Learning is invisible ink

‘A love of learning’.

You’ll see it on job descriptions and skill matrixes. But the inconvenient truth is most people don’t really want to learn. It’s just not very appealing.

The idea of learning is attractive, but the reality is pretty ugly. There’ll be those horrible dips when it get too hard; when you’re utterly lost; when you feel it’s all a total waste of time and you’re downright stoopid.

As someone who got suspended from school four times, refused to go to university graduation, and was thrown out of one of the classes in my coaching program... learning has been ugly.

But being able to actually do something?

Make something?

Or often better still - feeling confident, even becoming a totally new version of yourself?

That’s what people really want: an outcome; an output; a transformation.

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Most ‘learning’ (let alone ‘education’) sets the wrong frame. The word alone makes people tense up.

One way to flip the script is to shift to topics that align with peoples’ interests:

- Health & safety knowledge via a Hollywood cliffhanger situation

- Hiring skills through the lens of the NBA draft

- An Andy Warhol exhibition that improves your self-awareness

You can come up with 100 more of these I’m sure.

The magic is when learning takes place, yet hardly anyone realizes.

‘Learning’ becomes invisible ink. Goals, mechanics, and design are all present - but hidden to the naked eye.

Funnily enough, that bit’s magic too.

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