2Getting Ready to Learn
If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not
now, yet it will come: the readiness is all.
William Shakespeare, Hamlet
H
AMLET SPENDS MUCH OFSHAKESPEARE’S MOST FAMOUS PLAY GETTING
himself ready to deal with his suspicions of what has happened to his
father. Many of us take a similar approach to learning.
When we are born we are clearly ready to learn. We have no
preconceptions about ourselves. All our senses play on the amazing
world we encounter. We watch, practice, and then walk. We listen,
experiment, and then talk. Most homes provide an early learning
environment that is good enough for us to walk, talk, and acquire a
range of other useful skills.
As we grow up, we somehow become less ready. Other pres-
sures bear down on us. We learn to worry and doubt. We can lose
confidence. At home and at work, we can easily find our environ-
ment less conducive to learning than we would like it to be. We
gather learning “baggage” around us, which begins to weigh us
down.
But, unless we are ready to learn, we won’t be able to realize
our potential. When French scientist Louis Pasteur wrote that
“chance favors only the prepared mind,” he might have been talk-
ing about many “nonlearners” today, whose minds have become
deprogrammed from the naturally receptive state in which they
started life.
Have you ever stopped to wonder why when you go on a train-
ing course so little of it sticks? Or, if you have teenage children, why