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39

Don’t commit to lifelong learning

Most of the successful people I’ve met invest 5%, often much more, of their annual income on their own development. Whereas you should spend your money on a new car rather than invest it in yourself. What’s the point of committing to lifelong learning when there are so many other wonderful things you could do with your hard-earned cash? Here is one reason, as expressed by Benjamin Franklin: “If a man empties his purse into his head, no man can take it away from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.” Yes, but is it as much fun as leaping behind the wheel of your new car?

Experts claim increasing your knowledge not only plays a crucial role in your development as a person, it is also a key component of achieving your goals. They say it stands to reason you are going to have to gain more knowledge and learn new skills. Otherwise you would already have achieved the goal. Then of course there is the speed of change. The same experts believe a child born today will have up to seven or eight careers and at least one of those careers doesn’t even exist yet. One of my grown-up kids is currently in a career involving social media that didn’t exist only a short time ago. So I know this to be true. They say there doesn’t seem much point in only teaching them stuff like “What was the name of Edward VI’s whipping boy?”¹ (It’s Barnaby Fitzpatrick, by the way.) No, if our kids are to survive in the high-speed world of the future, every lesson first thing on a Monday morning should be called ‘Learning how to learn’. Still, that’s got nothing to do with us adults, unless you believe Brian Tracy, an authority on accelerated learning. He says that fifty per cent of what you know now will be obsolete in two years’ time, and that is why school is never out – to earn more you must learn more. And so what if, as Henry Ford once said: “Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at 20 or 80. Anyone who keeps learning stays young”?²

Have you also noticed how employers now expect you to improve year on year? The cheek of it. I knew somebody who worked somewhere for ten years but in reality got away with delivering the same one year’s performance ten times. Nice one. Unfortunately, this isn’t possible any longer. You are going to have to prove your improvement. Still, don’t stop being satisfied with knowing just enough to get by.

Of course, if you’re the boss, you might be thinking, “What if I train people and they leave?” to which you might reply, “What if you don’t train them and they stay?” I’d just leave their brains to shrivel slowly to the size of a pea.

“You are going to have to prove your improvement. Still, don’t stop being satisfied with knowing just enough to get by.”

Here is something else not to file away if you are a boss or a parent. (Can you be a boss and a parent? Not as far as your kids are concerned.) People will lower or raise their performance based on expectations. Trials have shown that, for instance, in the world of education high expectations build competence, low expectations instil incompetence. Known as the Pygmalion effect, a test was conducted to see whether expectations really would colour results. Three teachers were selected and told they were the best in the education authority and therefore were to be given three classes of the brightest and most able students. The three classes of students were also told they were of higher ability. The three teachers taught their three classes for a full school year. At the end the pupils sat exams. All three classes performed well above average. Only then was it revealed that in fact the three teachers were of only average ability and so were the three classes. So what had happened to create such an improvement? Well, fundamentally, all behaviour had been interpreted through the perception of higher ability. So whereas a child might have been seen as being disruptive, now they were seen as eager to learn and quickly bored. It’s a proven fact: expect the best or the worst and that’s just what you’ll get. What do you usually expect?

¹ They weren’t allowed to hit the king if he misbehaved at school so instead they whipped poor old Barnaby.

² Waiting for a crisis before you are forced to learn something new isn’t the best strategy. I don’t care you can now use Zoom. Please don’t think about all the other stuff you’ve yet to learn to do.