My experience with you is that you don’t know how to learn… you don’t even hear what there is to learn. And only to the degree that you can learn that your life can change.
Remember the famous saying I use a lot:
If life isn’t working the way it’s supposed to, in specific areas, or altogether, there is something you don’t know. 1
So given your level of competency in the area of listening, learning… I think you need a major course on that…
Why am I saying that?
- Because even if occasionally you read something that contains all the knowledge you need to change that which is not working, you don’t follow the instructions….
Anything that you just read… is not knowledge. It’s information… and uses up space in your head that you need to actually have a good life.
- Because I watch how many of you behave on my site, read and re-read what I wrote… and then: NOTHING.
If you repeat the reading from the same place, you won’t get more the second time around.
Which means your comprehension is low, and your level of using knowledge is low.
Maybe it is time to learn to learn, don’t you think so?
- Because unless you start using what you just read… instead of helping you, it will create an inner tension, that you don’t need. A tension coming from no integrity.
67-steps course can be challenging: I am at step 15, and I got to a place where there is now tension.My inclination is to go back and listen and listen and listen again… but the tension comes from not having taken steps on the last session… so all I have to do is go back to that, and create a mini project that will take maybe 10 minutes. With that I’ll return to integrity.
What project? What mini project am I to create?
The previous step was about being responsible for everything, paying the price when I don’t do what I am supposed to do, when I don’t get prepared before I need a skill or a resource. (The Shaolin Monk step, if you are in the 67 steps with me)
So the mini project has two steps:
- 1. where and for what I haven’t been willing to be responsible for… mostly in preparing before I need it.
Then
- 2. put into motion getting prepared… put it on my todo list or make a sticky note, or write an article about it.
As I am writing this, I see that it all has to do with getting prepared, putting my affairs in order, in case something happens to me… so my stuff, my legacy can survive me and be useful.
Big project? Maybe… Important? Hell yeah.
Some projects will take 10 minutes. Others will stay on my todo list forever.
When in 67 days I’ll be at this same point in the cycle, I will have another thing to put on my list… to do.
You have a habit of separating reading and action.
Knowledge is only as useful as you use it… not to be superior to your friends, cocktail party conversations, but to the degree you implement it.
Unless you get to that, and start doing it, you remain a dummy. You don’t even know that you didn’t get it. You don’t even know that your comprehension is low.
Just ask my student who is doing a lot of online courses… 90% of the time she needs to spend to understand the assignment…
And the same it is with everyone.
Reading is the 1%. Reading twice: still 1%. Attempting to implement: you get that you are not getting it… that’s when the real learning begins.
PS: Lots of people come to my site looking for the panacea of increasing their IQ.
IQ is a composite number. About 60% of the results you get reflects your ability to understand the question. Unless you clearly understand the question, you are going to fail that question. If you watch people who have a high IQ, what you may see in common is that they are good learner: their grasp of what the question is is quick… They may not be smarter than you, but they have trained themselves to learn better.
I’d like that for you. After all, if you learn to learn better, you’ll feel better about yourself. What you read will become a great tool to grow, and to reach the results you’d like to reach.
And your IQ will go up, seemingly. Because what the IQ tests measure depends a lot on your ability, methodology, practice, skill in the area of learning effectively.
- occasionally I forget it myself… but luckily not for long.
It’s pure arrogance, like I am supposed to know everything…
This past Monday the hot-water pipe froze in the basement. The temperature was way below freezing point, and I started the project to think what resources I had… It took me about five hours to realize that I was doing was ineffective. And then… I went and researched on google, found an article, and took an effective step. By next morning the pipe was thawed…
Now, how I approached it was quite stupid… but I am glad for it, because now I get to teach you what not to do, that you do all the time. You think you should know, and don’t even look for answers outside of what you know.
But, when something isn’t working, there is something you don’t know… so the next step is research… duh!
