Scion of NLP

The best teachers in this world never truly answer questions with statements and the best students never ask questions without having a possible answer …

… aaaaaannd, your thinking: What the hell does that mean?

Well, the 2 most influential teachers in my life taught me those key concepts and, as much as possible, I use them in all the courses and seminars I teach. You see, one person who I learned a lot from never gave me a straight out answer — she always would answer my questions with a question that would help me to connect things in my own mind in order to better understand and relate to the lessons she was teaching. On the flip-side, the second person who taught me a great deal in life never allowed me to ask a question without at least having a guess as to what I thought the answer might be.

In both of these cases I learned the real essence of learning:

Honest Curiosity

Looking for the answer you want to find — deciding what you expect the answer to be and then only seeking information to support your beliefs — is not being honest to the true answer. In the same sense, asking random questions about things which you have no basic knowledge or understanding is useless (kinda like asking the someone to explain trigonometry without even a basic ability to do math) — it’s not being honest to your true level of curiosity.

… and IMHO, the best teachers in the world instill a sense of honest curiosity in their students! (which is part of my never ending quest as an NLP Trainer)

With those thoughts in mind I wanted to share a little inspirational story from a cool website, Zen Moments:

The post was titled My favorite Liar (click the title to go to the original article), and the basic story was as such …

A guy had a professor in college that added an interesting twist to his lectures — it was boring subject so on the first day of class he explained that during every class he would teach one lie and it was the students’ job to catch him in his lie.

At first the lies were easy to spot and students would immediately spot them and raise their hands to question the validity of his statements. When he was caught he’d cross that part out on the board and congratulate them on catching the lie.

As time went on the lies became more subtle and it would take students longer to find them and often it would be only a handful who would question something that was explained a bit earlier in the lecture … until, eventually the professor was able to get through the whole class and no one had caught the lie.

When that happened he would joyfully tell the students that he succeeded and that there was an error somewhere in their notes which they would need to discuss among themselves and present their arguments at the next class. Soon the students had begun to form study groups and had to really dig to determine what lie he had taught them in the previous class ..

… until one day when the students were presenting their thoughts and he simply kept proving them wrong. After the students had exhausted all their possible guesses … the professor said: Do you remember the first lecture – how I said that ‘every lecture has a lie?’ … well, that was a lie. My previous lecture was completely on the level. But I am glad you reviewed your notes rigorously this weekend – a lot of it will be on the final. Moving on …

So, what did that professor teach those students above and beyond the class material? … what was his real legacy as an instructor? — All those students learned:

• ‘Experts’ can be wrong, even when they say things that sound right – so build a habit of evaluating new information and check it against things you already accept as fact. (this goes for seemingly ‘Honest’ truth tellers who often keep confirming that ‘they are hiding nothing’ … are they trying to convince their readers or themselves?)
• If you see something wrong, take the initiative to flag it as misinformation … when things don’t add up, look for the pieces that are missing — having only 1 or 2 pieces of a puzzle will never show you the whole picture (this also applies to singular facts or statements that have been taken out of context)
• A sense of playfulness is the best defense against taking yourself too seriously — everyone makes mistakes and when we do or say something in error there will always be people who will jump on that fact as a way to drag you down and discredit you … don’t take yourself too seriously and you won’t take their comments too seriously either (… and if you don’t take those people who fixate only on mistakes seriously, then no one else will either — accept your errors but focus on your successes so others will do the same)

… something to make you go Hmmmmm…

Related posts:

1. Humanitarianism — it’s just another childhood myth …
2. Is this world really worth living in? (Part 1)
3. NLPers on Twitter are stoopid!
4. Be happy? … Sorry, I have other plans.
5. Metaphorically, Depression is a …

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