Unlearning: The path to true learning

  

Definition: “Learning is acquiring new, or modifying and reinforcing, existing knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, or preferences and may involve synthesizing different types of information. The ability to learn is possessed by humans, animals and some machines.”

Most of people think that learning is defined this way, however real learning must include a critical concept Unlearning or knowledge destruction.

What is Unlearning?

Definition: To put (something learned) out of the mind; forget.

In order to learn you have to learn to unlearn. The ability to question global beliefs and paradigms is critical to go further , to move forward in human and nature understanding. After all if we belief what everybody says and writes and we dont question anything it is imposible to evolve. Through history every leader and influencer has questioned paradigms and global beliefs. Think about this;

What do Platon , Aristoteles, Socrates, Jesus of Nazaret , Mohamed, Buddha , Leonardo da Vinci, Chistopher Columbus, Thomas Edisson, Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking have in common?

They all questioned paradigms and worked with passion and discipline in order to demonstrate that what humanity believed until then was incorrect.

Your brain is like a backpack

If you want to put more things inside your backpack you have to take some of them out. Ego and arrogance is the worst enemy of intelligence and learning , as it keeps you from learning more. A lot of success people that achieved their goals stay in arrogance and think they know everything, they wake up everyday looking at the mirror and saying: Yes I am the King, I am rich, I know everything…… Nothing further apart from reality.

Only when you are ready and mature enough to be able to unlearn you will understand. Forget your ego and you will advance and achieve real happiness and success.

Happiness and success is not about being the best at the peak of the mountain , it is about understanding and kaizen (constant and never ending improvement). Contribution and growth are the two most important human needs after all.

 “Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.” 
― Gautama Buddha

My advice is: Look, feel, think, doubt and then

think again, don't fear anything ……… stand up

for what you believe!

Sales team leading: Discipline, the key to real freedom, happiness and success

It is a worldwide paradigm that discipline is against freedom, everybody thinks that disciplined people are less free and more unhappy but the truth is that disciplined people are happier and achieve success faster, in fact success without discipline is called luck and it is very rare. 

Of course too much discipline can be harmful but only when it goes against the individual rules of happiness. I would like to share with you how discipline is directly related to freedom, happiness and success:   

Freedom

The key to real freedom is discipline, only when you are able to control your mind and emotions in order to decide if you want to do something or not you are in total control of your brain. Freedom is the choice to do anything and only with discipline you are totally free. Staying home watching tv, not going to the gym or not making the report your boss asked you for is not freedom at all, you start loosing the control of your brain and due to this after some time feelings of regret of not complying the tasks will start making you feel really bad.

Happiness

Only when you achieve freedom and total control of your emotions you are ready for the next step. Happiness is very complex and each individual has developed their own personality type and chosen the rules they must comply in order to achieve their own happiness but it is real that discipline helps you to be totally happy as you can choose and make decisions and you will not be frustrated because you want to change and you cannot do it.

Change is good and necessary for life and discipline is the key to change. 

Success

Success is only achieved when the individual is happy. Discipline is the key to success , nobody has been born to be anything in special as genetics are not so important as it is worldwide believed. It is true that a family of engineers or fighters may have a descendant than can have facility as an engineer or fighter but it is more because of the personality, values , beliefs and discipline that the family transmits them the reason that they will become successful. 

Only by having strict discipline you can achieve the real success and it is totally necessary in order to achieve peak performance and success. 

Practice discipline and teach your brain who is in charge, it takes years.... but when you do it at a unconscious competence level you will perform at peak performance and achieve real success in all aspects of your life!!

Emotional control: Who is driving the truck?

Who is driving the truck?

We use this metaphor in order to make people focus on their power over the brain. It is an easy and funny phrase that is used as an anchor to break patterns.

The truck represents the human brain. It is big, powerful and you can accelerate it or break it , depending on your specific needs. It is very complex if you study the engineering carefully and at the same time it is very simple to drive if somebody teaches you how. If you are interested in the teaching process please read my blog Learning process , four stages of competence.

We demonstrate that you and only you can make yourself happy or sad, as reality is not what happens to you, the reality is what you build around this event with the values, rules and identity created by your brain. What does the particular event mean to you , how do you feel the emotions and how you process them is your reality and it is controled by your brain.

What would happen if you accelerate the truck to 200km/h and you suddenly get scared and you let go the steering wheel???

If you have never done it. Trust me it is scary!

You must always keep eyes on the road and the hands on the steering wheel in order to avoid accidents.

How to control the bus and never take the hands out of the steering wheel?

Here it comes; the Triad:

Triad: The key to emotional control  

Triad is the best tool to control emotional states. It is defined as:

1. Physiology

Body and mind are connected, whatever happens to your body will affect your mind and vice versa. Change the way you use your physiology:

- Breath

Breathing is the process that delivers oxygen to where it is needed in the body and removes carbon dioxide, it is critical to get energy in our body.Be conscious of your breathing , it is very important that you breath correctly. If you want to be calm take deep breaths and if you need to make aerobic exercise you need to take deep and fast breaths. Breathing has been used for centuries to control and help our brain to control the emotions.  

- Motion

Focus on how do you move your body, what is the position of your shoulders, how you walk, how you look etc..... The way you move , walk , talk will affect your emotional state. 

- What and when do you eat

Pay attention on what do you eat and when do you eat. If you need to do something important you have to avoid heavy meals , if the blood is in your stomach doing the digestion it will affect your brain and your emotional state. If you need to run a marathon you need to eat correctly in order to be able to finalize it. 

- Anchoring

An anchor is a trigger or stimulus that retrieves a desired emotional state. A great example of an anchor is when you hear a song that brings back a particular emotion or feeling associated with something that you were doing. E.g. you could have been with a loved one, listening to a particular song. A month, two months, a year or even ten years down the line, you may hear that song and experience those feelings and emotions as if you were there right now. Use anchors to focus your brain in the correct direction.

Remember: Emotion comes from motion.

2. Focus

- Change what you think and how do you focus

It is very important to get conscious on our focus. We do need to start controlling how do we think , we can consciously change our focus if we are being too negative. We need to start controlling rather than letting the brain do it by itself.

- Questions: ask and you shall receive

Questions control the brain focus. If you ask your brain anything , the brain will find the answer. For example, if you ask your brain why am I so stupid? Your brain will find the answer, it is designed to always find an answer. The solution is to change the question. Ask your brain, what can I learn from this in order to avoid it to happen again? or What can I learn from this error? 

Trust me , your brain will always find the answer.

- Anchors

Use anchors in order to help your brain to focus. Listen to a song that brings you good memories, go to a place that brings you inner peace, etc.....

Ten day mental challenge

The ten day mental challenge is a very interesting exercise that helps to train your brain to focus on positive/productive things. It is very simple:

For the next ten days you cannot allow any negative thinking in your brain. Each time a negative thinking starts you need to inmediately think about something else.

Each time you fail on doing this you need to start again from day 1.

As simple as this exercise sounds I can assure it will help you a lot training your brain how to think. Some people stay in day 5 for months.......... Once you break the brain protective patterns of focusing it will be a lot easier to make the change. 

3. Vocabulary 

How you talk, what you say and the tone of your voice is critical on how people see you and most important it is critical on what your brain thinks about yourself! Think for a moment how you talk to yourself inside your brain, what kind of words do you use and if the tone is sad or not. Don´t be so tough with yourself, remember , after all, the worst enemy you can ever have is yourself.

Pay attention and change the words you use daily, it will help your brain to move forward and start thinking positive!

 
My advise is:

Use the Triad; breath correctly, do exercise, focus on positive things, ask the correct questions and talk to people and yourself with empowering words! Do it for months and your life will change forever.