of the day or in the week to stop just replicating, get some perspective and think about what it is you are doing. Naturally, something that helps me is to vomit all the ideas in my head in a paper. Vomit, dump… you can call it “brainstorming”… Free your head of the clutter. Then ask yourself a few questions.

What are we doing here?

What do we want to achieve? Could I make it better?

Could I make it more efficient?

Let it rest, forget about it, and come back to your notes with fresh eyes.

So, now, what is it that we know? Have we learnt anything?

Could we challenge how we do things and try or test new ways of doing what we do?

If so, test, try, fail, retry.

After every try, ask yourself, is the process any better?

No? Congratulations. Keep trying.

Yes? Congratulations. Knowledge updated, remember sharing is caring, loop.

Critical thinking, creativity, ambition, innovation… are different perspectives to approach, understand and learn about what we do and what we are. Regardless of the outcome of your tests, you were in a better position since you decided to continue reading.

Now, get doing. Keep thinking. Keep improving.

Want to read more? Check second part here.