learn | The Caleb Barney Collection

Patience with teaching

It takes strength to be gentle. Anyone can be rude, but it takes self-control, strength, and discipline to be patient and caring.

For example, do you get easily annoyed (and show it) when others aren’t understanding what you’re explaining? Be gentle with them. Try to explain it in another way. Whether that means using a different example (verbally) or using a different teaching method (they may learn better by reading or doing instead of listening), if you really want them to understand what you’re talking about, you need to adapt your teaching style to how they learn best. Regardless of whether your other methods work, at the very minimum you’ll become a better teacher by learning how to use different teaching methods.

Lastly, if you really want someone to learn something, you can be firm with them, but don’t be rude or make disparaging remarks. While that may motivate some people, it will make even more people “shut down.” Then, not only do you lose your chance at a teachable moment, but you also hurt their self-esteem and lose their respect (if only temporarily) in the process.

Protective parenting

Being a parent of young children, I finally understand why you have those overbearing, overprotective parents. As a parent, you never want to see your child hurting – whether physically or emotionally. But we have to accept that pain is part of life and we cannot (and should not) try to shield them from everything.

We want to protect our children, but the irony is that the best thing we can do is let them experience hardship. If you don’t let them experience any pain, they won’t be able to cope with facing more difficult circumstances.

One of the best feelings a person can have is overcoming adversity. Facing a stacked deck and still winning. Why would you want to take that away from them? There is no thrill in victory without the possibility of defeat. If you know that you can’t lose, what’s the point of playing the game? It becomes boring. The same goes for your children…

If you have children, let them struggle. Part of experiencing the highs in life is also knowing about the lows. Don’t jump in to try to save them from being able to know and understand both. Helping them right now can actually be hurting them in the future. But it’s important to start small and to start young. The more quickly they are able to stumble and fall, yet get back up, the better off they’ll be in the long run.

Competing and confidence

Be confident in your ability to compete. You don’t have to win every time. You won’t win every time. But you can always compete…Try your hardest, have a good attitude whether you win or lose, and make sure you learn from your experiences.

If you don’t like losing, keep practicing. Keep competing. Be a student of the game. What worked well before and what didn’t work? How can you implement what worked and reduce what didn’t to get more consistent results? Become an expert in whatever it is you’re trying to do. With competence comes confidence.

Where is the knowledge?

“Where is all the knowledge we lost with information?” – T.S. Elliot

We are so inundated with information, most of which is irrelevant, that we lose the part that is actually important – the applicable knowledge.

Don’t confuse the two. Start/continue to listen to audiobooks and podcasts, to read articles and books, and to try to learn as much as possible, but make sure you occasionally take a step back and figure out if you’re just consuming noise (information), or if what you’re letting in will help you. Then apply what you’ve learned. The best teacher is experience. You can read as much as you want, but you need to actually start “doing” to gain a complete knowledge of a subject.

Training in the workplace: You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.

When you’re in charge of training someone, the only thing you can do is give them an opportunity to perform. You can show them what is required to thrive in their specific role – what they need to do, best practices, etc. – but you can’t make them do it. You can spend hours explaining the tactics of a position, but you can’t teach someone to have passion, to be curious, or to have a better work ethic. But if they don’t want to do it, or if they just don’t understand/aren’t picking it up quickly enough, you can’t force them to do what you would do. If it’s not working, eventually you will have to do something about it.

Be careful to not make an emotional decision about this. Be objective, but be kind. Are they just not doing something the way that you would do it, but they’re still getting the job done? Is their performance still acceptable? Are they making big enough strides where, even though they aren’t where you need them to be right now, they’re on their way to becoming what you need from them?

After you remove emotions and give their work an honest evaluation, talk with others who know the situation. Make sure you emphasize that they give you their true opinions about the work being completed by the person in question. It’s not about the individual. It should always be about the work and how it affects those around them. Many people are careful to criticize because they like the person they are evaluating or because they fear the other person will find out. But if they don’t let their true feelings be known, they are doing a disservice to the company and even to the individual. After all, maybe this isn’t what the individual wants. Maybe it’s not fulfilling for them and that is why they are not putting in the extra effort to learn and excel at their craft.

Ultimately, you must determine if you’ve done everything in your power (as the trainer/mentor) to help that person succeed. Do they only need to make a few adjustments or is it time to move on? Did you lead them to water? If so, it’s up to them to decide to drink…