Ok, to make this work in the best possible way, I’d have to run this as a live Webinar, where I can stop after each question, so be so kind and play along (as in: stop to scratch your or Yoda’s head when asked to)
When you look at pretty much ALL training courses (whether it’s school, corporate training, and of course training courses you may have picked up to learn about Internet Marketing), they all have this one thing in common:
There is typically more teaching going on than there is learning!
In other words:
The amount of real-world implementable content we pick up from training courses is fairly minimal (if non-existent) and as a result people (or we as a species) are not moving forward as fast as they’d like to.
Ok, here’s where the ‘live training’ part would kick in, so please, in your own interest: scratch that head now and ask yourself:
Why Is That? Why do YOU think that is? Why do YOU (and 99.9% of the rest of the population get so little out of training courses?)
Think of a specific course you attended or bought, all excited that this was going to make a big difference, and then … nothing.
stop now, and have a think!
Alrighty, got something?
Great!
Well, here’s my take, or my 2 takes
a) classroom style teaching is pretty much based on the idea that you want a predictable outcome (if I only follow those steps, then I’ll get X) – that means the teacher is the central part of the equation. You, the ‘recipient’ of the information is a pretty passive part of the system.
The idea is that we ‘learn’ from what has worked for the other person (the teacher), but that’s precisely where this whole model fails:
real (I mean REAL) learning only takes place when you experience something, when you put something into practice and then observe whether it works or fails.
Unfortunately, our brains trick us into believing that we can learn something by simply observing.
And yes, to some extent that’s possible, but to really make giant strides you have to practice, practice and practice again.
Little side-note/side-stab at the personal development mafia:
we keep getting told that we should strive to continually educate ourselves (I’m 100% behind that) and that the best way to do it is to buy books and listen to recordings in your mobile University, er, car.
Agree? Disagree?
Time to scratch that head!?
Well, the ‘mafia’ reference may have given you a clue as to what I think: of course never-ending education is essential, but ‘education’ is actually something you truly learn, in baby-steps by *doing* it, testing it, tweaking it.
Not by listening to it over and over again. (and yes, I have countless stories of others and me trying to batter our brains into truly learning something, including listening to all kinds of pre-recorded mantras on my iPod, and guess what, hardly any of them stuck…)
So, what would happen if YOU were put at the centre of the learning process – where YOU define the process, the outcome, the syllabus?
Time to scratch your head – but guess what, I won’t even tell you what I think, I’ll leave that for another post!
Then there’s the 2nd part on why ‘front-to-back training’ doesn’t work, also known as part
b) once again, our little brainstems (also known as the reptilian brain) messes with us:
we all LOVE blueprints.
A blueprint, especially a “proven” blueprint says this:
this is a SAFE way of doing things. You follow this blueprint and you will not get eaten by the sabre tooth tiger.
And as you know, we’re all about the avoidance of short-term pain (like being eaten) instead of long-term gain.
So we keep following blueprint after blueprint, which obviously doesn’t work, otherwise you wouldn’t be looking for yet another blueprint, right?
So, here’s my head-scratching question for you:
assuming that following blueprint style trainings does not work for you, what would a training look like that does work for you?
Let me know!
Veit