A quarter of a century ago, reading was a habit that implied proactivity on the part of the reader: someone who was interested in a particular topic usually went to the library, bookstore, or antique shop to find a few proper volumes suited to the desired topic, and studied them carefully, patiently and meticulously. Reading was something that could be done then, as opposed to now, anywhere (at home, in the reading room, in the park, in the means of transportation, while waiting), provided that the book was taken with us.
Availability and ability to access and receive written information content from electronic files and the Internet has changed the information consumption habit from a proactive behavior into a reactive one. The skills of discerning and searching for information have atrophied and have become dispensable.
That is why more and more people are feeling the need to go cover more, better, faster the information avalanche upon them.
(keep reading ↓)
As always, in the personal development field, providers complain about the lack of objective-oriented proactive interest in the market. When the problem hits the market, they do not know how to take advantage of the availability of demands.
Well, the biggest problem of those who get to an efficient learning consultant is not the lack of learning skills. These are a part of the problem, but a small part. That was the only problem for those who learned speed reading, memorizing, concentration, productivity, and modeling 15-20 years ago. The more severe and unacknowledged pain of each client is actually the lack of discipline.
Contemporary society works so that adults are rewarded for their lack of discipline and encouraged to break the links between causes and effects. Discipline is just something that is required from children, employees, and athletes; it does not seem to be something also beneficial for learning.
The primary function of a personal trainer for efficient learning is no longer to provide techniques and information on how the client should process the data and organize their study. Instead, his primary function is that of muse and dog catcher simultaneously. Muse, because he has to inspire his client to find the motivation for his/her own learning goals (helps him/her to discover “the carrot”) and dog catcher (helps him/her to find “the stick”) because he has to supervise the client and see if (s)he has done his/her homework, if (s)he practiced the techniques and if (s)he learned the skills.
Efficient learning is the most essential skill you did not know you needed in the 21st century, and it works 100% on the condition that you use it.
Therefore, a client who purchases learning services no longer needs only a learning professional who shares his strategies and experience but needs a muse and a dog catcher, all within the same price, and his results depend on the extent to which each consultant realizes these implicit roles of his/hers.
For example, I do not accept these roles implicit in my consultant work, but I offer that I also provide coaching in addition to the actual consulting work. In coaching, I ask questions and support the client to find their own motivation and more, even the determination in succeeding to achieve the intended learning goals. In fact, this is why many prefer formal education. Because of this, more and more non-formal courses have become formal, taking the form of virtual weekly, modulated, structured classes that require a specific discipline. Unfortunately, most people do not have this inherent discipline. Discipline is an outsourced luxury that is becoming more expensive every day.
The problem with accepting to be a muse and a dog catcher together with the consultant job is caused by the clients’ lack of awareness that, in fact, this is what they need, therefore asking someone for a tariff for the consulting hour and, in addition, a surcharge for the coaching hour may seem to some outrageous. Still, in reality, it would be expected that the coaching hour tariff would be higher than the one for the consulting hour because clients have resulted due to coaching rather than consulting.
In reality, the depths of the iceberg below the visible radius are given by the emotional framing of the learning process. What people imagine the learning process is and what they expect to gain from it, which experiences they have had so far from learning, to what extent they need to change not only their skills but also their personality, what they have to give up to get what they think is important and how much effort is actually needed to reach their goals. The problem is that this part is harder and more inconvenient to be aware of and accept as it is, both for learning professionals and clients.
In other words, you, the client, come to me after spending 12-20 years in school, and nobody taught you how to learn, but they taught you how NOT to learn, and I, the consultant, make available for you, concentrated in 4-5 hours, all you need in terms of technique, strategy and understanding for you to become learning independent for the rest of my life, I provide you with a complete set of super-materials. In the end, I am responsible for the fact that YOU have not put into practice what is in YOUR stated interest to use?
Therefore, the truth is that much of your time spent without knowing how to learn is a waste of time. But that’s OK; the general amount of stupidity and ignorance increases; therefore, your contribution will not be very noticeable.
If something of what I’ve written so far bothers you, that doesn’t change the fact that I’m right. So what do I deserve because I’m right?
Thank you!
Happy efficient learning!
Efficient learning consultant and trainer (speed reading, memorization, concentration, productivity, NLP modeling)
Copyright © Marcus Victor Grant 2016-present Translation by Cristiana Brezeanu of the article “În căutarea disciplinei pierdute “published initially by Marcus Victor Grant in Romanian on June the 28th on Discerne. Originally written in 2016. Copyright © Marcus Victor Grant, all rights reserved.
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