Balancing learning and thinking

A philosopher once wrote that "a man has no ears for that to which experience has given him no access."

Does this mean we can only learn through experience?

The answer came to me a few years ago, when I read that Confucius separated learning into three main categories:

1. Learning through trial and error
2. Learning through imitation
3. Learning through meditation

If we look at people who are very, very successful, we will immediately realize that they've done a lot of meditation or thinking, based on their readings: Brian Tracy, Jim Rohn, Anthony Robbins, Joseph Campbell, etc.

If you've ever read these authors, you know that they have "unrivalled range of reference and formidable powers of rhetoric."

Their vast range of reference (i.e. they can quote from a vast number of authors) comes from the fact that they've read so many books.

Their formidable powers of rhetoric come from the fact that they obviously THOUGHT a great deal about what they've read, and have DOCUMENTED their thoughts and thinking process on paper. They spent an enormous amount of time to make sure their logic (i.e. their message, the evidence backing it up, etc.) is airtight and can withstand public scrutiny. This is how they become best-selling authors.

In short, they did what Confucius recommended: they learned and they thought. To learn alone is not enough, since there are lots of people who get an education at university without ever thinking or questioning what they've learned. To think a lot without learning new things is also not good. There are many experts in the world who think continuously about their field, but are quite close-minded when it comes to other fields.

From the above, we might borrow from Napoleon Hill and suggest that the key to success is to "Learn, think and then grow rich."

All the verbs in that sentence are at the right place: you cannot think unless you learn first. And you cannot become rich unless you think first. (In a future posting, I will show how these verbs relate to wealth creation, in terms of the effort-performance-payoff sequence).

In the end, learning requires that other people SUPPLY you with information (or you have to go out there and get it), whereas thinking requires that you APPLY the information to a specific case or problem. Growth (personal, professional, etc.) is based on balancing learning and thinking in one's life.