It’s not a trick question. I’m interested in hearing from readers.
Yesterday, I posted about Elon Musk. I tried to remain neutral on my assessment, but it is hard not to admire all that he has accomplished and appreciate the value that SpaceX has brought to the once-stagnant US space program, and all that Tesla has done for electric vehicle adoption.
I thought long and hard about whether to publish the post – sometimes I just write them and leave them unpublished. But the post is not about advocating for a particular perspective, or for making a judgement as to right or wrong. The purpose of researching and writing was to explore a topic for which I had limited information.
The research did not bring me to a conclusion. Far from it. There is a lot more to that particular subject, however, I can say I have a much better understanding and appreciation.
So, how do you learn?
What Drives You To Learn
Or maybe we start here?
When I was working, I had to learn constantly. There were new technologies that I needed to understand. Every new team I joined and project I worked on had a new business domain to learn. And as my teams grew in size and my team members spread across the US and then internationally, I had to learn new skills to communicate and engage.
Even when I joined the car dealership…I had to learn about sales, front-line customer service and about each of the vehicles I sold.
Then retirement comes. I get to relax. But my desire to learn remained.
Now I needed to provide the topics myself. While working, there was an unending list of things to learn. Now, it’s get up, make coffee, read the news (just a little), maybe make a few covered call options trades, walk the dog, stretch, go to bed, repeat.
OK, there’s a bit more to my day. Lunch with Tony, coffee with Rich, BBQ with Mike, and some golf, both indoor and outdoor. But the point being, I am now responsible for keeping my brain busy.
The News
For me lately, the news provides some of the desire for learning. I truly cannot understand some of the things going on today. I’m sure many feel the same way. “How could they possibly think…insert just about any cause…?”
So after repeating that line a few times, I started to look into the many causes that provoked this response in me. Elon Musk was certainly one. Reading his biography and doing the research for the post gave me a better understanding of the man and his accomplishments, but also gave me some insight into how he can generate such a negative response from so many.
A while back, I became interested in some wild stories about government agencies and their not-so-kosher exploits. I read The Dirty Tricks Department: Stanley Lovell, the OSS, and the Masterminds of World War II Secret Warfare. A lot goes on within our government that the American people don’t know about.
I’m currently reading The Matriarch: Barbara Bush and the Making of an American Dynasty. There is some crazy shit going on in US politics. I bet she has an interesting perspective, having been the husband of George and the mother of W.
So, the stuff that I see or that I read and don’t agree with, or that I just don’t understand is often the catalyst for me. It generates the thought that I need to look into this to understand.
Wrap-Up
So, the post on Elon came from my desire to understand. As I thought more about the post, I considered the idea of continual learning and how important it is for us to challenge ourselves on ideas and information that makes us uncomfortable.
I spent some time last year looking into media bias. One reason that our favorite news site, be it Fox or MSNBC has become our constant source of information, is that it tells us what we want to hear. It tells us who’s good and who’s bad and what’s right and what’s wrong. It’s aligned with our experience and thinking, and it’s comfortable.
But learning is about becoming uncomfortable. It hurts a little but we’re better off in the end. If we continue to learn, we grow and evolve. This has worked out well for mankind. Not so much for the dinosaurs.
Anyway, I’d love to hear some reader thoughts. What makes you learn, how do you learn, and let us know about anything interesting you’ve learned that you’d like to share with the class.
Update From Our Reader Randy
We were friends with a couple and the husband would ask us why we had so many books everywhere. “Books, books, books!” I’m guessing reading is an obvious way to learn.
My spouse criticizes me for wandering, but I like to roam around and see new things and how they were made.
I also like to take things apart to see how they’re made, and sometimes they don’t like to go back together.
It’s best to keep thinking of new questions.
I learn by having a strong desire to understand why people think as they do & what shapes their view of the world, why we all think differently & why interactions between people in companies, government & social settings don’t go more smoothly. Perhaps this is because of my marketing career, or perhaps I got into marketing because I find these subjects fascinating. I came across the concept of “growth mindsets vs fixed mindsets years ago at a business conference & it resonated strongly with me – it gave me a framework to understand myself better. I believe I naturally have a “growth mindset” as it is required to be if you want to be a good manager & leader. I realized it could help me achieve the goals I set for myself by committing to be a life long learner- it was a career differentiator for me. I loved learning new things. Also, early in my career, I worked with people from many different cultures, and I experienced the frustration of not understanding where people from the cultures were coming from. So I began researching the topic of “impact of cultural differences on business – there was no internet then but there were some excellent books on the subject so I read many of them. I learned alot the more I learned, the better I did in communicating with overseas connections& this motivated me further to learn more. And so it went – then the internet came along & learning opportunities- on any subject – seemed to become infinite. Now, all we hear about is artificial intelligence, Chat GPT & bots – even more opportunities to learn. We all have also learned that while reading is good, one cannot randomly trust everything they read – one has to be careful that the source for the material is legitimate. After all, we are in the era of “fake news”.