Never Stop Learning: Stay Relevant, Reinvent Yourself, and Thrive by Bradley R. Staats

Oct 2

Oct 2 Never Stop Learning: Stay Relevant, Reinvent Yourself, and Thrive by Bradley R. Staats

In NEVER STOP LEARNING, professor Bradley Staats explains why we often do just that. His research shows we fall into all kinds of traps, which impede our learning. I found it helpful to first skim through the book to get a feel for his points. Then, I went back and read in greater detail the points that seemed most relevant to me.

I found two chapters in particular to be especially valuable:

Chapter 2: "Why Don't We Learn from Failure?" and
Chapter 4: "Asking Questions."

Fear of Failure

Our society frowns on failure. When it happens, we think that "something has gone wrong." Therefore, we are hesitant to try new ideas that could fail. The problem is, to be a growing learner, we have to be willing to fail.

Our learning is also inhibited because we don't explore different avenues. And when we do, we choose answers that tend to confirm our presuppositions:

"We too quickly assume that we understand a situation given the information that surrounds us."

Look at the Process

In Chapter 3, the professor suggests we change our focus a bit. We tend to focus too much on the actual end result. This is often unwarranted. Instead, we should look more at the process. We need to develop a "keen eye for where value is created."

So all in all, I found NEVER STOP LEARNING to be a fun, helpful read. Several of the chapters were quite beneficial to me, whereas other chapters not so much. Naturally, this will vary among the readers.