In order to really learn we need knowledge, skills, abilities and experience. Abilities come from taking knowledge and skills we acquire and through reflection and application figuring out how to apply them to our situation and circumstance for our benefit. We then fully learn through repetition and experience actually doing those things.
In this #jammingwithjason #internalauditpodcast episode I dig into why this is so important and how we do this.
Listen in at: http://www.jasonmefford.com/jammingwithjason/
I’ve read thousands of books in my life, but the knowledge does no good if I stop with reading the book (knowledge). The great Bruce Lee said, “Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do.”
The fastest way to transform knowledge into action and wisdom is by joining a community of like-minded people, and investing in coaching.
If you are serious about lifelong learning and transforming yourself for your success in life and your career, listen to learn how to turbo-charge your learning.
If you are a #chiefauditexecutive and ready for a community of like-minded peers and coaching, join the #CAE Forum: https://jasonmefford.mykajabi.com/caeforum
If you are in #internalaudit and was a community of like-minded peers, join the cRisk Academy Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/criskacademy/
The documentary about the community of musicians in Laurel Canyon area of Los Angeles that I mentioned in this episode is called: Echo in the Canyon. Well worth a watch if you love music like I do 🙂
#lifelonglearning
Transcript
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Jason Mefford: Hello my friends and welcome to another episode of jamming with Jason, hey, we’re going to talk about learning again and in this episode because again I just see this
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Jason Mefford: As such an important topic and so many people out there think, well, I can just take a course I can just read a book. And now I’m smart. Now I actually have learned what I need to learn
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Jason Mefford: And it takes way more than that to actually learn and incorporate these things into your life. So I want to spend some time.
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Jason Mefford: Today, going through and talking about this some more. Now, you know, as I, as I mentioned before, in order for us to really learn
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Jason Mefford: There’s four things that we need knowledge, skills, abilities and experience. So an easy way for you to remember those four is case k s II, you know, think of case k is for knowledge, you know, as for abilities SS for skills and he is for experience.
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Jason Mefford: Now this is again how it all kind of flows together and then we’re going to get in and talk about what I want to today, which is really about community and coaching. OK.
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Jason Mefford: Now the knowledge and skills. Those are easy enough, you probably understand that that well enough right knowledge we gained from
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Jason Mefford: You know, going to a training reading a book. It’s just information, knowledge, okay skills can be those those things that we learn
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Jason Mefford: You know how to do a skill in maybe how to how to use Excel right it it’s a practical way or practical skill.
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Jason Mefford: That we can use to be able to apply some of the knowledge, but we’re really starts coming in as these abilities and experience. Okay.
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Jason Mefford: And abilities that area. Some people refer to that as competencies, but that is where you’re taking those knowledge and skills that we acquire
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Jason Mefford: And through the process of reflection and application we figure out how to apply those things to our particular situation or circumstance for our benefit. Okay.
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Jason Mefford: And then as we are working on or developing those abilities through experience and that comes from repetition and the experience in actually doing those things.
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Jason Mefford: That’s when we actually learn it. Okay, now I’m not, I can’t remember if I’ve shared this analogy with you before or not, but I’m going to share it again. I’m going to share a couple of different stories and things with you today as well.
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Jason Mefford: Now I am not a very strong swimmer. I know how to swim, you know, but I grew up in a in an area inland in the US where they were more mountains than there was water.
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Jason Mefford: And so I never really learned how to swim that well okay now and if I want to learn how to swim. There are certain knowledge, skills, abilities and experience that I need to go through in order for me to really learn how to swim.
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Jason Mefford: Now I could go buy a book and I can sit down and read a book. Heck, I could I could read hundreds of books about swimming
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Jason Mefford: That will give me lots of knowledge and maybe even explain some of the particular skills you know like how to kick your legs how to how to, you know, move your arms, how to breathe. Right.
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Jason Mefford: Those would all be skills that I can kind of learn through some of the knowledge, but I have not learned how to swim until I actually start doing it until I jump in the pool all of those knowledge and skills that I’ve got in my mind. I have not actually learned how to swim. Okay.
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Jason Mefford: And one of the reasons why we’re going to talk about community and coaching today is that these are two ways.
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Jason Mefford: For you to be able to quickly turbocharge your learning. Okay, it’s really the fastest way to transform the knowledge into some kind of action and wisdom that you can actually use. Okay.
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Jason Mefford: Now I’m sure when you know when when I started talking about this, some of you are thinking community and coaching.
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Jason Mefford: I don’t I don’t quite understand this Jason and you know I’m pretty good at what I do. I don’t really need a coach.
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Jason Mefford: Well, let me tell you, I remember it was many years ago I saw a video that Eric Schmidt did and Eric Schmidt used to be the CEO of Google. Okay. And he had a, you know, pretty illustrious tech background Google hired him to come in and be the CEO.
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Jason Mefford: And in this video that I saw you know
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Jason Mefford: Eric was talking about, you know, at his first board meeting he
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Jason Mefford: After the board meeting, one of the board members came up to him and he said Eric, who are you going to hire to be your coach.
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Jason Mefford: And Eric looked at him and he said, What do you mean coach. I don’t need a coach. Right. I mean, I’ve got all this background. I’ve been a CEO before
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Jason Mefford: I don’t need a coach and the board member said no, Eric. Everyone needs a coach, right.
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Jason Mefford: And and so let’s just stop and kind of think about that for a minute because I know as I said that to begin with some of you are probably going, come on. Jason really
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Jason Mefford: Well, let’s think about professional athletes. Okay, some of the people that are at the best in the world at what they actually do
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Jason Mefford: So pick which whichever you know sport you you deal with in our family. We like you know football and and and baseball and my wife and her family are big into tennis. Okay.
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Jason Mefford: So if you think about somebody like jock of itch, who is probably you know the best male tennis player in the world right now.
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Jason Mefford: He knows his stuff he goes out, he wins. Lots of championships. But does he do it by himself. No way. Right. He has coaches that help him.
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Jason Mefford: The reason he is the best in the world is that he actually uses coaches now.
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Jason Mefford: He could get to he may be able to get to be the best in the world, but without a coach, it’s going to take him a long, long time to be able to get there. And that’s one of the reasons why coaches end up being so valuable in our lives, regardless of where we happen to be
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Jason Mefford: Even if you’re the best in the world. You still need a coach, you still need somebody helping to expose some of your blind spots.
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Jason Mefford: To be able to help members, we’re talking about those abilities in the experience to be able to help tweak. What you’re doing a little bit
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Jason Mefford: So that you can really be the best in the world. And again pick any sport, you know, if in football, there’s
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Jason Mefford: There’s a lot of coaches on the sidelines and a lot of different coaches that are helping the professional athletes to be able to do certain things. Okay.
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Jason Mefford: And I’ve, I’ve even been able to tell this in my personal life as well. Okay, I have read thousands of books in my life, I’ve got a lot of knowledge up in my brain.
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Jason Mefford: I’ve learned about a lot of different skills, but if I just stopped there. I didn’t really learn it. Okay. And there’s a great Bruce Lee quote that says, Knowing is not enough.
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Jason Mefford: We must apply willing is not enough, we must do. Okay, so I’m going to, I’m going to say that again. And you’re going to see how this is tying into what we’re talking about today.
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Jason Mefford: Knowing is not enough, we must apply willing is not enough, we must do. Okay. So knowing how to swim by reading a bunch of books isn’t going to help me if I get thrown in the deep end of the pool. Okay.
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Jason Mefford: The knowledge in my head. If I haven’t actually applied if I haven’t actually, you know, gone through the doing of actually trying to swim.
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Jason Mefford: I’m gonna drown. Okay. And that’s and that’s true with anything that we may be learning in our life. Okay, now
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Jason Mefford: Like I said, I’ve read thousands of books, but the knowledge by itself has not helped me get to where I am, in fact, the quickest
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Jason Mefford: most transformative work that I have done is when I have joined groups of like minded people.
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Jason Mefford: And I have hired coaches when I have tried to do things by myself I move at a very slow pace.
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Jason Mefford: When I joined committees, when I hire coaches I progress and transform my life much much quicker. Okay, so let me stop and pause here for a little bit and have you
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Jason Mefford: Think about here’s, here’s another little scenario, you know, almost everybody would like to be healthier.
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Jason Mefford: We’d like to exercise more, we’d like to maybe lose a little bit of weight. Okay, this is a normal common thing. In fact, it’s, it’s one of one of, if not the the top New Year’s resolution that everybody does every year.
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Jason Mefford: And so, you know, again, if we’re by ourselves. And I’ve seen this in myself. I’ve seen this and other people as well.
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Jason Mefford: You know, the beginning of the year comes around and we say, okay, I’m going to go out and I’m going to go for a walk every day, or I’m going to go for a run every day.
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Jason Mefford: And so we set that intention and by ourselves. We usually go out and we’ll start to do it, you know, maybe a week or two and then something happens and we stop.
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Jason Mefford: And this is normal human behavior. In fact, in one of the coaching groups that I that I belong to, we’ve been talking about self integrity.
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Jason Mefford: And the interesting thing. And again, one of those epiphanies that I’ve had in reflecting and that many of the people in the group have had as well is
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Jason Mefford: You know, for those of us that feel like we have self integrity, we show up for other people all the time, right, if you make a promise to someone else, we rarely will break it.
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Jason Mefford: But if we make a promise, just to ourself. We’re much less likely to actually follow through. OK. So again, if we go back to our hey I want to get fit. I want to start going for a walk or I want to start going for a run.
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Jason Mefford: If we make that commitment. Just to ourself, it’s easy for us to not follow through. And that’s why most people after a couple of weeks, they just stop doing it.
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Jason Mefford: Now, instead if I joined a group of like minded people. Maybe I get together and there’s there’s a group in my, in my community here.
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Jason Mefford: Who also wants to do that. And so we say, Okay, you know what, we’re going to meet every morning at six o’clock on this corner, and we’re going to go for a walk or we’re going to go for a run together.
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Jason Mefford: And we’re all going to show up and we’re going to help hold each other accountable and, you know, we’re going to talk about it. If one of us is having a hard time
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Jason Mefford: The others are going to be there to try to help support and lift up the other person. Now if you go about it in that way if you actually join a community of like minded people.
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Jason Mefford: For something like exercise, you’re much more likely to do it. Why, because when the alarm goes off and it’s raining outside. And you don’t really feel like doing it.
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Jason Mefford: You’re going to be much more likely to actually keep your promise, because you know those other people are waiting on you or are relying are dependent on you and you don’t want to let them down.
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Jason Mefford: So that’s one of the reasons why actually being in a community can be so valuable. Right. It actually helps bring out the best in us.
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Jason Mefford: Now another interesting thing along with community is it’s a way for us as we are learning this knowledge and the skills to actually discuss these topics with other people. Okay, so think about, you know,
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Jason Mefford: book clubs as an example right book clubs are popular because if you get several people that are reading the same book now they can come together.
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Jason Mefford: You know, there’s the accountability and that we’re going to read the book before this date, but now we’re also going to get together.
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Jason Mefford: And we’re going to talk about the book. Now, when you talk about the book you’re going to understand it from different perspectives.
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Jason Mefford: Because each person that reads that book and kind of provides their perspective on it.
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Jason Mefford: It’s going to that’s part of this abilities area that we’re talking about. It’s going to give you some reflection.
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Jason Mefford: Some ways of thinking about maybe what you’ve read that was a little bit different than maybe what you read the first time.
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Jason Mefford: And that process actually helps you in your learning. Okay, so that’s why again community is also important. So like I said, that’s why today I wanted to talk about community. And I also wanted to talk about coaching. Okay.
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Jason Mefford: Another example I recently just watch it last couple of months. There’s a great documentary called echo in the canyon. Okay, it’s echo in the canyon.
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Jason Mefford: And and this is a documentary that talks about rock and roll music in the Los Angeles area. It’s called in the canyon because there’s a there’s a part of Los Angeles called
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Jason Mefford: Laurel Canyon. And that was an area, kind of in the hills, just outside of downtown where a lot of early musicians bought houses or rented houses in that area.
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Jason Mefford: And so when you go back, you know, some of the earlier groups like the birds Buffalo Springfield. The Mamas and the Papas some of those kind of groups.
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Jason Mefford: That were early on in the folk music scene, we’re all living together in this same community area in Laurel Canyon.
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Jason Mefford: And like I said, this documentary actually goes through it’s it’s pretty it’s pretty fabulous. If you’re interested in music like I am. Check it out. I think it was on Netflix.
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Jason Mefford: But Jacob Dylan actually is the one that kind of goes through and interviews. A lot of the people now that last name, Dylan. Yeah. It’s Bob Dylan’s son. Okay, so he’s been involved in the whole music scene, his whole life as well is a great musician himself as well.
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Jason Mefford: But, but you can see from, you know, looking at that, that’s another example of the community that I’m talking about.
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Jason Mefford: Because when all of these great musicians lived in that same proximity to each other. Here’s what would happen.
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Jason Mefford: Right. Somebody would grab their guitar. They’d walk next door and sit down and go hey, I’m working on this song. What do you think, and they start playing the song for the other person.
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Jason Mefford: The other person starts giving feedback they start going back and forth and kind of jamming back and forth all jamming with Jason folks, that’s where I got this from right
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Jason Mefford: And pretty soon. Some of the music just kind of comes forth, right. And so having that close knit community.
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Jason Mefford: Where those those like minded people could get together could talk about could show each other what they were kind of working on
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Jason Mefford: Talk about answer questions, all of that kind of stuff, ends up leading again to just amazing musicians and amazing music that came out of the Los Angeles area.
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Jason Mefford: In the late 60s and early 70s. It was because of that community. Okay, folks. Hopefully you’re starting to get this right. I’ve been sharing with you.
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Jason Mefford: Some different examples, some different stories, you know, we talked about swimming, you don’t actually learn how to swim until you actually start doing it right, knowing is not enough. We have to apply it.
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Jason Mefford: Being willing is not enough. We actually have to do it right. So we have to know it. We have to apply it and then we actually have to go out and practice and do it.
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Jason Mefford: Now the fastest way, again, to be able to do that is to join a community of like minded people or to get somebody to help coach you and hold you accountable as you’re going through this process. Okay.
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Jason Mefford: So let me kind of wrap up today. But let me give you a couple of takeaways as well. Right. So if there’s something that you’re trying to learn
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Jason Mefford: Well, reach out, try to find a community of like minded people. Okay, if you’re trying to learn how to play the guitar, you know, hiring a guitar coach somebody to teach you
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Jason Mefford: Or joining something like a Meetup group of other musicians in the area or people who are learning to play the guitar.
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Jason Mefford: And then going and showing up in that community every week is going to help you learn how to play the guitar quicker. Okay.
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Jason Mefford: If I want to learn how to swim. Again, I can read books, but the quickest way for me to learn how to swim is maybe to, you know, join a club.
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Jason Mefford: Hire again take lessons, you know, work with other people who are also learning how to swim. And by doing that, okay, you’re going to learn
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Jason Mefford: Quicker and be able to make that transformation in your life. So again, there’s, you know, things like meetup groups. We talked about things like book clubs that you can join
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Jason Mefford: You know, but also professionally. There are actually some options there as well. You know, if you’re an internal auditor. There’s different communities that are around
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Jason Mefford: That you can join you know one of them. As an example, see risk Academy has now started a Facebook group. So again, especially where people are are virtually, you know, more virtual now.
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Jason Mefford: That is a place where you can join a group like this see risk Academy Facebook group and it’s like minded people. It’s other people in internal audit risk and compliance.
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Jason Mefford: Those same kind of people that you want to hang out with. If you want to learn from them and maybe them learn from you as well.
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Jason Mefford: There’s virtual communities like this as well. Okay. Now, if you’re a chief audit executive, there is the chief audit executive forum.
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Jason Mefford: And again, this is a community of like minded chief audit executives, but there’s also a coaching aspect to this as well.
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Jason Mefford: And so not only do you get the community feel you learn from others others learn from you. But there’s also a coaching aspect to it as well.
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Jason Mefford: And as and as we said, you know, to begin with, don’t think that you only need a coach, if, if you don’t know what you’re doing because that’s why a lot of times
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Jason Mefford: People will hold back and say, Well, I don’t need a coach, because I already know what I’m doing. Or I don’t want to admit that I maybe don’t know as much as I really do.
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Jason Mefford: Put that aside and actually do it because like I said when I have taken that opportunity in my own personal life. In fact, I belong to three different coaching groups right now for myself, personally.
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Jason Mefford: Because again, I have seen this in my life, folks. I know my shit okay but I still realize that I need community and I need coaching as well to move forward.
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Jason Mefford: And again, if you don’t believe me, think about those pro athletes right does jock itch, say, you know, I mean, I’m the best in the world right now.
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Jason Mefford: I just want you know Wimbledon, or you know whatever the last Grand Slam was that he won and say, You know what, I’m the best in the world. I don’t think I need coaching anymore.
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Jason Mefford: Are you kidding, he wouldn’t be first in the world. If he had that kind of an attitude and if he stopped doing what he needed to to move forward. Okay.
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Jason Mefford: So with that, my friends, I’m going to wrap up this week. Thanks for hanging out with me again and do me a favor.
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Jason Mefford: If you’re liking what I’m saying on this podcast. Please give me some feedback.
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Jason Mefford: You know you can connect with me on LinkedIn, send me a direct message. Let me know what you like most about the podcast.
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Jason Mefford: But also if you can do me a big favor as well. You know, I’m trying to get the word out there to everybody, all over the world. So if you like what you’re hearing, please do me a favor this week and find five people that you know
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Jason Mefford: And just send them a message, send them an email and say, You know what I’ve been listening to this podcast. I love it. And I think you’ll love it too and send them the link
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Jason Mefford: Because that would really help me because, again, what I’m trying to do here is get this information out to as many people as possible.
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Jason Mefford: So that you can all learn so that you can all unlock your potential. And so you can have an amazing life and an amazing career.
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Jason Mefford: So do me that do me that favor, my friends, and I’ll do the favor and coming back this next week where they’ll be another episode of jammin with Jason So, take care and I’ll talk to you. This next week.
