Introduction

How You Learn Is How You Live is a guide to awakening the power of learning that lies within us—to show how we can increase our capability to learn from experience throughout our lives, in each and every moment. To say that experience is the best teacher is an understatement—it is our only teacher. We are totally enveloped by our experience like a fish is by water. We awake each day to swim in our stream of conscious experience, surrounded once again by the ongoing story of our lives: the trials and tragedies, hopes and dreams, family, friends, and coworkers who make up our world. How we make sense of it all to find meaning, purpose, and direction in our lives is called learning from experience, or experiential learning.

Experiential learning has been studied extensively in the twentieth century by some of the greatest thinkers of our time, including John Dewey, William James, Carl Rogers, and Jean Piaget. David Kolb’s Experiential Learning Theory has integrated the ideas of these scholars into a model of learning from experience that is uniquely suited to the learning challenges of the twenty-first century. Since the turn of the century, research studies on the model have more than quadrupled. The current experiential learning theory bibliography includes over four thousand entries from 1971 to 2016. In the field of management alone, a 2013 review of management education research showed that 27 percent of the most cited articles in management education journals were about experiential learning and learning styles.

In over forty-five years of research on the theory by scholars and practitioners all over the world, the principles and practices of experiential learning have been used to develop and deliver programs in K–12 education, undergraduate education, and professional education. In the workplace, training and development activities and executive coaching practices are based on experiential learning concepts. Practices that are based on experiential learning include service learning, problem-based learning, action learning, adventure education, and simulation and gaming. These practices make use of community service, adventure, and gaming to help people become aware of how they process information and apply that awareness to their personal and professional development.

Like the many people who have been introduced to experiential learning through universities or our organizational programs, you can use the approach deliberately to recreate and transform yourself. Experiential learning gives you the tools to take charge of your life. This process can help you improve your performance, learn something new, and achieve your goals. In this book, you will see how understanding the learning process and your own approach to learning is the key to self-transformation and growth.

The first chapter describes the learning way of living, suggesting how giving learning a top priority in your life can bring great satisfaction and fulfillment of your potential. The learning way is an approach to living that requires deep trust in your own experience and a healthy skepticism about information. It demands both the perspective of quiet reflection and a passionate commitment to action in the face of uncertainty. The learning way begins with the awareness that learning is present in every life experience and is an invitation for us to be engaged in each one. We become aware that we are learning, how we are learning, and—perhaps most importantly—what we are learning.

The second chapter, “I Am a Learner,” introduces two important first steps on the learning way journey: embracing a learning identity and learning how to learn. The starting point for learning from experience is the belief that you can learn and develop from your life experiences. Many people think of themselves as having a fixed identity, believing that they are incapable of changing. At the extreme, if you do not believe that you can learn, you won’t.

To thrive on the learning way requires knowing how to learn. The experiential learning cycle is a learning process initiated by a concrete experience, which demands reflective observation about the experience in a search for meaning that engages abstract thinking, leading to a decision to engage in active experimentation. This cycle is so simple and natural that people engage in it without being aware that they are learning. It goes on almost effortlessly all the time and is constantly transforming our lives, but we can learn to employ this process actively and take control of our transformation.

Chapter three, “My Learning Style, My Life Path” invites you to examine your own unique approach to learning, your learning style, and its consequences for the path you have taken in your life. You will explore nine ways of living and learning, each of which brings its own joys and satisfactions, presents its own challenges, and brings the learner to a different place. You will probably relate to one way of learning. Other ways will remind you of people you know, friends, family, and coworkers. Understanding your unique way of learning and your learning style will shed light on the path you have taken in your life. It can help you assess your strengths and weaknesses and understand your preferences. Because each of the learning styles has an upside and downside, it’s important to identify the learning styles you use and those you avoid. Recognizing the different paths of learning and living that others are on can illuminate the communication problems that arise when someone you know is coming from a different place. It can bring the team synergy that occurs when a partner’s strengths cover your weaknesses and vice versa. You can also model yourself after those with styles different from your own and expand your capabilities.

In chapter four, “Building Learning Style Flexibility,” you will think of one thing you would like to change in yourself that is most critical for your success—just one, no matter how small. This may be a quality or capability that you would like to acquire. It may be a strength that is overplayed or a weakness that holds you back. This will be a goal that increases your flexibility to use a learning style that is not as familiar to you. This one step will be the beginning of a lifelong quest to increase your ability to use all nine styles of learning. Being aware of your preferences and broadening your comfort zone will help you avoid getting stuck in a rut. Instead, you can create a path of your own by seeing all the possibilities instead of just one style.

Chapter five, “Learning Flexibility and the Road Ahead,” shows how, with learning flexibility, you can use the full learning cycle to master whatever challenges you may face on the road ahead: perfecting your special skills, rising to greater responsibility, changing your career, finding work/life balance, or serving a greater purpose.

Finally, chapter six, “What’s Next? Deliberate Learning for Life,” offers checklists that support the application of the learning way in your life so that you can master the challenges of continuous, lifelong learning.