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Your Self Who Learns:
What Psychologists Know

Are you your brain? Who is the you who’s using your brain? Who is the you who is doing the learning?

The answers to these questions have profound implications for you as a 4.0 learner, because who you are affects your motivation, goals, risk taking, and other important factors.

To find answers to these questions, we need to explore another dimension of you—who you are as a thinking, feeling, living, and self-aware human being. In other words, your subjective, or big self. This is the you who interests psychologists, philosophers, and spiritual guides.

You don’t have to become a therapist, poet, or seer, or have any particular religious beliefs, to learn about your big self. But, this chapter does invite you to explore your inner subjective world and its implications for you as a 4.0 learner.

With that in mind and with a curious attitude about your self, read on to deepen your awareness of your big self who is learning.

Layers of You

There are many ways of thinking about the big self that can help you know yourself better. One enduring view was proposed in the last century by Carl Jung. It is very useful as a backdrop for better learning. So, think about these Jungian concepts as insights into who you are:

• The ego. This is your conscious self—the self you identify with and project on the world through situational adaptations or personas.

• The personal unconscious. These are specific personal memories, qualities, and behavior patterns that are stored inside you but that you usually don’t recognize as part of you.

• The collective unconscious. These are psychological dynamics that operate in all humans.

• The big self. Your big self contains your ego with its personas and your unconscious parts, as well as your more spiritual and essential self that is not easily described by scientists, biologists, or psychologists. It is the “who” of you that encompasses everything.

Figure 2-1. The Layers of You

Your Ego and Personas: The Tip of the Iceberg

Your ego is like the exposed part of an iceberg.¹ It contains the personal qualities, capabilities, accomplishments, and goals that you identify with—the person you consciously think you are and project in the world. Your ego appears as different personas in different situations; think of them as costumes that enable you to function in your various roles at work, at home, with friends, and when you give a talk. Your ego and personas may differ on the surface, but as long as they reflect similar core values and self-esteem, those differences won’t cause psychological stress. When there are big disconnects (for example, when you find yourself following the crowd rather than standing up for something important to you) then your discomfort may cause personal stress and be a call to learn and change.

Keeping your ego and personas aligned is only one challenge your big self faces. Sometimes, your ego identity itself is challenged. For example, imagine that you see yourself as a person who always wins. Admitting failure in any part of your life jeopardizes this self-image. But since failure is inevitable in life, this ego image will inevitably face a challenge. When that happens, your big self must step in with a learning agenda that helps change that part of your ego identity. Of course, it’s difficult to focus on learning when your ego identity is at risk, but this is increasingly the learning challenge in today’s fast-changing times. And 4.0 learners are tuned to recognize when an ego update is needed.

Sometimes the learning challenge to your ego is small; for example, you want to tweak a personal quality you already identify with or learn something that doesn’t threaten your image in the world (say, learn more about a political candidate or how to use a new piece of software). But sometimes the learning challenge is large; for example, you realize you need to change some part of your visible identity or a deeper ego trait (say, become less rigid or more vulnerable).

If someone who sees herself as a self-sufficient expert moves to a job that is all teamwork, she’ll need to shift her work identity to being a team member and sharing the stage with others. What happens to a person who is retiring from doing paid work but whose ego has merged completely with his work persona? He’s going to have a learning challenge because his ego identity will no longer fit his life or future. Or perhaps a person realizes that a fear of speaking in groups, which originated in childhood, is holding her back. It’s time for her to use that fear—buried for years—as a stepping stone to new learning and an expanded self-image.

There is an important point about your ego that you as a 4.0 learner should know: During the first part of your life, you spend a lot of time developing your ego self and defining who you are. In these early years, hormones also play a big role in directing your attention and you focus on making a place for yourself in the world, even conquering it. But in the second part of life, the challenge shifts. It’s now time to develop new parts of yourself, to relate to the world on your own terms and with more personal power, and to address any unresolved issues that may be getting in the way of your living a full life. So, some of your learning as an adult will focus on bringing your ego identity more in line with your evolving big self and dealing with issues and desires you shoved under the rug years ago. This is a 4.0 learning challenge.

Your Unconscious Self: The Sail Under the Surface

The largest part of an iceberg is under the surface. Geologists call it the “sail” because its shape determines its movement in the ocean’s currents. Just as with an iceberg, there is a lot more to you and motivating you than your ego self. The less visible parts of you play a big role in your behavior and your learning.

Some of this below-the-surface self is unique because of your history (your personal unconscious), and some of it is very similar to what other adults experience (the collective unconscious). Both call you to learn as you move through your life. Your response to them can mean the difference between a fulfilling and a disappointing life.

Your Personal Unconscious

Think of yourself being on a lifelong learning journey to become the very best, most complete, and multifaceted human you can be. Carl Jung called it a journey of individuation.² This life journey is your biggest adventure—it’s the one where you are continually challenged and shaped. For example, when you were a child, your parents and others in authority recognized and loved you for certain behaviors, and punished or discouraged others. Your journey includes your reactions to this.

Sometimes, to create an ego identity that fits others’ expectations and to keep yourself feeling loved and esteemed, you hid parts of you away in your inner shadows. For example, your parents may have punished you when you got angry. So, as a small child you sent your anger underground. Because you couldn’t develop constructive ways to express it, your anger may have festered as an undeveloped and shadow part of you. Unconscious shadow parts like this want to become a constructive part of your ego identity. But unless you consciously try to understand and transform them, they stay immature and make their presence known indirectly and sometimes in damaging ways. For example, you may project your repressed anger on others, harshly judging people who have outbursts. In those moments others carry the energy of your own anger so you don’t have to recognize it in yourself. Alternatively, your anger may turn on you as an ulcer.

Or perhaps you have an unfulfilled desire that you were drawn to early in life. Maybe you wanted to be a musician, an ecologist, a counselor—to be able to sing, be an expert on trees, or speak with eloquence. This unrealized desire may be a locked-up energy that lives in your inner shadows. It may peek out from time to time, but in the form of envy or excessive admiration of somebody else who has mastered it. Psychologists say you project your desires or emotion on others rather than own them yourself.

You can’t directly see or touch what is hidden away in yourself. And some of what’s stored there may be too sensitive to call out without help from a coach or therapist. But it is the mark of a 4.0 learner to notice when unconscious parts of you present a learning opportunity.

The learning 4.0 mindset is alert for signals that it’s time to deal with unfinished business, unexpressed dreams, problematic patterns, and opportunities to expand your big self. You don’t need to be a trained therapist or coach to do this. But you can use some of these insights from psychology to recognize when your personal unconscious self is knocking at your door and asking to be let in.

The Collective Unconscious in You

You are on a learning path—a unique path of becoming all you can be. But as a human being you have some of the same challenges and general psychological programming as everybody else. For example, we are all on a hero’s journey, like Harry Potter, Luke Skywalker, or Ulysses,³ or a heroine’s journey, like Hermione Granger, Princess Leia, or Penelope.⁴ You hear the call to change, and you either ignore or follow it. You find a guide or ask for help, you go through ups and downs as you learn and change, and you end up with the rewards of your work. The heroic journey resonates with everyone because we all share a collective unconscious that contains the hero archetype and other universal themes.⁵

Here are a few of the common archetypes that influence everybody’s development:

• The Shadow represents any unacknowledged or stunted part of your personality. Integrating shadow parts is a key developmental challenge for everybody.

• The Animus represents the hidden masculine and “father” qualities. The learning challenge is to bring stereotypic masculine traits like assertiveness and rationality into a balance with stereotypic feminine qualities like caring and connecting. This is an important learning area for many women who want to be more powerful influencers. Integrating the animus is part of every human’s journey.

• The Anima represents the feminine and “mother” qualities. Effectively integrating the stereotypic feminine traits into a mostly masculine individual personality is a huge but important learning challenge for any evolving man and many women.

• The Wise Old Man is important when you become an elder in society, at work, or at home. Its focus is the wise use of power, and its challenge is to exercise your power with the wisdom of experience and perspective.

• The Wise Old Woman takes the form of an urge to connect, love, and be of service beyond yourself and for a future beyond your lifespan. It usually knocks hard on your door in the second half of life.

These and other archetypes present learning challenges to us as we move through life. They are always there in the collective unconscious, calling on you to redefine yourself, to upgrade your ego, and to develop new capabilities. They are also there when you are learning specific skills. For example, you may think you are learning communication techniques in a course on interpersonal communication, but at a deeper level you may be expanding your ability to assert yourself (developing animus qualities) or your ability to connect with others (an anima quality). When you hitch your specific learning goal to a bigger archetype, powerful energies flow from the depths of your unconscious into your learning process. This makes you more likely to succeed.

As you learn, remember to draw on all these energies—your ego, your personal unconscious, and your collective unconscious. But there is more to the you who is using your learning brain.

Your Big Self

Think of your big self as the timeless spirit, the ongoing and ever-changing experience that is the you who observes you, is aware of yourself and your processes, takes control of your consciousness, and disappears from the planet as we know it when you die. Your big self contains all of you: It is you, the chief designer of yourself. It starts out as a potential you, ready to become all you can be.

Developmental psychologists point out that everyone is on a natural evolutionary path to become more whole, wiser, more mature. This means there is a propulsion in you to continually expand your capabilities, self-awareness, self-control, and influence in your world.

There are two broad views of what influences your big self, which are useful for master learners to know: first, the view that what propels development is the same for everybody; and second, the view that your development is unique and different.

Both are true.

Your Development Is Like Everybody Else’s

In addition to having a similar biology to other people, you have similar needs and go through similar stages as you progress through life. As a 4.0 learner, you realize that these common needs and development stages influence your learning priorities.

Similar Needs

Think about your basic needs. You have the same physiological needs (food, rest, a healthy body) as every other human being. Like others, you need to feel safe and secure, to be loved and feel connected to others, to feel self-respect and self-esteem, and to know that you are achieving your potential. We also seem to have a deeply planted need to believe that our lives are in harmony with something universal (God, spiritual, or scientific laws) and with values like autonomy and human dignity.⁶ When any of these needs are in jeopardy, you hear an internal call to action; you have to figure out what to do to take care of things. Maybe you realize you must change or learn something.

Abraham Maslow’s six needs categories present a hierarchy of human needs (Figure 2-2). You must first reasonably satisfy the lower needs before you can fully attend to the higher levels. Maslow’s list is a good basis for a quick health check from time to time. How are you doing in each of these areas? What life changes or learning actions will bring you into better balance? Notice that nobody ever completely satisfies any or all of these needs, and their levels of satisfaction are not fixed because problems may occur or your standards change. Think about how your perspectives on nutrition and fitness, security, social connection, and self-management have changed over time.

Figure 2-2. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Aside from influencing your development plans, your needs may also interfere with your learning. This happens, for example, when you know you want to develop a new skill, but your need for self-esteem prevents you from going through the novice stage where you might fail. In this case, you’d need to reframe your view of self-esteem to include being someone who is courageous and agile, who learns from problems and failures.

Similar Development Stages

In addition to having similar needs, there is also force at work within you, calling you to greater wisdom and integration as you age. Many psychologists have documented these as stages of human development. They roughly follow the life sequence that most people experience: early childhood, school, young adulthood, starting work and family, taking on more responsibility and influence, dealing with middle age, and the shifts in roles and self-awareness that come in later years. Two views hold gems of insight for 4.0 learners who want to be more aware of their own and others’ developmental stages.

First, think about Erik Erickson’s view of development stages, which is one of the more resilient views in psychology.⁷ He describes eight stages, and says that development can take a positive or negative path in each stage. The learning challenge you faced or face in each stage is to adopt the positive and learn how to avoid, learn from, or move beyond the negative:

• Trust versus mistrust. In this stage, which occurs from 0 to 1.5 years, you learned whether the world is a safe and loving place, or a dangerous one where it is hard to satisfy your most fundamental need to trust others.

• Independence versus shame and doubt. In this stage (1.5 to 3 years), you learned either that you are a unique individual, separate from others and loved for your uniqueness, or you became uncertain and ashamed of yourself.

• Initiative versus guilt. Here (3 to 6 years) you learned to take risks and fail without damage to your self-esteem, or you learned to avoid challenge and hide failure.

• Industry versus inferiority. During these years (age 6 to puberty), you learned to take responsibility for your actions and delay gratification, even when you had to give up momentary pleasures, or you let yourself coast and feel like a victim.

• Identity versus role confusion. In this stage (adolescence), you discovered your innate talents and interests and learned how to retain your identity in groups. Or you may have taken the other path of groupthink, where others defined you and your roles.

• Intimacy versus isolation. Here (early adulthood) you develop your ability to connect deeply with other human beings or you fail to take the personal risks that such involvements require.

• Generativity versus stagnation. The task in this stage (middle adulthood) is to continue to grow and to share your increasingly broader perspective with others, or to be stuck in a rut where you do not continue to develop.

• Integrity versus despair. The task in life’s later stage (late adulthood) is to appreciate the self you have developed and to integrate or accept all aspects of who you are. The alternative is to live with regret, dashed hopes, and sadness.

Robert Kegan has a different but compatible view that closely parallels the four learning upgrades that this book presents. He focuses on how consciousness evolves.⁸ He says that you may go through as many as five major consciousness changes (he calls them orders) in your lifetime. Each one brings with it a new view of yourself and a new way of approaching the world. It’s like learning to drive a car, mastering it, then moving on to fly a propeller plane, then a high-performance jet, and then the space shuttle:

• Fantasy. As a small child, you don’t have the concepts and tools to objectively understand what is around you. The role of consciousness in this first order is to make sense out of things by making things up.

• Instrumental mind. In later childhood, you learn to see things in categories, distinguish your needs from others, and even compete for resources and attention. You learn that, “If I do this, then that happens.” The role of consciousness in this second order is to make sense out of things through cause and effect thinking.

• Socialized mind. As a young adult, your focus shifts to fitting into social and other structures, often without questioning them. A crucial task in this phase is to become part of a community and accepted by others. Consciousness in this third order helps you make sense out of things by referring to community standards or defiantly rejecting them.

• Self-authoring mind. When you shift into this plane of consciousness, you become a fully independent and responsible owner of your thoughts and actions, whether they fit with others or not. In this fourth order, you use consciousness to craft your own life, not blaming others or the system.

• Self-transforming mind. This order (one that today’s world needs more of) goes both broad and deep. You recognize when your beliefs, values, and mindsets don’t fit what you are learning about the world—and you change them based on that knowledge. You create profoundly intimate relationships that often require you to deal with your personal unconscious. And you are also a wise integrator who can bring diverse interests together, see new solutions in conflict, and help lead others along their developmental path. The role of consciousness is to help you use your creative abilities to continually upgrade and learn.

The world is rapidly changing, and one of your biggest learning challenges is to make sure that your big self adapts and evolves with it. What’s required today are Kegan’s fourth- and fifth-order responses. We all need to take full responsibility for ourselves (self-authoring), not blaming others or the system, or expecting others to take care of us. And, today’s fast-changing world also calls us toward Kegan’s fifth order of consciousness, the self-transforming mind. It’s the vantage point for solving and inspiring others to solve some of the bigger problems of our times.

However, only about a third of all adults are in the fourth Kegan stage (which requires learning 3.0 programing), and very few ever move into the fifth (a major focus of learning 4.0). Learning 4.0, which includes updates to all previous learning programs, contains the programming and practices that will help more people move into these higher levels of consciousness.

The deeper learning challenges that your needs and stages present are always there under the surface. And they may pop up when you pursue more tactical learning goals. In fact, a seemingly innocent technical goal may not be achievable if you don’t address the developmental need that underlies it. For example, you may want to learn some innovation techniques but may not use them because you fear failure and a loss of self-esteem (an Erikson stage 3 issue that you have not fully resolved).

When you focus your learning on or connect a learning task with a deeper need or life stage issue, you don’t need learning to be entertaining. And you don’t need the enticement of rewards somebody else offers. You learning will be inherently motivating and deeply enriching. And you will soar.

Your Development Is Different From Others’

So, you have the same basic needs and develop through similar development stages as everyone else. You also draw on the same unconscious forces as you struggle to integrate masculine and feminine qualities, grow in wisdom, and reclaim parts of yourself hiding in the shadows. These common human qualities create rather predictable learning needs that affect everyone.

But you are also unique in many ways, including your interests and the personal values and aspirations that drive your behavior. This includes your unique skills and purpose in life, who you are today, and who you are becoming tomorrow.

Let’s look at a few ways you are creating your unique self as you live your life.

Your Sense of Personal Power

One important aspect of your big self that directly affects your learning is whether you believe you are in charge of or a victim in your life. Psychologists have long researched this important difference among people. They say you have an external locus of control or a fixed mindset if you think that you can’t influence most things that happen to you, and if you judge and define yourself by what you achieve. On the other hand, with an internal locus of control and a growth mindset, you can see yourself as a powerful force in the world around you. And you see problems and failures as opportunities to learn and grow.⁹

To be a 4.0 learner, you need to believe that you can influence your life (internal locus of control). If you have a strong growth mindset, you’ll be a more courageous learner, taking on the big learning challenges, shifting gears based on feedback, and managing your process through the inevitable ups and downs that occur for adults as learners.

How You Like to Process Information

Over time you have probably developed information processing and learning preferences. You may like reading more than listening, or learning with others more than on your own. You may like to reflect before acting, or to act and then reflect. Maybe you prefer to study rules and concepts, to have a good mental grasp and a big picture of things before doing something. Or perhaps you think you learn more by trial and error and discovery, followed by learning the concepts. You may prefer knowing the big picture before plunging into the details, or you want to know the details before the big picture. If you see yourself as more intuitive and emotional, you may prioritize “feel” and “insight” over facts. Or perhaps your ego identity is more rational and logical, driving you to facts and details.

It’s good to be aware of your preferences, but not be controlled by them. In today’s fast-changing information world, you have to learn in any situation. If you know your preferences, you can use that knowledge when you plan your learning strategies. For example, you may want to start a learning journey by using your favorite learning resources and approach. This may launch you faster and help ramp up your motivation. But they may not be the best resources and methods for your learning task, so don’t be blinded by your preferences. Plan to be a master of all resources and methods, whether they are your preferences or not.

Your Motivated Competencies

Competencies are your knowledge and skills. You have developed many competencies through your life so far, and you probably enjoy using some more than others. These are your motivated competencies. What you are motivated to use today probably differs from years ago. The knowledge and skills you like to use are easier to develop than competencies that you aren’t energized to use. Your brain chemicals are more supportive then, too.

It’s possible that a knowledge or skill you are motivated to use is not currently a strength. So, don’t confuse motivated with a strength.

As a 4.0 learner, know what your motivated knowledge and skills are. Use this awareness to help focus your learning and to put yourself into situations where you can further hone and develop them. When you use competencies that you enjoy or develop those you think you will enjoy, it is easier to learn and continue to grow—you tap into an available well of energy that is strongly connected to your big self. This makes it easier to put yourself into a flow state where learning accelerates.

Your Core Values

Values are deeply entrenched decision criteria you use when you make choices. They are like magnets. They draw you toward some behaviors and choices and away from others. You develop them through experience, because of the influence of culture, parenting, and education. They operate quietly and are subtle and often unnoticed. Some relate to what you want to achieve in life (such as wisdom, security, recognition, freedom, friendship, or mature love). Others relate to how you want to live your life (such as self-control, courage, politeness, logic, obedience, and helpfulness). Knowing which values are at the top of your list is important for learning. Why? Because you can use them as motivators when you are learning something (if I learn this skill, I will be more secure). Also, some of the things you learn will directly challenge your values hierarchy. For example, you may have to give up some security to be free in a situation. In this case, the learning challenge is to understand the benefits of trading off some security so you can protect your freedom.

Your Life Purpose

Nobody can say how this happens, but each of us seems to come into the world with a disposition toward some things but not others. Even genetics don’t explain it. One possible explanation is that there is some deeper purpose that you were born to achieve. That purpose is like a slight tint on your world and your learning—it’s rosier when you are moving toward it and grayer when you move away. Your purpose answers the question, “Why are you here on this planet, at this time, in this place?”

Having a purpose assumes that you are an influential force in the world around you—that what you do and who you are have ripple effects. How you interact with people, the decisions and choices you make, the jobs and careers you choose, even your quiet presence changes the world in some way. Maybe that’s why you have those 90 billion neurons and 100 trillion connections in your brain.

When you are aware of your purpose or pursuing a larger life purpose, it is harder for people to manipulate you with external rewards and other forms of control, because your purpose acts like the North Star or Southern Cross, guiding you through the turbulent seas and darkest storms of life.

Identify your life’s purpose and connect your learning to it as often as you can.

Your Self Who Learns, in Brief

This has been a rather complex chapter that asks you to think more about yourself than you might normally do. So, I hope you are still with me! The main point is that there is an amazing big self that is using that fantastic brain of yours. That self is subjective—you can’t see or weigh it like you can your brain. However, there are ways to understand your self who’s learning, and this chapter has invited you to explore and think about a few of them.

You learned here that there are many processes going on in your big self: Your ego and personas are the tip of the iceberg you present to the world. Your personal unconscious contains all the parts of you (positive and negative) that you have suppressed or ignored throughout your life so that you fit in or preserve your ego identity. And then there is the collective unconscious part of you that is like others—influenced by your needs (Maslow’s hierarchy), life stages (Erikson’s stages of development), and ways of seeing the world (Kegan’s orders of consciousness).

You also learned about what else is going on in your big self, including your sense of your own power in your life, how you like to process information, your motivated competencies, your core values, and the guiding star of your life purpose.

These are all at work when you learn—sometimes motivating you, sometimes fighting or transforming you, but always ready to assist your learning. So, be willing to connect with some of these deeper parts of you and to unleash the energy they contain!