Encouragement | Example | Accomplishment & The Willingness to Learn
How to develop a heart of discovery.
This piece was originally published on LinkedIn here.
My goal is to release The Arrogant Sage weekly-ish. However, this schedule may be adjusted as needed and based on opportunity. Today's edition is one of those.
As with all issues, I do a cursory edit. Spelling, usage, and grammar are all subject to scrutiny and correction. But they are not the focus.
Preface: I am self-taught as a programmer, guitar player/musician, recording engineer/producer, and largely as an author.
This article is meant to answer the question: What gives an individual the courage or willingness to learn something entirely new?
COMING CLEAN: ME NO SMART
I'm going to spill some proverbial beans here.
After the publication of my first book, The IT Career Builder's Toolkit: Your complete guide to building your information technology career in any economy (Cisco Press), I was given the opportunity to speak at a number of professional events through my publisher.
Cisco Press, my publisher, is an imprint of Pearson. Pearson is a significant player in the educational space. While NOT a text book, the bulk of my book's sales come through its adoption in MIS/IT classes.
I recall at one of the first events I spoke at, my publisher, knowing I had not graduated college, suggested I avoid bringing that fact up in my presentations. I think that's a fair request. I am speaking to educators on my publisher's behalf, about how to teach their students proactive career strategies. I'm not there to advocate a "turn on, tune in, drop out" experience.
Note: I am not anti-education. I believe we need a robust, technically relevant, and super-accessible PUBLIC education system. That is a topic of another edition.
Also, I've had a few teachers play instrumental roles in encouraging my writing: Mr. Blaisdale, Mrs. Buniff, Mr. Seagal, Mr. Daukus (sp)... THANK YOU!!!!
Education: I learn intentionally every single day. Coffee in hand, my first activity in the morning is to go through some type of lesson. The past few years have had me learning JavaScript, music production, and some cinematic videography among other things.
THE COURAGE/CONFIDENCE TO TRY
I've maintained for years that building self-confidence in children or adults is NOT achieved through affirmations or positive words.
Hold on!!! Don't freak out!
I'm not advocating for negative, dismissive, or abusive words either. Be positive - for sure.
But, I believe that self-confidence and the willingness to try something new is developed and bolstered far more through example and accomplishment than through affirmation. If you see someone take on a new skill and start to master it, and couple that with learning a small step in that direction, you start to develop an internal awareness that, "you can do it."
If you do this over a lifetime and certainly during your childhood, you become imbued with an internal confidence that almost any skill is learnable to some degree.
This is, for me, the secret sauce to learning and mastering new skills.
My Girlfriend, The Pandemic, and Rediscovering Discovery
At the start of the pandemic my girlfriend worked in dentistry. She had been in mostly the same role for nearly 20 years. It was safe for her. Comfortable in some ways. But, she also felt stuck.
At the time, she had an on again, off again, hobby of photography. She also has a great eye for design and aesthetics. But, these were relegated to hobbies and activities that others, “the artists”, did professionally.
However, faced with the dental office closing and very little desire to re-enter that profession, I suggested she learn some basic web graphics, how to create websites using WordPress, and even a little video editing. Additionally, she wanted to focus more attention on photography.
At first, the learning was a bit slow-going and at times, frustrating. I am far less patient than my cheerful and calm demeanor may reveal. ;-) Okay, I’m an impatient jacka**.
She would admittedly tell you she did not get a very positive message about learning new things as a child. It was more of a, “that is for others” type of message. Parents… don’t do that!!!
But over this year, I watched her learn finger-style guitar. I recall the first time I found her sitting on the bed with her guitar, learning Needle and the Damage Done by Neil Young.
I don’t like the song (don't hate me) but what I did like, what was most exciting to me, was that she had not come to me to learn it. She had used that magical tool we all have at our disposal… she had Googled it.
For those of us on the other side of 40 (don’t expect more information here), resistance to new skills is exacerbated. Learning all on your own, even more so. Resistance to new information as we age is a real thing.
But there she was struggling through the picking pattern and the timing for that hammer-on progression. And she was doing it.
Over the past year or so, she’s learned WordPress, Photoshop, Corel VideoStudio, DaVinci Resolve, and a series of other programs and technical services. She’s also dramatically expanded both her technical and artistic understanding and skill in photography.
This works for me... I have my own photographer.
But more than that, she’s started to move into new areas without any prompting by me. She has gone full-blown discovery addict.
This doesn’t mean she does not ask for help. She does. There is nothing wrong in asking for help.
But where before she might be inclined to say, “I don’t know how to do this, can you show me?”, she now comes to me with a, “I’ve gone through this lesson and I’ve tried this and that, I’m unsure why this particular thing isn’t working. Can you help me?”
The difference is a sea change. Much/most of her learning is her own discovery. It isn’t driven by me and she doesn’t need me to find the resources to learn. Due to my long-time in technology, I am more of a fill-in-the-blanks resource when a snag comes up.
That is magical!
In fact, when I showed her this article, she said, about self-directed learning, “It’s freedom!”
Freedom!! That’s a compelling idea!
THE LEARNING SUPER-POWER
My parents were not the encouraging type. They were depression era babies and pragmatism was the order of the day.
But, by example, they demonstrated that if you wanted to do something, you should go find a book and/or a community of people doing it, and do it! Their example was not traditionally encouraging but it was pragmatically so.
After his retirement, my father wrote several plays. A couple of them were produced at Paramount Movie Ranch. He took up art - drawing, water colors, oil painting. He made masks, taught mask making to teachers, and even had a couple of his masks featured in the Governor's mansion in California and in the Reagan Library. He never made money for any of this. He never wanted to.
He never told me, “you can do this” about anything. It was a bit more bottom-line than that. He said - he demonstrated, “If you want to do this, you should go do it.” It was so matter-of-fact, it was obvious he believed you could, and expected you to, do something.
Once you’ve accomplished learning something new, learn another new thing, and then another. The super-power of learning is NOT found in the words, “you can do it!” It is in the incremental development of the internal awareness that you can, with effort, training, finding great mentors, etc, in fact, do it!
Knowing you can learn something is far more important than thinking you can learn something.
As I’ve said above, I’m impatient. I’m often too abrasive and short. I am working on that.
But, for those I’ve taught technology or music to - and there are many of you, I believe you would agree that I am convinced, to a nearly frenetic degree, that you can do it. My work is to help you believe it too.
It’s a new year. I’m not a resolutions guy but I am a constant assessment and adjustment guy. I've got my learning list - in part below.
What are you going to learn this year?
If you’ve been fearful or believed it was for others, try this: learn one small skill you never knew. Start with Google or YouTube.
I believe you can learn it… do you?
Please consider sharing what you plan to learn or are in process of learning in the comments.
My partial learning list
More programming (JavaScript) & APIs
Harmonica
Cinematic videography
Drawing
Sauces (cooking)
And more…
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