Intentional Learning – Episode 479

This transcript was auto-generated and may contain errors.

[00:01] Welcome to the Prosperity Podcast. Prosperity thinkers, welcome to the podcast. We’re going to start with a quote. This is a quote that’s several hundred years old by Horace, and it says, adversity has the effect of eliciting talents, which in prosperous circumstances would have laid dormant. Kim, we read this before, and it’s one of those quotes that’s like, wow, it shakes you. I would love your thoughts. Well, I’m so glad you brought it up, because it is a delightful thought process that that quote elicits, because we all have opportunities to persevere through adversity, and sometimes maybe if we’re not feeling like we’re growing enough, we can self-create some of the skillsets or the talents that might come through adversity, and we don’t necessarily

[01:02] even have to have the adversity to create them. So I am aware that this quote popped up on TV or movie show for you, and I’ll bring along one with a storyline, if you will, to support it, and that is the movie Thirteen has come out. It is the story of the soccer team or football team, they call it, in Thailand that got stuck in the caves. I think this is around 2018, and Ron Howard has produced a movie about the story, and the most amazing thing that relates directly back to your quote about talents that can surface in the presence of adversity is that these kids, and I don’t know if we know the ages, I’m sure we do, because obviously this was all over the press when the time occurred, but let’s just call them teenagers, had some meditation and even prayer

[02:01] skills that I was so impressed with that clearly had been developed before the adversity occurred. And so I think this is really apropos for us human beings that live in America in a clearly first world country with, frankly, not a lot of adversity, right? I mean, this is, I think, part of the challenge that teenagers and young adults are having today is that they haven’t been exposed to challenges. And as we know, on the sports teams, when the whole trophy generation came about, because whoever they were, they decided that everybody should get a trophy, it disabled the learning that occurs when you lose. Just like not having any adversity disables the learning that can occur when adversity happens.

[03:01] So I think it would be kind of fun as a call to action, if you will, for all of us, for our listeners, for you and me. And I know your family does this naturally just because when you live on a farm, a lot of adversity occurs. And I know my family has dealt with lots of it as well, but to think about some skills that you would like to have and then either create the adversity to create the learning that then creates the skill or go learn the skill, right? It’s so cool because today, if you want to learn how to live on the land, there are people, including YouTubes, you know, all the way from free to paid for, that will teach you how to live on the land. If you want to have your physical body feel safe in a city because you know

[03:54] some type of self-defense, there are people free on YouTube, all the way to paid for, you know, private instruction that will teach you how to physically defend yourself in a city. And the list goes on forever and ever. So wouldn’t that be a fun thing for everybody to create one skill that they want to have and then figure out how to learn it? I love it. Yes, absolutely. And I’ll tailor that in a little bit more because that’s what we do all the time as a family, as you know. And I think also putting in some constraints with that. So for example, I want to have this skill set or on the pathway of that by a certain time, and then you may put in some additional constraints. Like maybe it’s, and I want to learn this with my family or with my

[04:40] spouse or an additional constraint could be, it needs to be done at my home. And by doing that, it will push you further. So you mentioned self-defense. So in the past we’ve done a variety of things like that, but we’ve actually hired a self-defense contractor. They came and they taught us inside the home and they taught the kids because that was a great place for them to learn, right? And they, the guy, he actually, he does a lot of, call it private work for famous people and others. And he was able to teach how to read the room and he walked through of that of like, okay, now here’s how you can prevent things in a home. Here’s how you would position yourself. And so being in a, in a house, it was really helpful that way.

[05:31] So the constraints I think applies quite a bit. It does. And I think it’s super important that people really get clear on their own values and make a conscious choice about learning. So I’ll share with you and our listeners, a completely opposite approach to that, because I too have had that opportunity where actually somebody even offered to pay for the training. Now this wasn’t in our home, but it was in a classroom environment where a few other people were doing it, but it was going to be private. So, you know, you kind of start in a group and then you go to one-on-one or what have you. And in particular, the person also wanted to teach some of the, what to be on the lookout for things, thought processes, you know, physical

[06:24] activities, et cetera, et cetera. And I chose not to participate in the training. I will admit that this is just my choice and I’m just sharing the story as an example. So no judgment aside, you know, this is just purely an example of how it’s so important that you choose your own thing to learn and really choose it with intention. So the reason that I chose not to participate in the training is I do live in a country. I don’t even really travel to big cities anymore. And this particular environment was specifically training for that, but more importantly, I chose that I didn’t want to be taught the things to quote, be on the lookout for, because I didn’t want those going on in my head. Now, some people could say that’s irresponsible.

[07:15] You know, you’re crazy. That’s really short-sighted on your part. It really doesn’t matter because what is important is that I chose how to spend my time and I didn’t just ignore the problem. I think this is a really critical second piece to the discussion that we’re having. And that is I chose to do what I do. That’s important to me for the same types of situations or the same setting of the stage, if you will. And so for me, what’s important is knowing who’s in control, taking a very spiritual approach to human beings and their motives, being conscious that I would be led to do the right thing with my physical self, if that were necessary and, or be conscious of the right mental thing, like what to look

[08:02] out for or what to listen for if that were necessary and that the work that I do every morning from a spiritual foundation or being prayed up, if you will, can for me do the same job as somebody else that gets prepared in a more physical way. So again, I share the story just to really help people be clear that there is an endless number of skills that we as human beings can possess, that we can learn, that we can employ, that we can have in our back pocket just if needed. And so it’s super, super important that you, for yourself, and then you as a family or you as a business team, however you want to work it, make a very conscious choice for yourself, saying yes, absolutely to some things and saying no, absolutely not to other things so that whatever time

[09:03] you choose to spend gathering additional skills is very honed in to the skills that are important to you. No judgment attached. Yeah, that’s really well said, the intentionality of it, intention. And I’m actually, I’m going to circle back to the beginning of our conversation because you said something in there, which is if we are not, and I’m going to kind of summarize, if we’re not intentional, what we’ll end up doing is we’ll end up creating problems or circumstances because maybe we’re bored or we’re wanting to learn a skill or we’re wanting to create this adversity in there. And I think we see that often with people when they’re not intentional, life will go by and they create some type of friction or chaos

[09:58] so that they can solve it. And so why not just eliminate that, be intentional and then not have to go through those same patterns. Very true. I’ve heard a quote from Diane Kennedy, a favorite CPA of mine, about a particular business owner. And she said, he is tearing his company down just to give himself something to do. And I knew the person and when I heard this, it was immediately obvious that, oh my gosh, yes, that is what is going on and how horrible of a use of skill and time and effort, et cetera. So I think it’s super important that we be really clear on our values to me, this is a values based decision and that then the intention can become clear and maybe sometimes it’s the other way around, but

[10:51] it’s so important. I do a values exercise at least once a year where I’ll pull a list of 50 or a hundred values, narrow them down, narrow them down again, narrow them down again, get clear on the top 20 or even sometimes the top 10. In fact, on my YouTube channel, I have what at the time was my most important values shared specifically the where, when and why around each one. And I think that’s a valuable thing for all of us to do as individuals, again, as a family and also as sometimes a team on the business level, if that’s appropriate. Yeah, absolutely. Before we go, let’s leave a diving off point because we’re talking about gaining these skills and the intention of it. And there’s a different way to approach it, meaning we can go the

[11:39] YouTube route, we can go a group lesson route, private lesson, and we could list 50 other ways there. I think that foundationally, one thing to understand is that more than likely when you start something new, you’re probably not going to be good at it. And you have to understand that and accept it. I know that’s for me and there’s a certain time that it takes to be proficient at a new skill. And that time can actually vary. I mean, I’ve seen it where I imagine that it may take me days, weeks to become good at something and I can become very proficient in a number of hours. And I think having that expectation of I’m going to practice, I’m going to learn rather than I’m trying to become perfect right away can set up a

[12:27] better foundation for us. So important, becoming or coming to is a better way to say it. Something with the beginner’s mind is so important. And the humility that says I’m all right, not being good at this right away and the skillset of learning to learn are all good things that can happen here that we can make so much more progress on. And I want to point out one resource that would be valuable. And then I would love for you to read the quote again also. So one thing, if people are feeling time crunched, Tim Ferris, who is the four hour work week and the four hour body and the four hour chef author has some really good ways to crunch the learning of something into a compressed time. So if you are feeling like I want to get ahead of this game quickly, or I

[13:26] need to learn the skill quickly, or I just plain don’t have the time, but it’s a priority to me, I would encourage to use some of his material as a resource to really, really increase the speed and pace at which you get to learn whatever the skill is that you want to learn. Perfect. I love Tim’s stuff. So I’ll definitely put that in there. And then to wrap this out with the quote, one last time is adversity has the effect of eliciting talents, which in prosperous circumstances would have lane dormant. Absolutely. So listeners, thank you for taking the time and the sheer fact that you show up and you’re listening to this podcast and you’re here present with us shows that you are intentional.

[14:19] So you’ve already accomplished that baseline. And as far as skillset goes, it’s the pursuit of it. And here’s what something we would love to hear. If there’s something that inspires you that you want to work on, send an email to hello at prosperity thinkers.com. And even if it’s not finance related, we just love to hear it because we’re all a part of a community that is working together and we’re a collective hive in that nature. So you can send those to hello at prosperity thinkers.com. Thank you for listening to the prosperity podcast to take control of your money and have it work for you. Visit prosperity thinkers.