Use What You Have

“There’s a reason you have what you have, so use what you have, to get what you need” – Tolu Alao

One thing am pretty sure of is, you are already a good learner! You’ve had to be throughout life so far.

No one is born with the ability to walk, use utensils, write, drive, read, cook, swim, speak several languages, operate an electronic device and even understand an analogue clock!

Sleep

“The experiences of the day are reviewed during sleep and assimilated into new patterns of thought, belief, and future behaviour”

-Colin Rose (Author, Accelerated Learning)

One of the primary functions of sleep is to improve consolidation of information. Several studies have demonstrated that memory depends on getting sufficient sleep between training and test.

Visualization

“Your ability to visualize what you read and hear enhances recall and learning” – Tolu Alao

Imagine you are in the kitchen. You take a fresh lemon from the fruit bowl. It is cool in your hand. The yellow dimpled skin feels smooth and waxy. It comes to a small green conical point at either end. The lemon is firm and quite heavy for its size as you look at it in the palm of your hand. 

Understand the Idea

"Know 'why?' Before 'how?'..." 

-Tolu Alao

Believe me when I say, it’s invaluable knowing why? It gives you an edge over other learners who only know ‘how?’

Obviously, understanding the idea takes more time than just knowing how, but trust me it will last for the rest of your life.

Timing

“When to Learn is as important as What to Learn”

Tolu Alao

If learning must be natural and easy you must as a matter of fact learn when you are not under duress of any kind- internal or external. You learn best when you are in a low stressed state. You must realize that during such periods you learn at remarkable rates and consequently remember more. Thus, you must prepare to take advantage of these periods.

Notes Taking

“Good learning at home begins with good notes taken in class”

Tolu Alao

Just as everyone has a different learning style, different teachers have different teaching styles (and often these clashes with the students' learning styles!).

Some teachers lecture, some lead discussions, some "facilitate" individual work (as in a lab), etc. 

Self-Discipline (1)

“There are a thousand excuses for failure

but never a good reason.”

—Mark Twain

Most people know the right thing to do, only a few actually do them. That’s what differentiates ‘us’ from ‘others’. I can give you principles upon principles, but without self-discipline they make no sense at all! Knowledge that is not put to use is still ignorance!

Teachability

Teachability is not so much about competence and

 mental capacity as it’s about attitude. It’s a

desire to listen, learn and apply

…John C. Maxwell

Realizing that you need to learn or know something is primarily the first step to learning or knowing it. If you don’t know that you don’t know! We have a problem. 

Being ignorant of your ignorance makes it very hard to subject yourself to learning, that’s why I want you to tackle it first before reading any further.

We live in a world where learning what you need to learn is fundamental to accomplishing anything in life. People who are not ready to subject themselves to the learning process in a matter of years, months or even days become irrelevant in their fields.

Never before has science, technology, arts, sports, music etc changed so rapidly in the history of mankind. 

As a matter of fact, whatever works right now is already obsolete. Thus, to remain relevant mentally, physically, emotionally, financially and even spiritually, you have to remain teachable! 

You have to continuously tell yourself, ‘I don’t know enough!’, ‘I need more!’, ‘What have learnt today?’ 

What used to work before no longer works again! That’s why the most successful people today in any area, are those who are constantly seeking ways to get better! 

They attend every seminar, workshop, lecture relating to their field to get the latest information. They read every book, article and report in their field. In short they deliberately look for ways of improving themselves. 

They don’t just limit themselves to assumptions or ‘trial-and-error’ techniques; they look for more in books, colleagues, mentors, seniors etc. That’s a major separator between those at the top and those at the bottom.

Teachability shows on how you respond to learning opportunities. Do you look forward to learning? Are you constantly looking for ways to get better? How do you react to people who know more than you? These are some questions that should tell whether you are teachable or not. 

Personally, I define Teachability as the capacity to want to learn or desire to learn, because truthfully, no matter what anyone says, regardless of the approach or methodology of delivery, if you DON’T want to learn, you WON’T learn.  

I strongly believe your case is different because you are currently reading this. It tells me: 
1. You want to get better at what you do; 
2. You know you are not where you want to be yet and 3. You are ready to learn what you need to learn to get there. 

So I dare you to follow through with this mission and I guarantee you will never remain the same again.          

KEYPOINTS:

• Realize that you don’t know enough and you probably never will.
• Learning what you need to learn is paramount to remaining relevant.
• The desire to learn makes you teachable.

ACTION STEP:

• Welcome every opportunity to learn.

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Expect To Learn

“He who expects nothing receives nothing”

Tolu Alao

Personally I have been plagued with how in many cases many of us listen to the same person and remember if not hear different things! Ha! Actually am perplexed, petrified and perturbed how we hear what we want to hear because we want to hear it! 

That’s why my challenge to us today is to always expect to learn something no matter how small because something always happens when you expect!

When you are in a learning setting be expectant! One dimension of showing your anticipation is to get your pen and note prepared to write. 

You will be surprise how this 'mere' physical action of just holding an ‘uncovered pen’ does to your mind. 

You become sensitive to ‘rhema’, before you know it you're making connections to what you already know, you're flowing with the speaker, teacher or facilitator, you understand everything that's being said and Woaw!! You are learning something new.

I have practiced this principle for many years and trust me it works wonders. I still recall some of my footnotes/commentaries after many years of writing them in such situations. 

Don’t say: “Aaah! The teacher will give us the softcopy/hardcopy of his note” and just fold your hands! 

The other dimension of expectation shows on what you hear. Because you expect to follow, understand and learn something new your whole being becomes alert to ‘spotting the difference’ between what you know and what you don’t know. 

In real life, many of us expect something awkward, new, interesting, worth talking/gisting about, worth ‘snapping’, fascinating, intimidating, motivating, funny, hilarious, attention-grabbing to happen to us each day so that we can quickly update our DP (display picture), PM (personal message), twitter page, facebook or just to smile about (don’t worry I do it too) and because of these expectations we become very sensitive to what's happening around us! You see, it's the same principle here! Expect!! and you'll experience!!! 

I challenge you today to tackle every learning session with expectations and you would be glad you did!

ACTION STEP:   

• Every morning consciously expect to learn something from anyone you talk to that day. Watch out for new stuffs!! 
• Have a form of note (electronic or mechanical) handy at all times where you immediately write!

Stay Tuned for More

Mind Relativity

"It's as difficult as you make it to be and as simple as that" 

Tolu Alao

The moment you believe or agree with yourself that something is 'learnable' you activate your mind and energize your body to make it possible.

Believing in your capacity to learn is paramount to understanding an idea/concept/principle. Determine in advance to demystify whatsoever you encounter mentally.

Remember what you conquer with your mind you conquer with your body! 

Mentally simplifying everything no matter how 'complex' it looks can dramatically cause you to understand at phenomenal rates. 

Personally, when I encounter an unfamiliar terrain, I tell myself; "It's simple jooor!" saying it out loud. 

This simple act of talking to myself energizes my whole being into motion and surprise surprise am doing the seemly impossible! 

This is the way forward people! Mind Relativity! 

Action Step:

Whenever you encounter something strange/new speak to yourself saying: "IT'S VERY SIMPLE!" Make sure you do this before trying to solve, answer or demystify! You know what, be like me, do it before you see the question or challenge ;)!  

Exercise Your Brain

“A man’s (mind) brain, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.”

-paraphrased Oliver Wendell Holmes

Stretch and expose your brain to new challenges, tests, trials and conditions. 

If it means doing sums with your head, DO IT! If it means giving a speech, talk or sermon from your head, DO IT! If it means remembering phone numbers, surnames, first names, middle names, date of birth, hobbies, schools attended of all your friends from your head, DO IT! 

Do whatever makes you think faster and smarter.

Stop underutilizing your mind, exercise it! For God’s sake make it sweat! I love the saying that goes something like this:

God gave you a brain, so that you can give Him rest! You’ll be surprised what your brain can handle. 

Let me share with you some surprising facts about the human brain so as to 'ginger' you! Let's go:

The human brain cell can hold 5 times as much information as the Encyclopedia Britannica: Or any other encyclopedia for that matter. Scientists have yet to settle on a definitive amount, but the storage capacity of the brain in electronic terms is thought to

be between 3 or even 1,000 terabytes. The National Archives of Britain, containing over 900 years of history, only takes up 70 terabytes, making your brain’s memory power pretty impressive.

Blinking: Each time we blink, our brain kicks in and keeps things illuminated  so the whole world doesn’t go dark each time we blink (about 20,000 times a day).

Laughing: Laughing at a joke is no simple task as it requires activity in five different areas  of the brain.

Thoughts: The average number of thoughts that humans are believed to experience each day is 70,000.

Time: The slowest speed at which information travels between neurons is 416 km/h or 260 mph, thats as "slow" as todays supercar's top speed (the Bugatti EB 16.4 Veyron clocked at 253 mph).

I can go on and on giving you facts upon facts, but the point is you have within you untapped brain power, if you want to learn easily, think creatively and take on new challenges you have to stretch it! 

That’s what separates great minds from just ‘mere’ minds! Remember, when you don’t use it, you lose it!! Use it continuously and it becomes more efficient. 

Start now and see how you improve exponentially, trust me it works! ;)

Work on Your Foundation

People who learn ‘new stuff’ faster are those who have taken out time to perfect the ‘old stuff’. 

They know well enough, that everything you learn now is just a brick on the already laid brick (i.e. a step further/higher). 

Ensuring that the rudiments or pre-requisites have already being mastered should be the practice of anyone who wants to be an excellent learner.

What seems complex in whatever subject/area is simply an aggregate of simple/basic knowledge. 

Know the pre-requisite and the present becomes simple. What most people think is difficult is actually accumulated ‘simple’ stuff! 

Take for example this word in English ‘Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis’: The 45-letter word was coined to serve as the longest English word and is the longest word ever to appear in an English language dictionary. 

It is listed in the current edition of several dictionaries. It means a lung disease caused by the inhalation of very fine silica dust, causing inflammation in the lung, a condition meeting the word's definition is normally called silicosis. 

If you look at this word closely, it’s a combination of many small words. Let’s analyze it together: ‘pneumono’ is derived from the word ‘pneumonic’ which means relating to or affecting the lungs, ‘ultramicroscopic’ means too small to be seen with optical microscope, ‘silico’ short for silica, ‘volcano’ tells us the source of the silica and the final segment which is the suffix ‘-osis’ refers to an unusual or diseased condition. 

The summation of all this simple words gives the complex word ‘Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis’! That’s the way most ideas, concepts, principles, laws etc are! Once you understand the fundamentals, learning becomes fun!

Stay Tuned!!!

Be Yourself

I recently started playing computer games after a long break of about five years.

I kicked off with FIFA 2012 and struggled to draw any match, talk more of winning. I'd tried to be everyone all at once (i.e. defender, midfielder, striker, goalkeeper and even coach). 

I struggled to make an impression on any team without success, their victories were flawless. I felt bullied, tormented and battered, it was as if Lionel Messi was playing with my six year old cousin Isaac. 

It was indeed disgraceful and shameful to say the least. Anyways I decided to try something else, I chose to be myself - just one player (maintaining my uniqueness) and play right-forward/winger (number 7) and I let everyone else do their part. 

My first attempt was overwhelming, the game ended 5-0 in my favour. I, as in Me or the person i was controlling scored 3 classic goals (hat-trick) and assisted the remaining 2 goals. I realized that I was better off being my self, nothing else guaranteed life-long fulfillment! This I believe is the Law Of Uniqueness. 

Stay Tuned!!!