Learn

If there’s nothing else you get from all this that I’ve written, just remember this: Keep learning.

What is true today, may not be the truth tomorrow, but so long as you are learning you’ll keep growing.  Just think about how many people thought the world was flat, or the sun orbited around the earth, or a million other things that were foundational truths, that turned out to be just plain wrong.  Everyone, everywhere thinks that what they believe is true, even if it contradicts what someone else believes is true.

The best part is they could both be right, or they could both be wrong.  It might depend on perspective, or the reference point, or something else.  The best part is with focused learning, you can discover many new truths.  You can create, explore, imagine, and the more you know, the more you realize you don’t know.

So how do you learn?  One of the keys is the questions you ask.  Let’s start with the basics.  Ask.  If you’re not sure, ask. If you disagree, ask.  If something is surprising, ask.  The more you ask, the more you’ll know, and the more you’ll be able to decide for yourself. 

The questions you ask tell the world how you think, what you’re curious about, rather than what you can do.  And how you think is the key to success.  Questions are the key to knowledge.  So do your best to ask better questions.

So how do you ask better questions?  Be curious, and don’t have an agenda.  People, when asked questions, will know if you are trying to learn more, or if you are trying to get what you want.  They will know if you’re asking for clarity, or if you’re asking to manipulate, or reinforce your self beliefs.  Be genuinely curious, probe, try to relate what they are saying to what you already know.

There are a few specific guard rails around questions, and the most important is the question ‘why’.  When you ask ‘why’, it can come across as judgmental if you are asking someone about there approach.  ‘Why did you do that?’ is a slap in the face.  So when trying to understand someone’s actions, use ‘what’. 

‘What were you trying to accomplish?’ is a much better way to get the answer you were looking for.  It turns the focus to the outcome, rather than the decision making process of the person you’re asking.  Bottom line, be careful of ‘why’.

When you are learning, you should not only ask questions about the content, but the source of the content and the credibility of the source.  It’s impossible know for sure 100% that what you are listening to, watching, or reading is from a credible source, but there are a few guidelines you can stick too.

For example, understand that most ‘news’ is actually entertainment, and their job is to sell advertising, not communicate the truth.  Not only that, but being polarizing is interesting and gets more attention, so the more extreme a point of view, the more interest it gets (and the more copies it sells, and the more ads it serves…) 

That doesn’t mean it’s true, or false, just that it’s more interesting. 

If you get one point of view, do the work in understanding the contrary point of view so you can better make up your mind.  Watch both CNN and Fox News, and make up your own mind.

I think of most people’s knowledge as ‘T’ shaped.  The top of the T represents all the knowledge they have across many things.  They have a broad base, but not much depth.  They know how to drive a car, but not repair it.  They know how to bake a cake but only from a store-bought pre-mixed kit.  They know how to zip up a jacket, but not what materials fill the liner to keep them warm.

However there are areas, the I part of the T, where they have lots of deep knowledge.  This is what you want to learn from them.  The accountant has deep knowledge around financial reporting.  The football star knows a ton about plays, tackles, and zone defence.  The teacher knows a lot about 3rd grade math, and how to get unruly kids to stay engaged in a classroom for hours.

So when learning from someone, ask yourself where their knowledge runs deep.  This also helps when getting advice on situations, and you can ‘authority weight’ someone’s advice.  If they have a ton of knowledge in one area, they have more authority, and if they contradict others who are less authoritative in that area, that one input may outweigh all the others combined due to their experience.

One final thing is about books and all the knowledge they contain.  They way I look at books is they are algorithms.  Someone, somewhere spent their entire lives on developing a deep knowledge base in a particular area.  They then took the time to write all that down, edit, condense, and publish their learning into a format you can read and digest in a few hours. 

You gain all the years of trials, failures, and obstacles they overcame in a few short pages with a $20 investment and a few hours of time.

Sure, they leave out some of the details, but all the lessons are there for you to take and learn.  There is nothing better than having someone share all they’ve done for you to take or leave.  Books are tools, and like tools you can create amazing things if you so choose.  The best thing you can do with your learning is creating a better life, and you can do this by simply taking the time to read.

If you’re frustrated because something is difficult, don’t wish it was easier, wish you were better.  If you were better, it would be easier.