Learning, when done in a vacuum, can often be uneventful and underwhelming.
If I were to ask you to recall what you learned in 2nd grade, you probably won’t remember. You may recall a few bits and pieces of what you learned - perhaps the geography of a particular spot in the world or maybe some random fact about a food that you enjoyed - but you are unlikely to remember the bulk of what school was teaching you.
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In the vast majority of cases, school offers an environment that is detached from reality. The environment seeks to teach you broadly about subjects that have little relevance to your life.
In trying to be the best version of myself by reading, writing and pursuing my ambitions, I have learned that learning is not about generality. It’s not about learning in a broad sense about random subjects.
True learning is done when knowledge is immediately relevant to your life. When knowledge can be bridged to your reality in some way, shape or form.
Try to recall, for example, something that you learned while working. If you have (or had) a job as a barista, then you likely have a deep knowledge and appreciation for the way an espresso is made.
When knowledge is relevant to the real-world and the happenings of your daily life, then it sticks in your brain. You can almost feel the connections being made to both knowledge of the past and the happenings of the present moment.
“I do not know if it applies to other people, but, in spite of my being a voracious reader, I have rarely been truly affected in my behavior (in any durable manner) by anything I have read. A book can make a strong impression, but such an impression tends to wane after some newer impression replaces it in my brain (a new book). I have to discover things by myself (recall the “Stove Is Hot” section in Chapter 3). These self-discoveries last.” - Nassim Taleb, “Fooled By Randomness"
Taleb makes an interesting point about reading. I tend to have a similar reaction to the ideas that I read each day as well.
When I’m selecting a book to read, I try to carefully choose one that is relevant to my life right now. If I have been focused on investing, then I try to read a book that has some sort of relevance to investing.
While I think it is important to get a broad sense of the world by learning about things that are seemingly unrelated to what you do, the idea of learning something that is immediately relevant is still vital.
If you’ve spent any amount of time reading books, then you know how boring it can be to read something that your just not “feeling” in the moment. Some books capture our attention at certain moments but are completely lost to our minds at other moments.
My favorite strategy for combatting this is to be picky about the book that I read at any given time. I have a large selection of books available that I want to read and when it comes time to choose a new book, I will go straight to the table of contents and pick out a random chapter that sounds interesting and read that chapter first. If the chapter is “fun” and interesting to read, then I’ll go back to the beginning and read the book.
If, at any point, the book becomes boring for a stretch of more than 1-2 chapters, then I will either skip around in the book to another chapter that seems more interesting or I will drop the book altogether.
Learning for the sake of learning is not the goal for me. My goal is to learn in a way that is relevant. I want to capture new knowledge and make it stick in my brain.
Finding a book that has the potential to contain ideas that are relevant to your life in the present moment is the first step in this process.
For me, the next step is to highlight certain ideas in the book as I come across them. These ideas are the ones that stick out to me as having some sort of relevance to my life. I then write down exactly how these ideas are relevant to my life right now and I store them in my daily notes.
Throughout the day, I will refer back to those notes and specifically look for ways in which the idea is relevant.
Take the above quote from Nassim Taleb in his book, "Fooled By Randomness”. I didn’t just read the idea and highlight it and never use it for anything.
I took the idea and I sat with it for a little while. I put it here in my notebook and thought about it as I went through my day.
Now I’m taking the extra time to sit down and write about the idea and how I apply it to my life on a regular basis. While most people would simply read over this idea and end their journey by leaving it highlighted in their book, I sit with the idea and I write about it. I think long and hard about how this idea is relevant to me and relevant to you, the reader.
To further deepen the learning experience, I like to end my posts with a Questions and Answers format. This opens a dialogue between you and I about the specific idea being talked about in any one of my given posts.
By doing this, we both get to think about the idea and write down our thoughts in a clear and concise comment and then we both get to learn from each other, building an even stronger bridge between the idea and reality!
Q&A:
Do you have a process that you regularly follow when you try to bridge an idea to your reality so that you can learn deeply rather than at a surface level?