Excerpted from Business Black Belt by Burke Franklin
At a certain age, people’s minds close up; they live on their intellectual fat.
— William Lyon Phelps
Learned people often unconsciously use their existing knowledge and data to block anything new coming in. This keeps them stuck and makes them a challenge to communicate with. Here’s what to do.
Are you or anyone you know too smart to learn something new? Let’s deal with this subject right up front in case it applies to you. If you’re reading this book, you’re obviously looking for some answers and good ideas you can use and you’re probably pretty bright. But you may have a problem.
Smart people gather information and remember it. And usually what we are taught is based upon a particular premise or set of facts. As we learn and master the information, the original premise for that information remains as its foundation or paradigm.
Believe it or not, smart people are often afflicted with a severe learning disorder. You’ve seen it before. I call it the learning disorder of the very intelligent. The existing knowledge on a given subject blocks the new knowledge from coming in. And knowledge blocks are due to stuck paradigms.
For example, I have a degree in economics, the science of efficiently allocating scarce resources. The paradigm of economics is that resources are scarce. With that fundamental premise, how can someone talk to me about unlimited prosperity? I’ve been trained to believe that resources are scarce!1
If you were to tell me, “You have plenty of resources,” I filter it through what I already know about economics. The more I think I already know, based on my knowledge of economics, the less receptive I am. “Waddayamean? Resources are scarce!” I resist your point of view as well as any evidence to support it. I don’t (won’t) learn from you. Instead we argue. My existing knowledge has become the basis for my inability to learn—my learning disorder. I’ve built my knowledge on my paradigm of how I think things are or should be. That information clogs my filter and prevents new information from getting in.
Continue... to Part 2: There are a variety of ways to look at the same thing.
At a certain age, people’s minds close up; they live on their intellectual fat.
— William Lyon Phelps
Learned people often unconsciously use their existing knowledge and data to block anything new coming in. This keeps them stuck and makes them a challenge to communicate with. Here’s what to do.
Are you or anyone you know too smart to learn something new? Let’s deal with this subject right up front in case it applies to you. If you’re reading this book, you’re obviously looking for some answers and good ideas you can use and you’re probably pretty bright. But you may have a problem.
Smart people gather information and remember it. And usually what we are taught is based upon a particular premise or set of facts. As we learn and master the information, the original premise for that information remains as its foundation or paradigm.
Believe it or not, smart people are often afflicted with a severe learning disorder. You’ve seen it before. I call it the learning disorder of the very intelligent. The existing knowledge on a given subject blocks the new knowledge from coming in. And knowledge blocks are due to stuck paradigms.
For example, I have a degree in economics, the science of efficiently allocating scarce resources. The paradigm of economics is that resources are scarce. With that fundamental premise, how can someone talk to me about unlimited prosperity? I’ve been trained to believe that resources are scarce!1
If you were to tell me, “You have plenty of resources,” I filter it through what I already know about economics. The more I think I already know, based on my knowledge of economics, the less receptive I am. “Waddayamean? Resources are scarce!” I resist your point of view as well as any evidence to support it. I don’t (won’t) learn from you. Instead we argue. My existing knowledge has become the basis for my inability to learn—my learning disorder. I’ve built my knowledge on my paradigm of how I think things are or should be. That information clogs my filter and prevents new information from getting in.
Continue... to Part 2: There are a variety of ways to look at the same thing.
Employee Stock Options
