Holistic Learning

Holistic Learning - Scott Young

• In our brains information is not organized neatly into boxes but it is linked to other information we have.
• So if we form multiple constructs and find links between them, then we should be able to retrieve them easily.
• Since they will be linked like a web, even if we lose (forget) one link, we can easily work out the whole domain based on the other links.
• To form constructs, we need to create models which can be simple ones just to understand the concept at hand.
• Once the models are formed, then can be linked together to form constructs.
• This works well in fields which is built upon concepts like science, math, relationships etc. but it will not work on fields just built arbitrarily like law, vocabulary etc.
• It also doesn't work on skills which are learnt subconsciously by practice like golf or any sport.

How can we build good constructs

Visceralization

• To form models, it would be helpful to viscerally experience the concept. It is not just visualization but sight, sound, touch and feel the thought. You can start by drawing the concepts on paper, but with practice we can do this entirely in our mind.

Metaphors

• We can form models by visceralization but they will not be linked, we can use metaphors to link the models. We can do this by playing a game of 'this reminds me of..' even though they seem ridiculous at first, you should be able to form links which would strengthen the construct.

Explore

• In this stage, we need to test our construct to reduce errors and fill any holes it might have. The best way is to solve problems with the concepts we have learnt. If we are having to solve the same problem again and again, it means we haven't formed models and constructs well. Just studying wouldn't really strengthen the model. Active recall helps test the models as we don't have anything else to fall back on.

You can read the book here for a more thorough explanation. 

Never Eat Alone - 1

This time, i will be back with the summary of the book - Never Eat Alone - by Keith Ferrazi. After How to Win Friends And Influence People, this is the most recommended book about building relationships. So he we go..

Being a part of the club: 
There is a separate mindset for people who are able to have better relationships. You should genuinely care about the other person. So the first part of the book is about the mindset. 

Reciprocity is the gussied-up word people use later in life to describe this ageless principle. I just knew the word as "care."

By being connected, you can ask for help, you can give help and help each other all the time. 

Until you become as willing to ask for help as you are to give it, however, you are only working half the equation.


Dont keep score:
 Don't expect these to be transactions. Just because you did something doesn't mean you should expect something from them. You will get help when needed.

Whats your mission:
Understand what you are trying to achieve. Then try to see who in your network can help you reach there soon.

Build before you need:
You cannot build something just when you need it. You have to build it before you need it.

Be Audacious:
The fact is everyone will feel embarrassed to ask. But you have to do it anyway to get what you want. And more often than not people are happy to help. Find a model whom you can learn from, learn speaking from toastmasters, get involved, get therapy ( talk about your negative emotions) and just do it.

Don't be a networking jerk:
 Don't schmooze or gossip, because one day or the other everyone will find out you are not trustworthy and will not tell anything important to you and then you will not have anything to gossip.
Be transparent, which helps people to contribute.
Treat people under you well. Have an opinion and say it. Share with the world what you have.
Don't be overly efficient. The author tells a story of how he used to hire helpers to sign and send new year greetings, and finally his friend telling him that he got three cards all signed by a different person.
So the aim is to make friends not just send letters or greetings.

If you're not making friends while connecting, best to resign yourself to dealing with people who don't care much about what happens to you.

How to live on 24 hours a day - Summary

An excellent short old book for making the most of the time for employed people with 9-5 type of schedule. Read online at manyread.net here

These are my notes from the book.

1. Time is limited for everyone.
2. We have equal time. We don't have credit and we can't have debts of it.
3. Simply begin. There is no waiting, just simply begin.

Let me principally warn you against your own ardour. Ardour in well-doing
is a misleading and a treacherous thing. It cries out loudly for employment;
you can't satisfy it at first; it wants more and more; it is eager to move
mountains and divert the course of rivers. It isn't content till it perspires.
And then, too often, when it feels the perspiration on its brow, it wearies all of a sudden and dies, without even putting itself to the trouble of saying, "I've had enough of this."

4.

If a man
makes two-thirds of his existence subservient to one-third, for which
admittedly he has no absolutely feverish zest, how can he hope to live fully
and completely? He cannot.
One of the chief things which my
typical man has to learn is that the mental faculties are capable of a
continuous hard activity; they do not tire like an arm or a leg. All they want
is change--not rest, except in sleep

5.
Audit your day for the time you are not in office and consider it as another day. Accept you are not that tired at that time and choose to do something at that time if not everyday atleast once in two days. Keep them sacred very very sacred.

6. Don't think it is easy so plan for the misgivings of human nature. But try to keep it. Train your mind because thoughts are the root of everything.  Read a passage of epictetus and marcus aurelius and meditate on it

9.Get interested in arts or reasoning or anything and follow it up daily. In other words, get interested in something out of your zone daily.

I have two general suggestions of a certain
importance. The first is to define the direction and scope of your efforts.
Choose a limited period, or a limited subject, or a single author. Say to
yourself: "I will know something about the French Revolution, or the rise
of railways, or the works of John Keats." And during a given period, to be
settled beforehand, confine yourself to your choice. There is much pleasure
to be derived from being a specialist.

10. Beware of becoming a prig, or becoming a slave to your schedule or taking on too much or reading without digesting or reading something which you are not interested in.

Book Summary - The Switch - Part 4

This is the fourth in the book summary series of Switch. For more read part 1, part 2, part 3

We have seen two important methods of creating change - direct the rider and motivate the elephant. The next part of the puzzle is Shape the Path or changing the environment so that it is easy for us to create change.
First we can Tweak the environment to make change easier. There might be simple ways by tweaking the environment, we can create the change. The authors give an example where a manager who was termed as unapproachable change that impression by just making the chairs behind her so that when they came, they can face each other and not face the computer. That way, she will be responsive to the people. I have used it successfully by installing the 'StayFocused' extension so that I will not be distracted easily by wanting to look at twitter or news sites during work hours. Actually this can create a change very easily sometimes. If we want to eat healthy, just throw all the junk food outside. If you want to wake up at  6, try putting the alarm far from you, so that you have to wake up and walk to switch it off.
Next thing is to Build Habits,  encouraging the change. We can create some action triggers, like when I come here, first I will do this. Like when I wake up first thing, I will open my planner and plan the day or go and hit the gym. This will also help very much in creating change. Or just creating some checklists will also go a long way in helping create change.
Next is to Rally The Herd. Actually the authors write about a research finding where we are unconsciously influenced by our peers. When we are alone, we generally do what we feel is right, but when we are with others we tend to first see what the group is doing. This way we become the data for others whom we take as data. So we have to make sure we should make our behavior the acceptable behavior. So we have to highlight the data which is useful for us. Also if we don't have it, we have to apply social pressure so that they do what change we want to create. The authors give good examples of speeding up peer reviews by putting the review times up for everyone to see.

Related articles

• Book review: "Switch" by Chip and Dan Heath (venturebeat.com)
• Switch by Chip and Dan Heath (bhplnjbookgroup.blogspot.com)

Book Summary - Switch - Part 3

In the part 2 of this book we have seen that the rider should be directed by looking at the bright spots, reducing ambiguity by scripting the critical moves and pointing to the destination.
 But before even the rider can be directed, the elephant has to be motivated to move. So how to motivate the elephant?Elephant is a feeler, so you have to

Find the feeling : Let the people who have to change experience the consequences of not changing or the advantages of successfully doing the change. This brings in emotion to change. This may give a initial motivating boost which you get while reading a personal development book which quickly wanes, so what should be done is we should
Shrink the change: We have so make the big thing into small chunks so that the elephant will get a feeling of do-ability so that they don't get discouraged and altogether stop working. This can be done by identifying what exactly are your small victories so that you can celebrate it and get the high of getting it done, which in a virtuous cycle will bring in more celebrations.
Another helpful thing which can be done is to
Grow your people: The authors say that we make decisions in two ways - one is analytically, which appeals to the rider and other way is by identity which appeals to the elephant. When we cannot approach the problem analytically, we can do it by growing the identity for that in the people. What would a good citizen do in this situation - etc, by this identity questions, lot of change can be successfully enabled. 
There are two types of mentalities of people. One with fixed mindset and other called growth mindset - Fixed mindset people think that their talents and abilities are fixed and hence they cannot be cultivated. Whereas growth mindset people can think of everything as a learning and grow from it.
IDEO has a graph showing the project mood which has hope - > Insights -> Confidence in the order. When they fail they gather insights from that, so they are positively taking failure which is useful for growth.

In the next part, we will see what can be done to improve the environment, i.e shaping the path. Stay tuned.

Book Summary - Switch - Part 2

Continued from part 1

In this post I will summarize the 'Direct The Rider' part. 

So you know from the previous part that the rider is often confused by the different options available, and goes into analysis paralysis mode. The rides likes the analysis part, but only with analysis nothing can be achieved. It should be acted upon to achieve any results. So how to start - The authors say that the best way to start is by 

Finding the bright spots: If you want to create change, see if someone else has already achieved that change. Find what did they do and how they did it and try to replicate the parts that have produced results. In an organization, if some new initiatives were started, and if the adoption is mixed, the change leader need not get disappointed. The best way to proceed forward is to observe what the groups which are doing well are doing and try to replicate the same with the people for whom it is not working. In the book, the authors give an example of a social worker, who is  trying to overcome the malnutrition problem in Indonesia. He observed though most of the children are malnourished, there are some people who are having good nutrition. He found this out by weighing the people. He goes to observe what food are they being fed. He identifies that there are differences in the ingredients of their recipes and the timings of their eating. So they take this a bright spot and then tries to direct the parents, i.e the riders of the other children to cook in the same way. Where other workers might have given up saying the people are poor so they don't get to eat well, he tried to look at the bright spots in them and there by solved the problem and created the switch he wanted to. 

Script the critical moves:I feel this is the most determining part in creating change. What the authors mean by this is that the change leaders should remove ambiguities, so that the rider is not stuck in analysis-paralysis mode. In the book they give an example of how the people trying to change the food habits of the americans to reduce fat in their diet. So now you have  a lot to do, you have to identify what foods contain fat and how much to have them or whether to avoid them altogether, which is overwhelming to the people. So people incharge of this found that milk contained the maximum amount of fat they were taking in, so the people gave one clear direction - Pick up the 1% milk instead of the whole milk and this drove adoption very very much. Though the 1% milk was available previously, only after the people in charge of the change 'scripted the critical moves' did the change occur. So it is a must that there should be clarity in the decisions when leading change. 

Point to the destination:By having an energizing goal infront of you, the rider is much more active and will make short term sacrifices for long term gains. So you should have some goals which should be supplemented by scripting the critical moves.  The book has a lot of good examples of balancing these. 

Book Summary - Switch - Part 1

Most of the times we know that we need to change. We even think of what changes we need to make but still most of the times we don't change.

In this bestseller book by Chip and Dan Heath, the set out to find out what is those ingredients required for us to change and for a change leader to create change.

They say three things are necessary for creating change..

1. Shape the path: They have to clear the path or environment for change - For eg, if you want to eat healthy food, other junk food should first be thrown off your shelves. You should fill it with fresh fruits and vegetables. etc.

2. Direct the rider: There are two parts in our brain. One that is emotional and doesn't do what it has to even though it knows. It is swayed by emotion. They call it the elephant. Other part is rational brain which analyses and comes at the right decision. This is called the rider.  They say that due to many alternatives, the rider comes into analysis-paralysis mode and is confused. To overcome this problem, the rider should be directed correctly.

3. Motivate the elephant: As told above, even though when we rationally know what the right decision is, most of the time we fail to see through it if the emotional part of brain, the elephant is not motivated enough. So the elephant should be motivated.

In this book, the authors show the various methods and steps required to achieve the above outcomes. Stay tuned for the next part.