Don’t Mistake The Joy Of Knowing For The Joy Of Doing
Photo by Alexandra Kirr on Unsplash
Hey there!
I love going to events where I anticipate learning something. I crave new information, new strategies, new tactics and how-tos.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with learning for the love of learning. But I learned something about the danger of this love of knowledge that I want to share with you in these next few videos, and then show you how to fix the situation.
This first aspect I see happening all the time with some of my clients. And it can lead to frustration and misplaced blame.
Hope this helps!
David
Raw YouTube Captioning
hey there it’s David H Lawrence the 17th
and for the next couple of videos maybe
three videos this is a big subject so I
want to break it up so that it’s kind of
manageable kind of digestible I love
going to classes and taking courses
online and going to live events where
somebody on stage is teaching me
something that I didn’t know or being
part of a workshop where I’m learning
new things about performance about
marketing about video but you know all
my interests and I love teaching people
about all of these things as well and I
love sharing the things that I think
will help make you successful I also
love waving people off of things that I
think might be detrimental to your
success I love sort of exploring the odd
things and I think sometimes there is
the danger that if you share that kind
of love that I have for learning that we
could fall prey to loving learning more
than we love implementation and what I
mean by that first of all before I get
to that there is absolutely nothing
wrong at all
with learning for the sake of learning
the problem comes in I think when you
are frustrated that the things that
you’re learning the things that you’re
being taught aren’t helping you advance
your cause you know you decide you’re
gonna go take a cooking class but you
never actually cook you just take more
cooking classes I see it with voiceover
all the time you know people will take
voiceover classes from a lot of
different people and yet they never
actually implement what they’re learning
and so they tend to get frustrated
because they’re not moving forward in
their career and I think this is a
dopamine kind of thing this is a this is
a substituting one pleasure for the
other cuz I get a great deal of pleasure
I think most people get a great deal of
pleasure out of that aha moment when you
learn something you go oh that’s how
that works okay I got it I got it
that gives you that sense of
accomplishment that’s great because
you’re like okay I’m not confused about
that anymore right the problem is you
never quite get around to taking what
you learned and you say I got it – okay
I implemented that I did that I actually
took a pan and crack some eggs in it and
whisk them and added the magic
ingredients and made a really fluffy
Gordon Ramsay omelet you know we tend to
have this lovely feeling when we’re
learning something and especially when
we get what we’re learning right
and then sometimes we get that lovely
feeling when we actually take what we’ve
learned what we know and then do
something with it but that’s a pretty
scary thing to get around to you know
it’s like oh well if I actually do what
I’ve been learning how to do as opposed
to just learning about it there’s a
chance I might fail and doing it is
really hard because I mean they have to
choose to make that step forward and to
actually do it so I just wanted to sort
of discuss that issue that sort of that
sort of two sides of the coin of
knowledge you know the the learning of
knowledge the joy of learning of
knowledge the joy of gaining skills but
then the other side is actually taking
those skills and doing something with
them honing them making sure that you
can put them to real-world tests are you
good at it do you need to get better at
it are you really good at it can you
make it a profession that you can maybe
make a career who knows right so tell me
if this is something that you might my
grandfather used to call people that
identify that he would identify that had
this issue he would call them
professional students you know and maybe
you know people like that people that
have a million degrees but have never
really done anything with them or
someone that you see at all the
workshops in your industry or all the
the networking opportunities but you
never quite see them taking what they’ve
got what they’re gathering and using it
or you see them at these events and
maybe they’re not even learning they’re
just at the event that’s that’s an even
tougher situation because then you’re
not even knowing it you’re just in the
sphere of where it’s being talked about
but you’re still kind of confused about
it so it can be a really tough thing to
get past for some people the knowledge
of it and I I gotta tell you I have
students all the time who take my
classes and I urge everybody on a
constant basis to take
I’m teaching you and go put it into use
go do it because the danger is you take
all these classes and then take some
more classes then you take some more
classes but you don’t ever do anything
with it nothing ever happens and instead
of thinking yourself well I mean what do
you expect you haven’t done anything
with it you start to turn around and
blame the classes or the teacher or the
subject stupid food stupid voice over
stupid television acting you know
stupid marketing it’s too complicated it
can cause you to place blame in the
wrong area and at the feet of the of the
wrong parties and I’m not saying you
should blame yourself I just say
recognize this this precipice or this
portal that you have to cross and take a
leap of faith and take what you’re
learning
and do something with it go from knowing
to doing I actually bring this up a few
times in the courses that that moment
when you go from knowing to doing is
such an amazing moment so that’s the
first part
of the three parts in the next video I’m
going to share with you what I do to
both myself move forward from knowing to
doing but also a very simple process of
very easily manageable and easily doable
process that can help you over that hump
that can help you over the the the
little you know vestibule the the Dan
the area into the real arena of doing
things I’m gonna do that but what I want
to know from you first
is if you watch this video in your
thinking yourself oh maybe that’s what’s
going on with me or yeah I recognize
that a while back and and I kind of like
got over that and I’m doing things now
with what I’m learning let me know in
the comments below let me know if this
resonates with you because I would love
to make a bigger a bigger conversation
about this because I think this is one
of the biggest things that stop us from
success that one little moment of it’s
safer for me to learn more than it is to
do something with what I already know
safer for me to learn more then to do
something with what I already know so
let me know in the comments below if
you’re watching anywhere but vo to go go
calm pop on over there we’d love to have
you there we got all kinds of things
that will help you go from knowing to
doing if you’d like to join my youtube
channel and get notified when these
videos come out go ahead and click on my
head there if there’s no head there’s a
subscribe button somewhere nearby if
you’d like to see the latest episode
I’ve done go ahead and click on that
frame and YouTube will play it for you
I’m David H Lawrence xvii I thank you so
much for watching and I will talk to you
tomorrow.
This is great. I feel like it ties in so well (at least for me) with your video from a few days ago about trusting that we are ‘enough’ as we are, and not thinking we always have to ‘bring on the announcer voice’ and be more. I am a learner and enjoy taking in as much information as I can about subjects that I want to pursue. But often when that class is finished and I have been given everything I need to move forward, I hesitate thinking that I can’t possibly be ready for this, I must have missed something important, or I doubt I have all that I need to really DO this? I like to call this “Unique-itis”. i.e; “You don’t understand! I’m different, I’m unique! I need more information than everyone else!”
A terrible malady that I work to overcome daily. Thanks!
This resonates quite loudly! Currently the greatest struggle I have. I think there are also overtones of FOMO and FOBO.
One of the things you said in the ACX Master Class was, “Be predisposed to action.” That really stuck with me. By the way, I am currently working on my 21st and 22nd books since mid-February. Thanks.
Aha! A bias for action, yes!
It does resonate. I think that it ties in too with the ready shoot aim theory. I love to learn, and I could take classes and learn about tonnes of stuff, but there’s a time to get out there and send auditions, send proposals, get to the doing. You’ll never get anywhere if you don’t start… the journey of a million miles as it were.
I think of this concept when I see my martial arts students struggling with their material. Regarding VO, I need to practice more often. Thanks for the video David.
OOOOOOO … cord struck with “it is safer for me to learn more than to do something with what I already know”. Wowzers! This is so true! I love learning but I also love to apply things I’ve learned. I have to admit I do lose my mind from time to time and feel like I might miss out on some pivotal piece of the puzzle to solving the universe so I do take a lot of classes. Sometimes I use what I’ve learned just to better my life. Most of the time it is for business. I do have a list of classes I have to get through for all kinds of subjects. I just schedule them by importance and set dates to complete them. I feel like knowledge is power but putting that knowledge to use is the real end goal. Learning and gaining skills makes me feel like I’ve unlocked a secret. If I could plug my head into the net and download everything thing at once like in the Matrix I’d do it today. Ok, now to implement and get back to recording my next book, which I learned how to do in the ACX master class. Shameless plug. 🙂
Absolutely true for me lately. Never really was that kind of behavior in me until I had some medical complications. At this point it’s a combination of really enjoying learning almost more than doing, and a fear starting out and being penalized not being instantly profitable.