#153 When most of the learning is lost on us.

ByLukas

Playing the guitar hasn’t taught me to move my hands and fingers across strings. It has taught me to persevere whenever I’m failing over and over again until suddenly, it all clicks and the words, music, or movements flow.

Yoga hasn’t taught me to put my body in awkward poses. It has taught me to be aware of – and release – the tension in my body whenever I sit, walk, stand, and run.

Taking cold showers hasn’t taught me to withstand cold water. It has taught me to know to relax whenever my body tenses up in stress and my heart starts racing.

Learning a foreign language hasn’t taught me to say the same things with different words. It has taught me that there are different ways of perceiving the wordless world around me, and expressing what I feel inside.

When we isolate insights, most of the learning is lost on us.

Learn thematically. Ask yourself, “Where else does this apply?”

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    #145 The practice becomes the identity

    ByLukas

    I write every day until I’m a writer.

    I paint every day until I’m a painter.

    I practice the guitar every day until I’m a guitar player.

    I love my family every day until I become a family person.

    I prove to myself that I can take one daily action aligned with who I want to be.

    And before I know it, the practice becomes the identity.

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    #93 Second-Hand Memories and Trust Issues

    ByLukas

    Memory stores the lessons we extract from learn life experience. And to do so, it relies, modifies, adds, subtracts, highlights, and hides.

    What about second-hand memories? Accounts of past events we didn’t experience ourselves, wars, volcano eruptions, scientific discoveries,…

    For knowledge to accumulate, to stand on the shoulders of giants, we need to transmit such lessons too. Not just as data or accounts of the past – also as memories.

    But transmitting second-hand memories require trust.

    Can we rely on the interpretation of others?

    Who do we allow to control the narrative?

    Parents? Elders? Teachers? Governments and politicians?

    YouTubers? Influencers? Bloggers? Twitter gurus?

    AI models and chatbots?

    Objective data doesn’t exist. Objective memories don’t exist either. So if we can’t trust second-hand memories anymore, collective memory and our whole learning model collapses.

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    #22 Actions Overrule Thoughts

    ByLukas

    One of the most potent drivers of change AND perpetuators of old habits is cognitive dissonance:

    In the field of psychology, cognitive dissonance is the perception of contradictory information, and the mental toll of it. Relevant items of information include a person’s actions, feelings, ideas, beliefs, values, and things in the environment. Cognitive dissonance is typically experienced as psychological stress when persons participate in an action that goes against one or more of those things.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance

    What’s interesting about cognitive dissonance is that both “sides” of the dissonance are not equal:

    If you think one thing, but you do something else, eventually you’ll start believing what you do, not what you think.

    In other words: actions overrule thoughts.

    1. If I tell myself I can’t write a daily post (thought) and I don’t write a daily post (action), I perpetuate the belief.
    2. If I tell myself I can’t write a daily post (thought) but I gain enough courage and I actually do write a daily post (action), I will start shifting my belief towards the actions I’m taking. In other words: I’ll start believing I can write a daily post.
    3. If I tell myself I can write a daily post (thought), but I never actually write that daily post (action), then my belief will start shifting again, and I’ll start believing I can’t write a daily post.
    4. If I tell myself I can write a daily post (thought) and I do write a daily post (action), my belief grows stronger.

    We usually start in the first scenario until we gain enough leverage over ourselves to change our actions. The moment we change our actions to actions that conflict with our thoughts/beliefs, we’re creating cognitive dissonance.

    Then, if we follow through with our new actions, our beliefs start to change.

    The big turning point is that moment where you start taking a different action.

    Which begs the question:

    • How can we gain enough leverage over ourselves to go against our beliefs and change our actions for the better?
    • How can we make it so important to us to change (or so painful NOT to change) that we start taking different actions?

    Identify your leverage points that jolt you into action, and you gain power over your beliefs and identity.

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    #188 Predictable pathways

    ByLukas

    Eating junk food for dinner. Because that’s what you always did.

    Having home-grown vegetables for lunch. Because that’s what you always did.

    Scrolling through social media apps for 20 minutes. Because that’s what you always did.

    Meditating for 20 minutes every morning. Because that’s what you always did.

    Working 15-hour days. Because that’s what you always did.

    Taking the time to relax, let the mind wander, and be with family. Because that’s what you always did.

    Our lives are full of predictable pathways, paved and reinforced by our past and present actions.

    But not all pathways are desirable.

    Luckily the past doesn’t equal the future.

    You can change your present actions to change the course of your pathway, away from a predictable future towards a desirable future.

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    #39 Knowledge transfer and time collapse

    ByLukas

    Knowledge transfer always implies time collapse. Because learning an insight from someone else usually takes less long than figuring it out yourself.

    Take books. The writer usually spent considerable time researching and distilling the topic and coming to good insights (time I might not be able to dedicate).

    Thanks to that writer, I can now consume that knowledge in, say 6-12 hours of reading the book. A considerable time collapse…

    But when does time collapse go to far?

    Can I read a 1-page summary of that book and truly say I grasp the topic?

    When your brain gets space to breathe, knowledge grows and nuance shows. It needs time and repeated exposure to absorb information, make connections, and discover new insights.

    So a one-page summary isn’t necessarily too shallow… On the contrary: it collapses time so much that information becomes very dense.

    What with the evolution towards short-form online content? The primary purpose of TikTok videos and Instagram reels might be to entertain, but the trend is clear and spills over into education, our attention span, and knowledge transfer: shorter, more shallow, yet more dense.

    Too little time collapse and we can’t make progress.
    Too much time collapse and knowledge collapses with it.

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