Shoshin: How Leaders Wield The Beginner's Mindset To Learn and Grow

Learning how to learn is an essential skill. For an individual, learning can lead you to new paths. With new paths, it can help you become a leader. Becoming a leader allows you to teach your people how to learn. When the team knows how to learn, everyone’s path will keep growing. The cycle then continues. 

Learning how to learn starts with removing the ego that what you know can’t be challenged. It’s being willing to listen to the remedial without saying “I already know this” as much as willing to learn things that challenge your beliefs. The Japanese Zen Buddhists call this mindset “Shoshin." It understands that when you hear, “In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's there are few,” that you want to be the beginner, not the expert.  

So how do you tactically tap into your Shoshin?

Let me first explain how people normally learn.

For most activities, learning comes from studying, reflecting, articulating, demonstrating, and iterating in a cycle:

• Studying comes from reading, practicing, or watching others.
• Reflecting means figuring out what’s most important and relevant. 
• Articulating means understanding why and being able to explain.
• Demonstrating means to practice what you learn to internalize it.
• Iterating means trying things over and over to see what works. 

This cycle reflects the way that I've improved my reading retention over the years.

While still iterative, this process called READ helps me better recall information in books:

1. Review: When I read something interesting, I write it down exactly like it was written. I star any statement on what I consider “important.”
2. Explain: At the end of the chapter, I paraphrase “important” statements to explain the concept to others.
3. Actualize: On a separate sticky note that I use for a bookmark, I restate how the “important” statement relates to my life/work and how it can be actionable. 
4. Demonstrate: After rereading the book, I group key action items from the stickies into categories to help recall. I then work to incorporate the most important items into the daily agenda, routines, or practices. Most important are 1-3 things - it can be dangerous to try so many things at once that it breaks you and the people around you.

All this to say, don’t copy my process.

It’s worked for me but could be overkill to you.

What’s important is your ability to learn how you learn best then practice regularly the way you learn.

When you practice how you learn regularly, you begin understanding the key patterns and rhythms you go through to improve yourself.

Unlocking part of your potential comes from understanding how you best approach the cycle of studying, reflecting, articulating, demonstrating, and iterating.

Now, what about Shoshin?

Where Shoshin takes place in your process is your ability to remove bias and ego from the experiences you face and learn.

As you keep learning, you start creating strong opinions.

You must fight your ego regularly that what you know is sacred.

The beginner's mindset may have experience but is open to being challenged.

Unlock your Shoshin mindset by:

• Being fully present at the moment - instead of focusing on what to say next or already moved on to the next thing, focus your full attention on what's in front of you. Practice pausing when people finish speaking to see if you truly understood what they've said. A good example of this is watching how Elon Musk responds to questions.
• Being open to being challenged - if you focus on being absolute, you will eventually be absolutely wrong. Asking people regularly to challenge your ideas the listening with the intent to understand instead of being understood is an important process to master. The feedback may sting, but what you can learn in return makes it worth it. I recommend learning about Radical Candor and applying it to your life.
• Changing your perception - When humans encounter a situation, we are conditioned to determine if it's good or bad. The opportunity lies in taking a step back, looking at the situation without emotional attachment, accepting any hard facts, and then taking action. The ones that practice this approach are the ones that regularly take seemingly "bad" situations and turn those into opportunities. I recommend reading Ryan Holiday's The Obstacle is the Way or Jim Collins's Good to Great for great examples of how individuals and companies practice turning challenges into major wins.

Practicing the above begins unlocking your true potential.

Now ask yourself:

• How have you learned how you learned best?
• What's getting in your way to unlock your Shoshin?
• How has unlocking Shoshin improved your life?

If you're brave, please let me know.

Looking forward to learning from you.