Originally posted in our May 2021 Top of Mind Newsletter.
Keeping the theme set by John Kay’s talk on obliquity, we turn to an article from the BBC about the beginner’s mindset.
The work of Tom Vanderbilt is outlined in the article, showing ways that adults can re-commit to learning and the importance of learning many things. Learning from our mistakes, varying our practice, and sharing our new knowledge with others are ways to improve our learning and growth in each area and as a whole.
As we are working on a problem, we adjust our models and solutions based on new evidence. In taking the indirect path towards our goal, we often find that we need more knowledge on various subjects than one particular field.
By adopting a beginners’ mindset, we can, in turn, find new models for framing problems and achieve more on the way towards our goals than we initially thought possible.