Written by admin on May 26, 2010 – 6:59 pm
When you learn something, the quality of your life is improved because you have become a more effective individual. Why then is it possible for an individual to pass a course of instruction with high marks and remain ineffective? Do you think it’s possible that this individual never actually learned anything; they merely gathered information and remembered it.
Gathering information means exactly what it implies – gathering information. Learning is when you consciously entertain an idea, you get emotionally involved with that idea, you act on the idea, and improve your results. The bottom line is results.
Reading, remembering and repeating is definitely not learning, although that is precisely how most systems of education measure what a person has learned. That concept may earn you a degree or a diploma, but it will not necessarily make you an effective person – at anything.
Permit me to use a salesperson as an example. We could just as easily use a lawyer, a cabinet maker or a clerk typist. The salesperson only closes one sale in twenty; he or she is ineffective. The hypothetical salesperson attends a course on closing sales. They pass the course with flying colours. When you ask this person a question on closing a sale, they answer it correctly. However, back in the marketplace they still only close one sale in twenty. Essentially, they have learned nothing.
Eric Hoffer once said, To learn you need a certain degree of confidence, not too much, and not too little. If you have too little confidence you will think you can’t learn. Too much you will think you don’t have to learn.
To improve your results you must learn. We can all improve. We are either learning or we are not.
