Learning something new requires taking risks.

For 90% of my operating existence, I have been labeled a failure and I am ok with that. If you start something new, odds are you will fail before you can make it work. And you might fail a lot; you might learn that the whole point of what you are doing is completely wrong. But in that failure you will learn something else.

I can’t imagine going a week without active learning, connecting dots that I find interesting.

But to learn you have to be willing to fail. Your first sets of thoughts on most topics are going to be lousy. You are going to look stupid and you are going to take risks.

People hate looking stupid. I know; I spent most of my life looking stupid as I ask questions on topics that no one else seems to care about. I focus on learning instead of being right.

What I learned this week is that most people don’t like this basis of existence. When you ask someone to do something new they usually can’t.

For me this is an inconceivable state. I love change, I love looking over the next hedge and seeing what I can learn, discover, figure out.

So how do I do it? I start by reading, listening, scanning, and then thinking. I will spend days and days reading anything and everything I can find on a topic. I find the experts and I listen to them. I have learned that everyone has the 30-minute to five-hour version that they will teach anyone. I probably learn in two months what most people learn in five years.

I never had anything to do with water. However, about 14 years ago I was sitting on a playground in Israel (with my kids), and a smart lady who worked with Koreans told me to focus on water; it will be the future. So I started to think about and focus on water.  Until two years ago I never spent more than eight hours a week on it, but I did that over 10 years consistently.

It took 10 years of slowly learning and thinking but now water is 30-50% of what I do every day and I am learning more and more about it every day.  Had I never had that conversation at that playground I never would have started on this path.

One of my teammates pointed out to someone, who we were trying to get to take risks, that it looks like I come up with ideas quickly. But my teammate quietly made the point that before I can come up with ideas I have spent years and 1000’s of hours thinking and learning, and that process has compounded over time.

So I challenge you to learn something new. Become good at brewing a good cup of coffee, or smoking salmon. Learn about something about which you know nothing.  You will waste 40 pounds of fish--I know I did--but when you are done you will have a new skill, and you never know when you will use it.

About Benjamin Cox’s current goals: I believe that structured services in the mineral processing space can deliver a solid return while delivering these ESG Impact goals.

• Helping break down the silo mentality that is limiting innovation in the resource industry, by delivering a TCO point-of-view. 
• Reducing peak water consumption per tonne of metal produced at most mines by 30% across the industry, outside Australia where water consumption is already pretty well managed. 
• Reducing total water consumption per tonne of metal produced by 50%. 
• Shifting global industry metal recovery by at least 3% (my reach goal is 5%).
• Changing a tailings dam from an acceptable alternative to the fundamental more expensive TCO alternative for tails.