Learning to Learn

At the age of 17 when I was in Saint Andrew Junior College, our teacher brought the class to Bishan Park for a class gathering. My classmates and I started to engage in various activities and I was part of the blading group. This is the first time I am blading and apparently, standing up is already a big problem. My teacher Mr Samuel started to teach me the basics for blading and before long I was already balancing and manage to move slowly. “Wow you learn really fast James, you are already balancing and moving!” was the compliment I received from Mr Samuel. That was the first time that I realized, although not having a deep understanding, one of my core strength- Learning to Learn.

At the Innovationation seminar, the director of Oracle said “In life, the most important thing is to learn how to learn” She was saying this as she was an Engineer and never knew how to manage a business. However the most important thing she learnt during the course of her Engineering lessons is to learn how to solve problem. From that, she realizes how important it is for someone to learn how to learn in their life, being receptive and learning new things everyday which equip her for her job as a director in Oracle.

Toyota’s practice is to improve by 1% everyday and you will be more than 1000% better by the end of the year. And now Toyota is the company with the highest revenue in the auto mobile industry just because of this single simple practice. This is a good example of learning how to learn everyday as Toyota seeks to improve themselves by learning new things everyday. The ability to seek out new things to learn and never be complacent with what you already knew is one of the key to success.

Qn: What kind of people are the most frightening?
Ans: Those that improve everyday

No doubt are those that seeks to learn and improve everyday the most frightening people as they will never be the same person every year. They become better and better, becoming a learning machine that is so hard to keep up with.

I used to think that my schooling time is a waste of time as I learn no practical skills in the course of my education. I fail to realize that I was actually acquiring an important skill and honing it every year. With new knowledge that needs to be learnt, comes training on how to remember, understand, decipher and formatting new ways of analyzing the information that is given. Learning new knowledge and seeking new ways to enhance the knowledge given has become a skill that I really treasured as I find that there is nothing that can impair you if you learn the skill on how to learn. Mastering a single skill on learning how to learn will open the doors to all other skills!

“Make a difference in life by learning to learn everyday”