Lifelong Learning - Keep Learning

I must confess: I am curious, I always have been and I hope I will always be! I deliberately never want to be inflexible and I always want to know all my options. Taking a look behind the scenes has always been an impulse for me. I still feel this urge today: I want to understand connections and I want to learn something new every day. Including leaving a cozy comfort zone or at least pushing my limits a little further each day.

Learning as a life elixir

As a child, I wanted to start school earlier than usual. Not because I wanted to be "cool", but because I finally wanted to "know" more - like my big brother. I wanted to learn how things worked. At that time, I didn’t realize that learning would become a lifelong task for me.

 My mother was a teacher so maybe that’s the way I was raised, I was naturally curious. She always wanted her children to receive a good education. Therefore, it would never have been possible for us to neglect our education in favor of a sport. That was an unwritten law for us. It was alright that we did professional sports and even become successful, but that was of least importance, more critical was learning something "respectable". I did both: Studied and boxed at the same time, I knew I couldn’t procrastinate my boxing endeavors and I’m proud to say I managed to finish my PhD as well.

It was hard, but it taught me an important lesson: I can do anything if I really want to, and learning was basically what I wanted. I punched my boxing coaches with questions about the plan or the strategy for the next fight. In the ring I was increasingly becoming a strategic thinker with a clear battle plan. At the same time, I confronted my professors at the university – I studied philosophy and sports science - with my practical findings from my everyday life as an athlete and questioned their theories. It was not easy for them ;-). I really opened my mind to the process and my understanding of learning. 

The path to magic and crossover learning

At the age of 18, I met Yevgeny Voronin, a magician and comedian who won numerous international magic awards. Through him, I came into contact with magic for the first time. Immediately it fascinated me tremendously and I wanted to know more about it. I begged, please show me how to do that, teach me a trick, but he always said “no”. It took me long time to become part of the magic circle. Either you want to learn it because you are enthusiastic about it, or you leave it. During this you are primarily left to yourself. The wait was well worth it, the fun of magic was my best motivation. Surprising people with a trick they do not expect, gives me an incredible thrill, it’s exciting. The feeling of knowing I got them, and they have fallen, hook, line and sinker is exhilarating.

Also, I liked conjuring, because it is a kind of crossover learning. Crossover learning bridges formal and informal learning settings, including everyday life experiences. This kind of learning keeps me flexible and it relaxes my brain permanently.

Learning vs. learning

There are two types of learning:

1) SCHOOL and UNIVERSITY, one MUST learn a proper education, simply because they must adhere to the curriculum. WORK, one is forced to acquire certain knowledge at one point or another and you can’t get around it. This lays the foundation for life’s learning lessons we are taught daily, making it more enjoyable.

2) It is not about what others decide is important for us to know for later in life or the next career move. What’s much more significant is to ask yourself questions and task yourself, answering them means you will by default acquire new skills.

Now, this is where the fun begins: when you feel that you have finished something on your own, that you have challenged and surpassed your own expectations. Maybe it’s that you solved something that you or others didn’t think was possible. Or that you just experienced something new, even though you failed. Sometimes, completely new horizons open up.

Through the years, I recognized that experiences are one of the most important parts of learning and one of the biggest values in our life. With my method F.A.C.E. the Challenge, I want to give others an instrument with which they can benefit from my learnings and which helps them to gain their own experiences. That was the main trigger for me to create my own method.

Today, I conjure less, but I still have a lot of fun in learning. I'm currently working on perfecting my golf swing and I'm making progress – a bit more each day: out of the comfort zone.

I suspect that it will take long time before I master golf. Still, I am sure I will come up with something new: I have an open mind and welcome any new learning opportunities. What arouses my curiosity, is that I know life still has so much more to offer... 

What have you always wanted to learn?

#keeplearning #lifelonglearning #facethechallenge #willpower