“If only I had a brain,” the scarecrow sang in the Wizard of Oz. The scarecrow is my favorite character in the movie. What he discovers is that he does have a brain and he is thinking. We, like the scarecrow need to discover our own brain.

Brain cell development starts at 42 days after conception. The first brain cell called a neuron fires. Approximately 9,500 new neurons are created every second till there are 100 billion neurons. We are born with 100 billion neurons and have that many till late middle life.  

Sixty days before your birth your neurons start trying to communicate with each other. That communication is a reaching out as a strand called an axon. When a connection is made, a synapse is formed. By the age of three each of the 100 billion neurons have formed 15,000 synaptic connections. That’s 15,000 for each of your 100 billion neurons. For example, from 16 months to 36 months there is a big burst of language and cognitive competence. The child goes from knowing a total of 5-10 words to gaining 1-2 words every day. 

The stronger the neuron connection, the faster the processing. We learn because our neurons are connected. Each time we learn something new, our brains are changed. The patterns of woven connections is extensive, intricate and unique. 

Wednesday July 18, 2009 USA Today wrote “The Educational Testing Service launched an on-line system called the “Personal Potential Index” that lets supervisors and professors evaluate grad school applicants on six qualities that can’t be measured by standardized admission tests: knowledge/creativity, communication skills, teamwork, resilience, planning/organization and ethics/integrity. Studies have shown these qualities are associated with success in either higher education or the workplace.”

I say yeah! As I have quoted Albert Einstein before ” “What if we change the yardstick?”. Personally, I have never been very good at standardized tests. I took the GRE for grad school and did okay. Thanks to a Cleveland State University professor who knew me and my capabilities I got into the program. For sure, the GRE was no predicator of my successfully completing my M.S. in Public Administration with a 3.8 GPA.

How do we measure ourselves and one another?  The Bible says “man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7).  An assistant high school principal told my brother Tobey, “guys like you and your brother end up in the gutter.”  He sure didn’t know our heart. Tobey got a masters degree in Public Administration, worked for the city of Long Beach, then as a technical writer and finally as an elementary school teacher.  

The outward measurement and high GPA didn’t accurately predict the future success of one young lady at Cal State Long Beach. This student was literally a 4.0 in every subject including her accounting major. “I am nervous about taking the CPA exam,” she said to me. I’m thinking, huh? Here is this bright, attractive young lady who will soon start a job with a major CPA firm in downtown Los Angeles worried about taking another test. “You have a 4.0 in all your subjects. What are you worried about?” I asked. “Oh, I only studied to pass the tests,” she said.

While she learned how to take tests, I  had learned how to learn.  Book smart doesn’t mean life smart.

“Grandpa, how much longer?” My grandsons Brandon and Brian would ask. My response was usually, “when you stop asking”. For some reason they never stopped asking. 

There is a sense of not making any progress your  focus is only on a goal. You have a goal in view but are not conscious how much progress you have made along the way. 

We can apply measuring to learning. I call it The Learning Gap. I learned about The Gap from Bill Harris of Centerpointe who learned it from Dan Sullivan of Strategic Coach.  Dan identifies two kinds of people and how these two types measure and evaluate their progress in life. One has an ideal in mind for who they want to be and where they want to go, and they evaluate their progress by that ideal.

An ideal is a concept of what is perfect. An example of an ideal is the horizon. The horizon isn’t real, it exists in your mind. You travel toward the horizon but no matter how far you travel you never get there. When you start to learn something, you may have an ideal in mind and benchmark it against how others have succeeded.  Having the goal with mental pictures to motivate is important. The frustration happens when you measure your progress against your ideal. You never have the satisfaction of making progress. It becomes an exercise in futility because you feel like you’re never making any progress. The gap between where you are and where you want your learning to be stays the same no matter what you do. 

Albert Einstein asked “What if we change the yardstick?”. The question is what are we measuring and why? About 10 years, Linda, my coach, challenged me “What are some other ways to measure your success besides how much money you are making?” For the following week I began to count how many times I smiled while interacting with people. Also, how many times I made a person smile. It shifted my yardstick of success.  It became how many people I touched.  

 Create your own learning yardstick to track your progress. For example, how many books did you read this month. What are 3 things you learned from your reading? What is one thing that you could share with someone else? 

It’s the steps you take on the journey, not merely the destination.  Measure your learning progress by your own standards and  celebrate your learning milestones. You may be surprised at your progress.

“Happy Father’s Day”, Ashley said as she handed me my medium dark coffee. It caught me by surprise. I laughed and said, “Thank you. I forgot what day it is. I treat every day like it’s important.” 

I told Ashley why every day is a gift to me. Many years ago, I got in an industrial accident and lost four toes on my left foot. Also, over the past 20 years, I’ve had three major car accidents. Seat belts saved my life in two of them. Then, 4 years ago, I had a severe reaction to food poisoning. That many brushes with death reminds me that I am alive because God still wants me here. 

Later, as I was leaving, I gave Ashley and her co-worker Mary a card to get a free New Testament study Bible from Bibles for America. http://www.biblesforamerica.org. “Most people don’t read the Bible because they don’t understand it. The Bible is the Word of God and communicates God’s purpose and how He wants to have a relationship with us through His son Jesus Christ.” I said. 

She thanked me and assured me that she would order her free Bible. That made me happy. This afternoon, our oldest son Judson called me to wish me Happy Father’s Day. I returned the favor. It was already a happy day and it just got happier. 

Happy Day every day to everyone. Each day is a precious gift to live, learn, laugh and love. I encourage you all to get your free study Bible. We all need help to learn and understand things. This Bible will help you understand the truth. May you be blessed with the free gift of eternal life as I have.  May you enjoy and grow in the divine life each and every day!

“No more books, no more teachers’ dirty looks”. I distinctly remember saying that the last day of school for 7th grade. I was one of those kids who usually got teachers’ dirty looks and sent out into the hall for talking too much in class. Hey, I’m a guy with lots of energy. Besides, since when did learning only occur in a school building confined to a room and strapped to a desk?

I have been fortunate to have a few good teachers. Miss Maurice, the librarian who challenged me to read with an eye on quality. Mr. Harper, 6th grade teacher who used real world examples from the Wall Street Journal to teach us math and English.  Their examples encouraged me to learn in school. And I never quit learning because school was out. To me, it just meant no grades and no stuff I had to learn. The summer reading program at the public library in South Bend,In was an annual event for  me.

Earlier this year, I retook the Gallup Strengths Finder Profile. Learner is my #2 strength. Which clearly explains my passion for learning. The learner loves to learn. It is the process that excites me. A new skill, a new subject all become a new challenge for me. Engaged in the process, I then want to share that information with others. 

Now, I believe we all love to learn. Unfortunately, some of us had a rough start. Possibly not enough example and encouragement in the home. School teachers who could only relate to students who learned like them. And usually have zero tolerance for students who learned differently. 

Well, don’t let your past learning experiences stop you from learning today. I often had to remind myself “this is now, that was then” whenever a negative experience surfaced. Those negative experiences combined with some professors who couldn’t teach. They say, “those who can’t do, teach,” So what does that say about the ones who can’t do or teach?

What helped me was to focus on my goal of finishing the degree so I could get a good job to support my family. And I would energize myself by resurrecting my inner joy of learning recalling times that were pleasant, usually learning outside of school.  

Someone said, “we start school as a question mark and we end as a period”. That’s not good! Let’s help each turn that around for our learning today and in the future. Also, to help our children navigate their learning in and out of school so they always maintain the joy and wonder of learning.

What positive experiences did you have in school? What made them positive? The teacher? The subject?

What positive experiences did you have learning outside of school? How has those experiences impacted you?