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I am listening to many coaching calls right  as I want to master the  art of establishing an online business. And even though I start those calls highly motivated I seem to have pretty big problems with understanding the coach sometimes.

Whats is going on?

I have been a good learner all my life – so I wonder why this is so hard for me. Maybe he is not using my preferred learning style, but I have been doing good with audio and video sources so far, too.

So as I reflected about that, I found my old book Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-Term Fulfillment of George Leonard in the shelf again. And in that marvellous book he describes a lot about the art of learning a new skill (aikido) and the learning curve of habits and skills.

First George Leonard tells us the different personality styles of learners and if you are on your way to mastery you have to watch that you dont develop the habits of those. There is the dabbler who tries many new things, achieves some improvement and plateaus, but gets bored and tries – again – something new.

Then there is the obsessive who is purely result-oriented. When he reaches a plateau he quits, because the results aren’t increasing linearly. Last there is the hacker who is content where he’s at after getting some results. He will stay at a plateau- there is no passion to improve anymore.

It is ok to be on of those three types, if you do not want to reach mastery. But if you want to get mastery you have to stay on the path of mastery.

So being aware of these different types gives the chance to avoid that kind of behaviour pattern.

The second answer I found in this book was the fact that a plateau where you have the feeling you don`t improve or don`t understand is normal and also important. In these moments our brain builts important new connections and the difference is if there is nothing established there, a beaten path or or a wide data highway as Vera Birkenbihl calls it frequently. The less brain connections you have to that skill the more your brain has to work to establish these new connections.

And this is the exact moment of a plateau where your brain figures out and builds some new connections to master that skill.

So when we feel like nothing is moving and everythings is very difficult we just have to keep going in order to support the brain building connections. It`s like an Ikea cupboard, when u start buildign the single pieces together it seems as if there is no progress. But then the last step when you put the pieces together you suddenly have a quantum leap.

Of course it is still very important that the teacher is aware of the knowledge base of the students and if the students are all differently skilled when starting it is not an easy task.

But – if the coach keeps using words you don`t understand then it becomes obviuos that he uses phrases and words frequently which are not stored in your brain. If that happens very often you might consider changing the coach as there are allways people out using different wordings which might fit you better.

My personal conclusion out of this it I have to be patient in learning while walking through the plateau, but on the other hand will keep asking the coach to use simple words.

Also I learned that the expectancy of some coach that the student can apply the new skill immediately after he taught that content is an illusion. At least thats is true if the student hardly had any basis knowledge stored. The brain is still working on it, we feel confused and have to wait until it is stored properly in order to apply.

Don`t try to overtake your brain:-).

You can find the excellent book of George Leonard here:

Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-Term Fulfillment

2 your learning success,

Dirk

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