Transcription of the podcast episode #254 The Only Way To Learn
Please be kind as this is taken directly from the audio, bad grammar included!
Here’s your heads up to this longer podcast. It’s about finding the only way to learn. Yep. The only way. There is no other way to learn. And when you learn this way, the only way to learn, then you’ll become a success. you’ll succeed. And your whole life will change. Because this is the only way to learn. And if it’s important to you to find this one and only way to learn, I think I’ve pushed that enough. Have a listen after this.
Hopefully, a longer podcast, not too long. But I hope to give you something, something that you can really take away and use if nothing else to get you to really think a little bit deeper about something that will make you change your mind into doing something, even more, deeper than that. Now, that was pretty specific, wasn’t it? Not? You see, there’s one secret of learning to learn something. One secret of learning to learn anything, would that be important to you to know how to learn? Because that’s why you’re here. That’s what’s going to change the way you feel. Because when you, I guess when you feel more in control of what you know, and you can do what you know that mastery bit that self-confidence self-esteem,
will, will be there for you
and allow you to grow. And that’s where we’re gonna go with this episode today. You see, Has this ever happened to you? Yeah, I know this has happened to me loads and loads and loads of times. Gone away to do something, and it’s new-ish. You’ve read about it. You’ve read about the ‘how’ you’ve got all the instructions, like the instruction manual, or whoever reads those really? But we’ve got it there. We’ve flicked through it, yeah I know this.
I know this. In fact, I’ve even searched on YouTube. I’ve watched a video. In fact, I’ve even asked people,
I’ve asked someone who does this, and they’ve, they’ve told me how to do this. So I know, I know what to do. And I know how to do it. And if you know what to do, and you know how to do it, then you’ve learned how you haven’t learned how to do it, and you’ve learned what to do. Because you read everything. You’ve seen everything. And people have told you about it? Well, there’s a big answer to that. No, you haven’t learned anything Cloughie, what are you saying? I’ve just told you, or I told you through that example, read about it. Watched it on YouTube, ask people, you have got it all here. But the thing is, you’ve learned nothing. Because following that example, you then go and do it. And you start to go and do it at What!!!!!!!!!!. It goes wrong. There’s a bit missing or bits missing, or there’s something that I just don’t get. It wasn’t like that when they told me and ah and the thing is, when you get to that point that’s when you That’s something that’s the learning when it goes wrong. I always used to say, I’m going to go back into my NLP training says, as well I’ll do that first I think I’ll tell you the story. And I’ve told it before and I’m going to tell it again because it’s all about mastery. I went on my first NLP practitioner training. And being that little introvert that I was, I was used to I was having trouble or had trouble when I was in my hypnosis training, because there were another 15 people there and that was like, nearly 14 people, too many, they were nice people. But you know, it was just overwhelming. But I still learned. And I became a master hypnotist because I could do hypnosis. And I knew a little bit about hypnotherapy because that was part of the training as well. And I was seeing people, and I was reading just a few books, and putting what I read into practice, I was doing it. But I went along to this NLP practitioner training my very first one. I went there the first day, and there’s over 30 people in the class alone, God, oh, my God, everyone’s milling around before we go, Oh, this is, you know, they’re having coffee in that. And I’m embarrassed to even go and get a cup of coffee. Because someone might say something to me. I was really insecure those days. Yeah, I was doing something which was completely out of my comfort zone,
which again, is another bit of learning because of what it allowed me to do, but that’s another story. But there was I went there and talk about imposter syndrome!
I just felt I should not be here. Who am I? Who am I to be an NLP practitioner. I’ve
heard so much about NLP learning NLP. And then there were these people, people there. I was just like, just listening in the side because I was hiding a little bit. And I was listening to little conversations going on. And these people seem to know everything. And there was like a, not a bookstore, but a table with books you could buy. And they were going yeah, I’ve read that one. I’ve read this one. I’ve done that one. Oh, I know the and, and the words that were using this NLP jargon was just coming out of their mouths as if it was a foreign language to me. And so of course, the imposter syndrome got even worse, my introvertedness got even turned up, intensified. And I shrank to the corner.
And then it came to walk in the walk.
You see, they had read all the books I’ve dreamed of, have dreamed of reading. wanted to read I just hadn’t got there. Because I’ve been just had these two or three books I’d really homed in on. But that was talking the talk. And when it came to walking the walk, they couldn’t do it. They just couldn’t do it when I actually got started to talk to them and say, you know, are you working with people? Because you seem to know so much all No, no, no, no. I wouldn’t work with anybody. I’m not I’m not here to work with people. I’m thinking. I don’t know why you’re here. Really? Yes, it’s great to learn. But if you’re not going to use the stuff, what you learn, why bother to learn? Unless it’s ego-driven? Which is okay, I guess, if that’s what if that’s your intention to learn and not use it is fine but is not for me on that personal development. And certainly, this adventure that we’re on learning this stuff to use this stuff to create that world.
And I got it, then I didn’t know I got it. But I was following this definition, what you have here of mastery,
doing what I knew, and knowing what I was doing, what I’d learned. And the best thing for that is, I used to love when we did our trainings, we would have like we’re talking about the particular context of NLP, then there’ll be a demo, a demonstration, of that particular process. And then we go away in pairs to actually do the process. And I loved it when I cocked it up. I really did, where other people will get really cross And they were so down on themselves. I was in my element when I was fucking it right up, basically. Why? Because I was learning. I was learning what I didn’t know. And when I learned what I didn’t know in that environment, when I got to work with people in bigger issues, really extending myself, walking the walk. I was doing it and I knew I was confident that if something came up. I think I could handle that. I wasn’t overconfident, well a little bit. But I was really into it, I was still introverted but I was really confident, my self-esteem was there.
So what is this secret? Yeah, you must, you must be getting it now, the secret that’s hiding in plain sight because they’re all bloody hiding in plain sight aren’t they, all the things that we ever learned here in personal development unplugged. But, everything we seem to learn here is hiding in bloody plain sight, which is not seeing.
And this is what I wanted to go through even a little bit deeper now. Because the deeper we go into this learning, by learning what you don’t know, we really push imposter syndrome. But it will push it in a way that it blows it out of the water. Because it’ll be there. But you’ll get to notice it’s there. I can remember a story I can’t remember if I’ve told this. I’ve spoken so many times on this podcast,
that in another life, I used to be part of a local company.
And I’d been trained in a different local company all in this, this one industry. And I got the chance to work with a national company. And in the ratings, they were number four in the UK. And I thought to myself, imposter syndrome. I didn’t know about imposter syndrome in those days, but I was suffering from it. Because I thought to myself who the bloody hell am I? I this little town the company was was big in that town. But compared to this, this was, wow, minuscule Who am I to go and bat alongside these people. And I got there. And within about 15 minutes that imposter syndrome disappeared. Because I found out if you walk the walk and talk the talk and do what you know and know what you do all the stuff I talked about, but I didn’t know about it then I know I was doing it then, I was good enough. And in fact, my good enough was probably quite a lot better than most. But when I realized that my confidence in myself suddenly grew. So is that little burst of imposter syndrome got me to look back at what I didn’t know or what I did know. And it’s quite good because then it pushed my vulnerability and gave my ego a big check. Because I had to put it in check a little bit because I suddenly thought, Oh, I’m really good. But then pushing that aside, I thought well, I’ve been very vulnerable here.
So what we’re going to learn is when we don’t know what we know, we are going to be vulnerable.
We’re going to suffer that little bit of imposter syndrome, we are going to give our ego a battering side the ear, which is a good thing,
I’m not into ego.
But it also pushes our personal development our self-growth, your self-growth, my self-growth. Because this is all about the foundation of your success. And it’s so simple. And it’s a secret. Yeah, well sort of secret. It’s a secret that you’ll only learn. When you do what you think you know, or you think you’ve
learned and found out. You didn’t, you didn’t know you couldn’t do it.
And that’s when you really learn. And that’s when you really learn if you have the intention to put yourself on that line to be vulnerable when you put yourself in, so it’s not overconfidence. But you’re willing, you’re willing to expose yourself to doing this stuff because you never find out until you do it what you think you know, what you think you’ve learned. And when you find out that you don’t, you will suddenly learn it, you’ll learn a bit that you don’t know, which makes up everything. And that’s when you really learn because you learn everything that you think you know, but haven’t done, proved yourself, it was just a delusion. It’s the talk, the talk, and not the walking of the walk. But that’s when you start to really learn. Because it does two things. If you do it with the right intention, you come back to mastery, showing up, showing up the real you, and doing what you know. And knowing what you do. Because that’s the foundation that you build upon. Because you use that to build upon to the next level. And then you wash and repeat. build on that to the next level. So your foundation is so fucking strong that you can. Where your self-esteem and your confidence in your competence is rock solid. And you’re prepared to do that little bit extra that maybe that you don’t know, that you don’t know, to find out whether you know it, but now you’ve always got a bit of a backup plan knowing that you’re gonna learn from it. And that’s when we get to be even better, the ultimate mastery because we become an expert at that. But an expert only knows that they don’t know everything, that’s a real expert because there’s always more. But we talked about in one of the last podcast episodes, there is always more to learn. And that’s where it should, not should, it brings in that curiosity, that excitement,
realizing that isn’t anything that you can’t learn and do when you do it and learn from it.
Because now you’ve got the right intention. Now you’ve got an unconscious mind willing to protect you, using all the experiences that you’ve got. So he’s, she’s not gonna allow you to go too far out of your comfort zone, because we’ve seen people go crash and burn and then disappear forever, but far enough. Because if you stay in your comfort zone, is this familiar zone, I hate the term comfort zone it’s just a familiar zone, you’re familiar with this and you’ve got to get just through that imaginary barrier. To find out you actually already know a little bit more than you thought you did. And from that, you get that intuition. A bit of knowledge or the right teacher comes along, the right book comes in, I call those teachers, the right video comes along, that a teacher, the right mentor comes along the right podcast, hello, comes along. Bigging me up a little bit there wasn’t it. But it’s all about that. I have to think back, I’ll just come to my mind. When I first started this podcast.
I had some really bad equipment, I hadn’t got a clue how to do it,
I had no idea, my son had been doing it for some time and he gave me the foundation of what I needed to have. But at the end of the day, it was up to me to be able to do it. All I knew is I had a message to share. But also know those early days that I couldn’t communicate that message.
Hopefully, I’m getting better. Hopefully, I’m getting better. But I want to get even better than that. Because each time I do this, I find out what I missed out maybe. Because that’s when I need your feedback. So don’t get lost in my ego. The things that you can show me where, where to improve. I’ll find the how you show me the where. Because I had a coach, a vocal coach. And it was so good. It was my type of vocal coach because they didn’t talk about pronouncing your words in such a way. But they got deep inside me into my intention, and then taking my intention and then using the words, sharing the story.
So now you have to plan it. Because now you know, there’s always something to learn, there’s always something you can learn, all you have to do is do the things that you do learn to make sure that you do know them. And if you don’t, you can really hone those skills. When you can think about, let’s plan your success, success in, say your career, your relationships, your health, plan their success through your dreams, maybe your side hustle, you fill in the blank, because all you have to do then is create a plan, a well-formed outcome. Now two things about a well-formed outcome is if you get that well-formed outcome, anxiety disappears. Inner confidence becomes something that you can have as a foundation because you’re confident in your competence. There’s even a well-formed outcome process In the hypnosis tracks I have paulcloughonline.com forward slash podcast, sign up to those. If you’re already there, you’ve got the link, your personal link, go there and look at a well formed outcome. But if you want you can wait till that episode comes along. Because I just want you to think about what we’re doing.
Now. Think about your learning. What do you really know? And test yourself by saying, Okay, if I know that have I done it yet? or do I just think I know it? So even on that part, with the right intention, commit to testing what you know, because with the right intention, you’re looking forward to things not quite happening the way you want because I always remember, going back to those NLP trainings and cocking up the practicing. I knew the more I did ii there, I was in a safe environment to learn. So when it counted, I had real learnings as long as I didn’t just poo-poo it and just let it go. Now I learned I began to write about it. Again journaling what I wanted To learn how much I’ve learned and what it’s going to do, and then put myself to it.
I know that when I was working with clients at one time, I knew beforehand what I was going to do, what process I was going to use, What a dumb way to work that is, and people still do that, by the way, but it’s such a dumb way to work. Because I’m trying to interpret what that person needs through a bit of an email. They’ve got a phobia, No, they haven’t got a phobia it’s something completely different. So many times I’ve worked with somebody, and what I thought was the issue, when we got there, had nothing to do with it at all. So we then found the right process but before, though, I would have a process in mind, I knew the stages I was going to do, despite of my client. But you have to learn that way. You have to learn that way.
And suddenly, you get that aha moment that says, hang on, Paul, let’s just pull your neck in and just take notice of what you’re learning just now. How can you make it better? And we’re back to asking ourselves better questions, learning what else you need, as you do it. To set your intention, commit, schedule, and become the master of you and your dreams. Because that’s what we’re here for. It’s not just to have dreams that become wishes that fade away but actually create dreams. Remember, dream, create Excel, they were the words I put on my first website, dream, create Excel. Awesome words. There’s no wishing there that fades away. So as you think about this, I’d
love you to think about that a little bit deeper. I haven’t I haven’t gone through a process of any of this because I wanted you and a bit for me, I guess, to realize there’s always more to learn. And also realize, well, I know you think you learned that Cloughie. You’ve read about it. But do you really know? Have you put it into practice? Have you demonstrated to yourself, not demonstrate to others, demonstrate to yourself that you can do it, and then ask yourself, How can I make it better. That’s when the dreams really, really shoot out of you. And they become reality, and they become better than you thought. And you’ve got some resources already before I do any processes. And I will work on this, I’ll think about this and give you some processes. But remember, you’ve always got the hypnosis tracks from past episodes. So if you’ve got an area that, once you’ve sat down or thought about this and say, Well, maybe I need just need a bit more confidence to go back and test it. Well, we’ve got things like the past episodes, your own personal resources, you’ve also got Supreme Inner Confidence, the program I’ve done for you to help propel it, you’ve got these things that will do it. So it’s not a case of doing it and then finding out oh I need more confidence.
No, let’s get confident about what we don’t know. Because when you know, you don’t know it, there’s no imposter syndrome. Because I know this I want to learn I’m gonna use these people to learn from what a wonderful way to do it because then they become the right teachers. And if they know it, you find people will share things because that’s what we do isn’t it? Always speak here about sharing what we know, sharing what we listen to, not only doing what we learn, and listening and learning and doing that, but sharing it, sharing what we’ve learned. Because when you share things, and you do it verbally, you put it in your own words, again, you recognize, I can’t explain it anymore. That means I don’t know that bit. I don’t know well enough to explain it. Therefore, I’m gonna go back, become the master of it. Because I’ll know what I know. And I know what I don’t know.
And this seems quite a deep subject. But it’s such a simple subject. And that’s what we’re here for, isn’t it? In simplicity. There’s genius. Good old Albert Einstein. Let’s break things down. From the complicated to the simple, not too simple, but to the simple processes. And then walk the walk with talking the talk at the same time. That’s when you find your career, your relationships, your side hustles your dreams, you become who you really can be, and then realize there’s more to learn, which is exciting isn’t it? So much to experience.
So this now doesn’t become a journey. So many people say well, I’m on this journey. It’s an adventure because adventures are always exciting and they always Have a great ending, always because we always learn from, from everything that we do. There you go.
So having said that, why don’t share this, maybe try to explain it to somebody, and then share the episode, and then share the whole podcast, which will, as I said before, be changing slowly gonna tweak it a little bit. haven’t quite got it firmly in my mind yet, but I’ve been talking to my youngest son who’s been giving me a few tips. And there are things, I’m going to change a little bit because I want to make this podcast even more relevant to you. Even more relevant, so you become like this master of you. And so we can, oh, we can look at the things that we need, what we need to learn what we need to let go of, and not just look at them, but how to, let’s get some ‘how to’s’, some real good processes in,
in,
in front of us, you know, you can do it, you can follow it with me, you can do it by yourself after that, and then notice how well it works. So that’s gonna be something I’ll be filling you in later, sometime in the future, not too long. of little tweaks, I’m gonna try to, not try, but to make little tweaks I’m definitely going to make, try to make it even more interesting. You might even say, well, it’s not interesting yet Paul :O), but it is I’m sure it is. Hopefully, it is.
Give me that feedback. If it’s not interesting, and you’re not getting golden nuggets, you know, please let me know, email me feedback@personaldevelopmentunplugged.com. I’d love your feedback. If it’s really good feedback, can you put it on a review that takes 90 seconds. When if you listen, to this on an app, there’s always a place you can put a review. Love that for me. And if you do a review, please do a screenshot of it. screenshot it, email it to me at feedback at personal development unplugged com. if I didn’t say that my mind went blank but email me the screenshot and you might just get something in return. Anyway, have more fun than you can stand and maybe just sit down a little bit like I do, but don’t have to do what I do. But sometimes I just sit down with an open book and I write, you know, what do I know what Don’t I know, I’ve been going through a lot of things like that lately. And it’s making a difference. So it’s just, you know when you start devoting time to yourself, it becomes unselfish. We talked about that before being becoming the most unselfish, selfless person. Because you want to make yourself better, a better person, for you, people around you, and little planet Earth. So maybe just commit to making a little bit of time and just think about what we talked about here and see what you come up with. And when you do. I’d love to know. You know, if you if you’re happy to share the thoughts that you have, again, that email feedback at personal development unplugged.com, But also if you share it and you go you know what, but I don’t know-how. And let me know that because I’ll find a process for us. I will because I’ll probably want it as well. I know well. And certainly the other person now you This doesn’t to me. But all three of us will get something out of this. Okay. Anyway, until the next time, my friend. Just enjoy. And I say enjoy every heartbeat. See you next time. Bye-bye.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai