00:00:34: Introduction

00:01:50: Previous "Learning" episodes

00:03:41: Useful quotes

00:04:53: A learning framework

00:05:30: Start, stay, stick

00:05:55: The Four E Learning Plan

00:06:57: Helen's and Sarah's learning focus

00:09:23: Learning takes time

00:10:08: E for Experience

00:11:07: Knowing your "from" and "to"

00:13:09: "Doing by Learning" by David Erixon

00:16:25: E for Exposure

00:18:26: E for Education

00:19:36: Curating a curriculum

00:20:36: MOOC and other online courses

00:22:29: Crowd-sourcing a curriculum

00:23:03: E for Experimentation

00:27:19: Starting…

00:29:24: Staying…

00:30:40: Sticking…

00:31:52: Mindmaps

00:34:53: Final comments

Helen Tupper: Hello, I'm Helen Tupper.

Sarah Ellis: And I'm Sarah Ellis.

Helen Tupper: And you're listening to the Squiggly Careers podcast, where each week we talk about a different topic to do with work and discuss practical ideas and actions to help you find your way through all of our increasingly squiggly world of work.  This week, we are going to be talking about how to take control of your learning at work.

It is a topic that must be one of the things that we are most passionate about, Sarah; I feel we talk about learning all the time, "What are we learning; how can people learn; how could we help people to learn?", so it isn't a brand new topic on the Squiggly Careers podcast, so we haven't -- I was searching on that Overcast app that helps you work out what podcast you've actually published and I was like, "Have we done one with 'learning' in the title?"  It turns out we haven't!

Sarah Ellis: Have we not?

Helen Tupper: No, I know, I was surprised.  I was like, we must have done one with "learning" in the title.

Sarah Ellis: At some point, I'm convinced we're going to run out of things to talk about!

Helen Tupper: Well, we've touched on this one three times, but it's not in the title.  So, just in case you are equally as passionate about learning as Sarah and I, in this podcast we've got a framework; hooray, everybody that likes framework, we've got a framework; and then we've got some specific things to help you to really think about starting your learning and staying with it and sticking, so that's the structure of today's podcast.

But, if you want to dive a bit deeper into the other areas that we've touched on on learning before, Episode 69 was on DIY Career Development, so we touched on it a bit there; and then we did Episode 102, in which Sarah interviewed Scott Morrison about How to Teach Yourself; and then most recently, in Episode 198, we talked about How to Develop Your Transferable Skills.  So, if you really want to dive deep into learning, then start with this podcast and then 69, 102 and 198 for all of your learning listening.

Sarah Ellis: So, let's start by thinking about why we thought this would be a good topic to talk about right now; and I think, in the context of our careers at the moment, and we're recording this at the very end of February 2021, I think a lot of people will have lots of uncertainty around where they are in their career, what might happen next; lots of people's plans, as much as we can plan, have probably gone out the window, and we were thinking your progression, in some other ways, might be staying still at the moment, or you might feel like it's stalled, or you're just not sure about how you're going to progress right now. 

You might think now's not the time to take a massive leap for lots of reasons, but learning is one of those things that you always have control over.  Your own learning and how you can progress through your learning, I think, is something you can always come back to and, I think, feel really anchored by actually.  And, there's a lot of evidence that when we're learning, we're also happier.  I think we're motivated by the ability to learn, by feeling like we're getting better at something, so it feels like it's perhaps not a bad time after, let's face it, what has been quite a tough start to the year.

Helen Tupper: Oh, hasn't it?!

Sarah Ellis: Spring is in the air; I've got daffodils in my kitchen; and there are a couple of great quotes for people who actually we both really admire.  So Cal Newport, who talks a lot about time and spending your time on the right things, he says, "The more skilled you become, the more opportunities you'll begin to notice for high impact work".  Essentially what he's saying is, the better you get, the more you can do the things that you just really enjoy and that feel really meaningful.

I also find it really interesting that Reid Hoffman, who is the Founder of LinkedIn and, I always think more importantly, the author, co-author, of actually one of the first career development books I read that I thought, "Oh, wow, this is something that really relates to me in terms of something that I'm really passionate about because it's very practical".  He actually talks about when he's recruiting anyone knew or investing in startups, and he does a lot of investing, that one of the unique characteristics he looks for is this idea of an infinite learning curve.

By that, he wants to work with individuals who can keep learning new skills, adapting to new areas and basically, always learning.  They have that work-in-progress mindset continually driving them.  I think we get why this is important for us all individually but I think probably also, more broadly, with the perspective of our careers, it's important too.

Helen Tupper: So, we're going to do this in two parts.  The first part, we're going to try and bring to life a framework over a podcast, but it's a structure, basically, for a learning plan.  It's a way of really focussing your efforts and energy on something that you want to learn, but to also squeeze the most amount of learning opportunity out that you can.

Sometimes we default to going, "I want to learn this thing; I'll go on a course".  This is the exact opposite to that; this is like, "I want to learn this thing, so how can I learn it everywhere at any time?"  So, we've got a model for you to help you squeeze learning out for whatever it is you want to know more about.

Then, we asked our Instagram community for what questions they had about learning and as I was reading through all the comments, it seemed to be about, "Where do I start; how do I stay committed to my learning; and, how do I make the things that I'm learning stick?"  So, once we've gone through the model, we will go through starting, staying and sticking at your learning and some sort of practical ideas for action for you to take away.

Helen Tupper: So maybe, Sarah, if I just talk through the model first of all and then Sarah and I are going to take it in turns a bit for you to talk through each bit of the model.  So, the model is called The Four E Learning Plan.  It has got four parts to it and each part begins with E, so that's the name!  And, the four Es are "experience", so learning through the things that you do; "exposure", so learning through the things that you're exposed to and the people you're exposed to really; "education", a bit formal there, so what you're formally learning; and then the last thing is about "experimentation", what you're trying out for the first time.

So, Sarah and I will go through each one of those to just bring it to life a little bit and make it more practical for you.  But before we do and before you start any kind of learning plan really, the first thing it needs to start with is an objective, something that you really want to learn.  Learning isn't just this generic, "I just want to learn lots".  I mean, that's a lovely spirit and a lovely intention, but it's hard to make it stick or know where to start if you haven't got something you really want to learn in mind.

So, maybe let's start with the things that we're focussed on this year, Sarah, because I bet we can use those to bring the model to life.  So, one thing I want to learn about this year, it's a bit of an evolution actually.  So, last year, I was really focussed on, "How do I become a better CEO?"  I am still focussed on that, but this year I'm also focussed on how to both grow our business, but improve it at the same time.  So, how do we get better and grow quicker, which is an interesting little conflict!  So, I'm trying to learn from lots of these different things we're about to talk about, about how to do we grow quicker and grow better at the same time.

Sarah Ellis: That's so different to mine!

Helen Tupper: Go on then, Sarah, what's yours?

Sarah Ellis: I'd just like to stay for the record that obviously that one, I'll be interested in that too.  Mine is much more, I think, both selfish and specific which is, I want to improve my listening skills.  I think I might even have mentioned it on the podcast before, but I read a really interesting book about listening by a lady called Kate Murphy.  I think it's called Why We're Not Listening and almost what then to do about it. 

One of the things she said that really struck a chord, and I've read it in a few places now since, is around sometimes if you are quite a reflective person, who spends time in their own head, which I definitely do, and you're introverted, sometimes people assume that introverts must be better listeners.  But actually, when you're nervous, or perhaps under pressure, it's when your listening skills can go out the window. 

I really recognise that in myself, when I'm meeting people for the first time, or if I'm not sure where a conversation might go, or perhaps I feel a bit out of control; I become, certainly on the surface, people would, if that was their only experience of me, they would just say that she's a real extrovert, because I end up talking a lot and not listening that much.  Whereas once you know me, I think it changes my skillset. 

So, it's a very specific thing, but I've noticed it show up and whether it's when I'm coaching someone, perhaps for the first session together, or whether it's I'm meeting someone who might like to work with us for the first time, or just generally in normal everyday conversation; I think it's one of those skills and I read something about how we often overestimate our own listening skills.  And, I don't think it's given much time and attention by individuals, or organisations.  So, I find it interesting for myself, but I also find it interesting for then the work that we do.  It's very different to yours!

Helen Tupper: It's very different, but I think we both really care about those things.  Like, you really care about being a better listener; I really care how we grow bigger and better at the same time; and I think that's also the point with that learning objective that you start with.  Learning takes time.  Everything we are about to talk to you about, you are going to have to use that time for learning that you probably would have spent on something else, whether it's about doing day-to-day tasks, or whether it's about sitting on a sofa watching Netflix; you are going to have to consciously spend some time learning.

So, I think making sure it is something you care about is a really important start.  So, yeah, point one, find something you care about that you want to learn and know what that is before you start building a learning plan around it.

So, we're going to start with this model on the first E, and the reason that we're starting with the E for experience is because it's the thing that you should really spend the most time on with your learning.  This is about on-the-job, hands-on experience, actively doing the work, getting close to the thing you want to learn, or at least as close to a version of it as possible.

For example, if one of the things you want to do is to learn to be a better coach, you're not probably instantly going to start coaching people; maybe you might start observing other coaches, or getting coached yourself.  But, it's about how do you get closer to this so that you can try things out and get better and learn by doing.

I think a really helpful think here is not to just go, "Well, I learn by doing all the time.  Like, if I want to get better at presenting, I'm just going to start presenting more", because then I don't think you really engage with the learning that you're doing.  You're not conscious of the progress you're making or the improvement that you're getting through the activity that you're doing.

So I think, when you're thinking about, "Okay, I know what I want to learn and the biggest way that I'll learn is through getting hands-on learning with it", I think you have to be really clear on this of what is the "from" and what is the "to"; where are you today in terms of your skillset and where do you want to get to.

As an example, I used to write for a publication called Marketing Week.  Before I wrote for Marketing Week, I'd never written for anything that actually got published.  I used to write on our blog and I used to write that on the train.  I remember I'd be like, "I'm not going to blog this week", so I'd write it on my phone and put it live and all kind of bad things; typos, quality".  When we migrated our website, we unfortunately lost a few of those early posts!

But, when I started to write for Marketing Week, I was really clear about what my "from" and my "to" was, in terms of me becoming a better writer.  For example, "from" not writing anything at all that was published by anybody else "to" 12 articles a year.  I really wanted it; becoming a better writer, for me, meant regularly publishing something.  So, that was a moment of clarity for me, "I'm going to get experience by regularly publishing an article".

Another thing that I wanted to do was rather than just me and Sarah and maybe one of our friends reading it, I wanted to have more people that were reading my thoughts about career development; that's what I wrote about in Marketing Week, unsurprisingly.  So, I wanted to get "from" a small number of people "to" a couple of hundred people reading my work. 

I was really clear about the experience I want to get is more regularly publishing my work and getting more feedback on the quality of the work I'm doing.  That was why I engaged, for example, in that particular activity, because it helped me meet those learning objectives.

Sarah Ellis: I think so often with experience, the mistake we make, and I think it's a really good opportunity for all of us, is when say learn on the job, we make the assumption that that means turning up do our jobs and that this learning is going to happen naturally as a result.  I don't think it does; I think it takes intentional effort.

There is a brilliant article by a guy called David Erixon.  He's one of the founders of Hyper Island and the article's called Doing By Learning, and we'll include that link in the podcast notes for today.  But, I'd really encourage you to read it.  It was one of those, you know, sometimes you read something that stops you in your tracks, just because it is so considered and thoughtful.  And really, he's created that whole Hyper Island model based on, even though you're going to something that would have been traditionally "education", they've very much designed it to be an experience-based model, so experiential learning. 

So, I think just thinking about, "Okay, what does this mean in terms of what I'm actually turning up to do in my day job?  Does it mean a bit of role redesign, a bit of job crafting?"  I think some of what, if you listen to what Helen just described, some of that was also thinking about outcomes, so how do you know you're getting the experience that you're looking for.  Helen had got some very clear metrics that help you to track your progress.

But I think it's almost about really thinking about, what do you spend -- what does a week in the life of you look like at the moment; and then, how does that work alongside the learning objective that you've identified?  I don't know whether you'll agree with this, Helen, because we've not chatted about this; but, of the four Es, I think this is the hardest, because I just don't think we're used to doing it?

Helen Tupper: I do, I agree it's the hardest, but it's the most meaningful.  I was thinking about your "from" and "to" with being a better listener.  You have to say, "Where am I today?  If I'm going to learn on the job, or at least through my job to become a better listener, then I've got to admit where I am today".  I don't think that's easy for everyone. 

I've got to say, actually, I've got some gaps today and I've got to be self-aware enough to be, "Where's my starting point?"  And then you've got to work out, "Well ultimately, where do I want to get to?", and maybe, "How do I do something this week, or this month, or this year?  What does that activity look like that gets me closer to where I want to get to?" 

I think it does take a lot more reflection, this experience one, but it's so important because, to the point we'll come onto about sticky learning, this is sticky learning.  Learning by doing and sometimes getting it right and sometimes doing it wrong is one of the biggest ways that you will make learning last.

Sarah Ellis: So, the next E is exposure and exposure could sound like one of those words where you think, "Oh no, that doesn't sit very comfortably with me".  But essentially, what this means is, who or what are you getting exposed to that's going to support your learning; and I think particularly the who.  So, who are your mentors; what communities are you part of; what networks are you learning from?  This could be one other person; this could be 300 other people; and you will know what works best for you.

I think, when you start to get to exposure, this is when, and we talked about this idea of DIY learning, you start to really think, how do you learn the best?  So for some people, they learn the best in big groups and listening to lots of people's thoughts and perspectives; some people learn a lot better in more of a one-to-one way.  So, I think when you're thinking about -- my starting point for this would always be, "Who's the best at this?"  That would be my natural inkling.

Helen Tupper: That would be a Sarah thing to do.

Sarah Ellis: So, when I'm thinking about listening, I'm like, "Who are brilliant listeners?" and I come at that from two perspectives: one, who's doing really interesting work or research; who are the real thought leaders around listening; how can I understand the topic more so that then I can apply that to myself?  And then also, who are just the natural listeners in our world, so that might be spending time with people perhaps who've trained in counselling.

I think I've always been like this actually with my learning.  I want to learn from the best of the best; I find that very inspiring.  I think it works for me, because I don't ever have a problem with, it doesn't ever make me feel bad.  You know sometimes if you do that, the inclination can be to think, "Oh, that's just reminded me just what I can't do", and it can encourage that comparison that we know is not helpful.  But, that is never my starting point.

So, for me, it works really well to go, "Right, learn from the best.  Where are they; who are they; how can I spend time with them?" and that's always my starting point.

Helen Tupper: So, the third E is for education, and this is really about more formal learning.  So this is like taking a topic like scaling a business, or learning to listen, or becoming a better presenter and then finding out stuff that has been published that is a bit more formal that might help you with your learning. 

But I think one of the mistakes that we can make here is we can sometimes default to going on a course, and I definitely did this earlier in my career; partly because it's easy to google something and be, "Oh, I want to learn about presenting; I'll go on that course" and job is done; and also because sometimes I think there's a bit of validation in that stuff.  You know when you do a course and you're like, it means another certificate.  We both have quite a few, haven't we!

That's a thing, but I don't think that always makes learning really meaningful.  I don't think we should think about learning being something that once we've got a qualification, we should just stop doing.  So I think both of us have evolved.  Whilst we still like certificates and we both still like courses, we recognise that that is not the only part of education and we are far more likely now to focus on how you curate a curriculum, rather than just go on a course.

Curating a curriculum; our starting point when we think about this, so when there's a topic that we want to learn about, we will think about, "What's something that we can read; what are some things that we can watch; and what is something that we can listen to?"  So, maybe there are some book recommendations; maybe there are some online courses or TED talks; and also, what podcasts or audio books, whatever it is, can we immerse ourselves in to give you a really good starting point.

Even then, when you say, "I want to go on a course", maybe there is a course you want to go on, or someone you want to learn from, you've got the knowledge to make that decision, because you've read their book.  Like Reid Hoffman; Sarah and I would love to learn with Reid Hoffman, but we know that because we've listened to him on a podcast about Masters of Scale; we've read his work; we've watched what he shares.  He, for us, is a really inspirational person that we would love to learn from and going on a course with Reid Hoffman would be well worth our time, because we've spent a lot of time curating our curriculum around what he's shared.

But, it doesn't have to be -- I think sometimes, courses can be really expensive and there are a lot of MOOCs.

Sarah Ellis: Helen, what's a MOOC; lots of people won't know what a MOOC is?

Helen Tupper: Oh, sorry everyone.  Mass Open Online Course.  I mean, it's not a very nice word or a very nice acronym, is it?

Sarah Ellis: It's really not, is it?

Helen Tupper: A Mass Open Online Course.  But, there are so many of them, so Skillshare being one of them, Udemy; there are honestly so many MOOCS.

Sarah Ellis: FutureLearn.  I think actually, listening to you there, Helen, what you've just described as well is, I think, because there's almost so much out there now that's free, or lots of it is quite low cost, I think you also have to start to work out your trusted sources; because you should definitely try new stuff out too, but you have to know, "Well, if this company is bringing me this programme [or] if this organisation or individual is writing something, do I trust the quality of what I'm going to get?" and you always want to leave some space for discovery.

But, one of the things, for example, that we've done a few times is the How To Academy, but I also go on How To Academy courses.  I've never been disappointed.  I think they suit me in terms of, they're often not super practical; that's not really their vibe.  I'm not actually sure we're their vibe really!  I think they are more intellectual; they're just interesting; they're very conversational; they're very explorative.  You don't leave with ideas for action, but I do enjoy the way that they curate people and the way that they present content.  And it's always quite short.

So, I just go, "That's a trusted source for me", so I do think with so much stuff out there, try and build up your own list of trusted sources.

Helen Tupper: I was just thinking, actually, it reminds me; Guardian Masterclasses, that's another thing that we've done those sessions on, but every time I go on the Guardian Masterclass list, I'm like, "Oh wow, does everybody know about these?"

Sarah Ellis: I've not done these.

Helen Tupper: They're everything from how you write, negotiation with a conflict expert; there are so many interesting programmes.  What we're going to do, well I say "we"; what I'm going to do when this podcast comes out is I'm going to do a bit of an experiment with a crowd-sourced curriculum, so I'm going to try and take ten topics that out Squiggly Careers community want to learn about and then I am going to ask our community to crowd-source a "read, watch and listen to" list.

If you want to be part of this social experiment on crowd-sourcing a curriculum, then I'm going to do all of that at Amazing If on Instagram, so I'll probably start sharing them on Wednesday.  This podcast comes out on the Tuesday and I will share it on the Wednesday.  So, head over there if you want to be part of it.

Sarah Ellis: And then the last E is experimentation, which I guess links to that first one in terms of experience; but I think, what we're talking about specifically here is, how can you test and learn and play actually in quite a low-pressure way.  So I think, when we're talking about experience, really we're talking about opportunities in your job, and that's not always that low pressure and maybe there's not as much freedom, or as much space sometimes to just try different things.  And sometimes your day job is not the first place that you always want to start experimenting.

So, as you start to learn, if you want to try something out, think about where could you do that or how could you do that?  Could you do that with someone else who's learning the same thing that you are?  Could you do it in the safest way that you can in your day job, say perhaps with someone you really trust or part of a team meeting, where people know that you're learning something and you just say, "I'm just going to try this thing out" and you let people know and you know that people are going to be really open to you doing that.

But actually, it links back to one of the things that Jim Collins, who I interviewed this year, talks about.  It's this idea of, we sort of have to be doing all these little mini experiments all of the time, because that's how we know what works for us and what doesn't, because that's the point with experiments; we have to be comfortable with the point of experimenting is, sometimes they just won't work out.

Helen Tupper: I was thinking of a few examples actually, just to bring it to life.  Like, say, for listening, I know Sarah actually knows this one, but a way that you could experiment with a listening thing, a listening learning thing, would be to do an interruption audit, which is where you start to track how many interruptions you do and why you're doing them and when you do them; and that would just be something to experiment with and see what you learned.

Let's say you wanted to improve in presenting.  One of the things that you could experiment with is different software, for example.  Maybe you think, "I'm going to experiment with no slides.  Should I just present with no slides?" or you might experiment with some software, likes there's this thing called Mmhmm; that's a genuine product; I find it hard to say every time I say it!  But, you might just try out a software way of presenting differently.

Or, for me, so my learning objective this year is all about obviously growing and improving as we grow; I'm trying out this 15-minute peer mentoring thing, where basically you have super short peer mentoring conversations, so I learn from somebody else who's got a similar objective to me, but it's really quick.  So, they have a problem they're trying to solve in 15 minutes; I have a problem I'm trying to solve in 15 minutes; and we just take 15 minutes to basically share what we know and any other resources that we've heard about, as a really quick way of learning, so we can actually do it.  We do it every fortnight as a way of squeezing it into our week and I don't know if that's going to stick, but I'm going to try it out and see.

That's the point really; you don't have a lot of expectation on experimentation, you're just trying it out to see what sticks.

Sarah Ellis: And I think you could probably look at experimentation two ways.  You could look at experimenting with the learning, what you're trying to learn; and you could experiment with how you like to learn.  So you might go, "Well, I'm going to run some experiments on what is the difference between going to something where I'm sitting and listening quite passively for 45 minutes; does that actually really work for me, because I can sit and relax and enjoy it?  Or actually, do I want to be part of something more active than that?"

So, I think you could look at this from, experiment with the "what" or experiment with the "how"; it doesn't necessarily have to be on the "what" either.

So, shall we just briefly talk about this idea of starting, staying and sticking?  So, we've gone through that 4-E model and the way that I think you can do that is start with your learning objective at the centre; so, if you're visualising that; your learning objective is at the centre.  Then just go through for yourself and think, experience, exposure, education, experimentation; and a couple of bullet points for each one; a couple of thoughts for each one. 

And I would really encourage you actually to only have one, maybe two learning objectives because I think any more than that, we spread ourselves too thinly and don't end up making the progress that we're hoping for.  But I think, if you go through each of those, you start to realise actually, you move from quite a big learning objective that can feel hard and it would be really easy in three months' time to look back and think, "I'm no further forward than I was when I first thought about this" and this starts to, unsurprisingly for us, gets very impractical quite quickly.

So, if you're thinking about, "Where do I start; how do I stay with it; how do I really make sure that learning sticks?" just a few thoughts on each of those for you.  And Helen and I actually had a debate on this first one already and we were like, "This is meant to be the quick, end section of the podcast!" but, where do you start with your learning?  And I don't think we disagree; I just think we both straightaway in our brains started from different places.  So, Helen, where would you start with your learning?

Helen Tupper: I would start, like if I was thinking, "Oh my God, I'm really busy, I've got loads on and everything's happening and I've got to put learning into my day; where do I start and there's lots to learn?" I would start with, what is something that I enjoy, because I want to have energy for it, because I've got to fit it in to my already quite full-on working week.  So, at least I want the thing that I'm spending time on to be something that gives me energy.

My first thing would be, "What do I love to learn?" and then I'd get into, "How can I learn it?" but I'd start with, "What's enjoyable?"  And, what about you?

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, do you know what; it's funny.  I think this is the exact opposite of our personalities, because I think if I just did what I love to learn, I would just spend all of my time learning and I don't know if it would help me for my job at all.

Helen Tupper: But I think it does.

Sarah Ellis: It does, I know.

Helen Tupper: I don't think it always has to be obvious.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, I think you're right, you're right and I think that's wider curiosity, which we talk about.  But my starting point actually is usually, "Is it relevant to my role?"

Helen Tupper: You're so harsh!

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, I'm sort of harsh on myself.  I think it's because my number one value is achievement; I'm competitive and I want to do a brilliant job.  And I think, "What is going to help me be even better at my job?"  That is my starting point.  Whereas you'll think, "How am I going to have fun?"

Helen Tupper: Yeah, and I can see that.  I mean, not everyone will know us, but obviously we've known each other for over 20 years and I can see that in our learning decisions that we've made.  What we've learnt and when I think has been driven by that difference.  I've been like, "Where's a really nice social group that I can join around this learning thing?" and you've been like, "But seriously, what is going to help me right now that I can actually use?"

Sarah Ellis: So there you go.  But, I think probably combining those two things and you get the best of both worlds; there you go!  That's the advantage of having two people on the podcast, isn't it?

Helen Tupper: So the next thing then, so we've talked about where do you start, whether you start a bit more with Sarah or a bit more with me; then, how do you stay with it?  So, you've found this thing that you want to learn and now you've got to stick at it, even though you've got loads of other stuff going on.

One thing I would say is we've done a podcast on grit, which I think is very relevant to this point, and I don't want to repeat all of that stuff; but, that podcast on grit would be a good listen if you find sticking or staying with things that you want to learn hard.  But a couple of ideas for action that we've got here: the first would be, learn with some other people.  If you can learn with people that you like spending time with, that makes the whole experience so much better. 

When I say "like spending time with", that might be because, I don't know, you do a book club and it involves wine and chat.  You don't have to like the people, but you just have to like that community.  So it's just, put a community around the thing that you want to learn and that can often create a sense of commitment to it that can be really helpful.

The other thing is, have a learning log.  So, when you're learning something, almost track down what you've learnt and how it's useful, and then it's quite helpful to look back on that and you can see how much progress that you've made.  We get quite attached.  It's a bit like gamifying your learning a little bit, like create your own little learning badges.  That helps us to stick at things that we want to get done for longer periods of time.  So, that would be some of the things that I would suggest.

Sarah Ellis: And then on sticking, two things I think we both find really useful.  I think we're really fortunate that, with a lot of what we learn, we then apply it by sharing it with other people.

Helen Tupper: We've created a job of learning!

Sarah Ellis: Essentially we have, which is dreamy, isn't it?  So, anything you can do to share your learning with some else; I mean, this can be just having a chat with someone where you go, "Oh, I'm doing this thing and it's really interesting".  We talk about this idea of each one, teach one.  So, if you can not only learn for yourself, but think about, "Who else would be interested in this; how could this be useful for other people?" in your team, in your organisation, your friends; honestly, it doesn't matter.

There is something about taking what you're learning from one place and then if you're sharing it, you have to, I think, go a step further in terms of processing it, understanding it, putting it into your own world and in your own words, because that's what I think we do all the time.  We try to take the lead in work on a certain topic and then I'll think, "Do I understand; which bits don't I understand; how might this work; how does this work for me in my world?"  So, I think that thing about your world and your words and then sharing that with someone else is such a brilliant way to make your learning stick. 

If you can do visuals, if you can do mind maps and I know loads of people do this and I have seen some incredible examples of these.  Somebody once came on a leadership programme that I was running every week.  She didn't tell me she was doing this, but she shared them at the end.  She'd been doing these incredible mind maps that she turned into coasters; it was insane!  They were so good and she was such a good drawer. 

We draw in our courses; those drawings are average sometimes, at best, to be honest.  And she was -- her drawings were beautiful, but also she just visually brought all the content to life; all the bits that really stuck for her.  So I think, whether you draw, whether you write words, whether you do bullets, but I think something that stops that learning just being in your head and again, makes it real through writing, visuals, etc definitely helps that learning to last longer.

There are a few things actually I've learned where I really regret not doing this, because I think I just didn't quite create the time or the capacity; and then I think I've lost quite a lot of it.  I think I'm actually going to go and revisit some of those things, because I remember really enjoying it; I remember finding it really useful; but I couldn't actually repeat it.  I think it's really interesting, how do you make that learning last for your memory.  It creates connections and anchors, I think, in your brain by doing this, so definitely have a go with that.

Helen Tupper: My best example of this, and this person sets a really high bar for visual learning; I stalk this person a little bit, I'll be really honest!  So on Instagram, I don't know him, I will know him at some point, Jeremy Connell-Waite --

Sarah Ellis: Oh, I don't know.

Helen Tupper: Oh, Sarah, you'll love him -- communication Designer at IBM.  He does these amazing summaries of books he's read.  You know the inauguration speech and the amazing poet at Joe Biden's inauguration?

Sarah Ellis: Yeah.

Helen Tupper: He did this amazing visual --

Sarah Ellis: How have I not seen this?

Helen Tupper: -- analysis of her speech, which looked at the words that she said, the cadence.  I mean, he makes it beautiful.  I mean, he's like this really high benchmark!  But, I'm going to put a picture of some of his, maybe that speech actually; I'll put a picture.  If you go to amazingif.com on the podcast page that supports this podcast, so it will be Episode 201, I think, I'll put a picture on there for you; and then, I'll also put a link to Jeremy's LinkedIn profile, which is where I know him from, as an example of someone who takes a concept and then creates this visual that makes it sticky.  I mean, it is the best!

Sarah Ellis: I thought you were going to say about Liz and Mollie, who are also great.

Helen Tupper: Do you know what; Liz and Mollie are also good.  Let's put both of those.  I'll put both of those on the website, because I think Liz and Mollie are brilliant, because their stuff is super simple.  They take massive, complex things and they put it into two images that are very simple.  Jeremy takes massive, complex things and creates a complex visual.  It's opposite ends, but it both makes sticky.

Sarah Ellis: It will be good to compare to contrast.

Helen Tupper: Yeah, absolutely; I'm quite excited about putting those together for people!  So, yeah, we'll do all of that.  So, I'll put the links to their posts on our website; I'll put that in the description with this podcast so you can find that there.  And if you've got any other examples; maybe you do this.  I know some people have messaged us about things when they've read our book and they've sent us some things. 

So, if you do this, do share your mind maps and visual things with us, because we love to see them; they inspire us too.  You can email us at helenandsarah@squigglycareers.com.  We would absolutely love to see them.  And again, if you want to be part of that crowd-sourced curriculum, we'll do that @AmazingIf on Instagram and the week that this podcast goes out, we will also do a PodPlus.  So on Thursday at 9.00am, the week this podcast is out, we will spend 30 minutes talking and diving even deeper into the topic of learning, if you want to do that with some like-minded learners; maybe that can be part of what makes this sticky for you.

So, thank you so much for listening today; hope it has been helpful, and we will be back with you next week talking about another topic.  Bye, everybody.

Sarah Ellis: Thanks for listening, everyone; bye for now.