I’m an avid learner. Are you? I might be the odd kid but hated Summer breaks in elementary school because I couldn’t go to school and learn new concepts. I was bored. If I told my mom that I was bored, she would assign mundane chores like polishing silver or dusting. European mother. I’m a first generation American of Dutch parents so mom was teaching me homemaking skills. Free of charge. In fact she paid me an allowance. In today’s job vernacular it was a paid internship. As a quick learner, I quit saying I was bored and delved into learning. My parents couldn’t fault me since I might become the next lawyer or doctor in America. Looking back, I probably would have been a great gamer if that technology existed within my generation. But it didn’t so I would check out the maximum weekly allotment of library books and referenced our set of Encyclopedia Britannica to learn facts about weird stuff. For some reason, we ended up with two sets of Britannica. For any one born after 1980, you probably have no clue what I’m talking about. No matter, please read on.
Wikipedia: The Hard Copy Edition
If you aren’t familiar with the Encyclopedia Britannica (you just can’t say 1 word without the other), it’s the written form of Wikipedia sold in the 1960s-70s by hucksters door-to-door when soliciting was actually embraced. Why? Because there was no Internet, streaming, or iPhones to compete. People actually read books. Oh yes, that is coming back. Thank you Amazon for reintroducing the printed word form. The Encyclopedia Britannica was published for a mind-boggling 244 years. I loved it as a reference tool for papers and projects from elementary through high school. It was worldly knowledge — I’m sure skewed with the printed fake news of the day — in our home library with a complete set of a dozen hard bound volumes covering topics A-Z. “Astronomy” to “Zoology” all within your fingertips. Learning nirvana. Today you’d probably would stack a couple of volumes for the best Skype session or Instagram selfie while not even cracking open a page.
According to my virtual source Wikipedia, Encyclopedia Britannica “was written by about 100 full-time editors and more than 4,000 contributors. The 2010 version of the 15th edition, which spans 32 volumes and 32,640 pages, was the last printed edition.” When my mother passed a couple of years ago, I wanted to keep a childhood Britannica set and then realized where in the heck would I put it in our condo without built-in shelves? Side note, built-ins are part of next year’s condo renovation budget. I see a Britannica set in the future from Half Price Books.
Continuous Learning
Learning. It’s continuous. It doesn’t end with your high school, college or university degree. There are industry certifications, corporate training courses, and life lessons including the school of hard knocks. I tell my clients to embrace it. Want a new career path? Go take a class or a seminar. Even those of us of Britannica age go on a learning rampage. In the past 2 years I took an arduous Thai Chi class (failed), fabulous cupcake with champagne appreciation course (indulged), and challenging 4 month group tutoring classes for languages including Italian and French (focused). My French is still abysmal but I could count, knew opening hours and days, and be courteous while spending 2 months in Bordeaux and St. Martin. Next month I’m taking a 2 month course at City University in Seattle to refresh my high school Spanish for a month abroad in Malaga, Spain. Yo hablo espanol pero I simply want to enhance my next adventure. Here’s my opportunity to learn and meet fellow learning adventurers.
Research Evidence
A Pew Research Center survey several years ago revealed how we are ongoing learners:
- 73% of adults consider themselves lifelong learners.
- 74% of adults are personal learners – they have participated in at least one of a number of possible activities in the past 12 months to advance their knowledge about something that personally interests them. These activities include reading, taking courses or attending meetings or events tied to learning more about their personal interests.
- 63% of those who are working (or 36% of all adults) are professional learners – that is, they have taken a course or gotten additional training in the past 12 months to improve their job skills or expertise connected to career advancement.
How would you describe yourself? Personal, professional or limbo land learner?
Benefits for Learning
As a career consultant, I receive dozens of requests daily via LinkedIn Pro for career coaching, resumé help, LinkedIn makeovers, and job interview prep. Prior to taking on a prospective client, I review their accomplishments including credentials and academics. There are rock stars as well as clients needing a discussion about how to up their game. One of the answers to upping your game is adding credibility with education. There are four benefits to learning:
- Keeps you current: Technology has leapfrogged within the past 5 years so please take on the personal cost of a Cisco, AWS, Azure, or VMWare certification if your company won’t pay for it. If you want a $15K pay increase or job title advancement, what’s a $500-$2,000 out-of-pocket cost?
- Advances your career: To be at the top of your competition – internal corporate move or on the external job market — it helps to enhance your skills with negotiation classes or technical classes. I did both and it added to my applicant credibility when I was a tech sales executive.
- Improves job performance: For those of you wanting a promotion to Director or VP, I strongly advise to hone your presentation skills by joining a local Toastmasters or signing up for a Dale Carnegie seminar. I did both with incremental results gaining confidence and upping my delivery.
- Leads to innovation: It’s as simple as doing personal research. I was in need of a new website and obtained 5 proposals. Nothing quite fit my needs so I spent a month researching web design experts and tutorials resulting in developing my own customized site www.resumetech.guru. Check it out.
Cleanliness Education
Getting back to the start of my story, the Dutch education regarding cleaning skills instilled by my mother drives my husband crazy especially when I use the vacuum cleaner. He would rather go to the dentist vs. hearing the noise. We still live harmoniously in downtown Seattle. Good news IMHO, we both continue to be avid learners in life while living within a clean environment.
Land your dream job, you deserve it.
