Unstoppable You: Adopt the New Learning 4.0 Mindset and Change Your Life

McLagan helps us understand how we learn by examining the make-up of our brains and bodies. She shows us why we need to update our learning systems by exploring the impact of technological change in the past and present, and by looking into the future. And she offers new methods and techniques to help us learn better, and remember what we've learned.

This book also explains how to support learning across teams and how to stay in charge of our technology, rather than let it control us.

So who's this book for? "Unstoppable You" has a broad reach. Rapid advances in technology affect most of us and change is going to keep coming. Those of us who embrace lifelong learning will fare best. We'll be more valuable to our employers, better team players, and more employable in the long term.

So if you're ready to become a lifelong learner and keep pace with our non-stop world, this book's for you. It's especially relevant to leaders – of organizations or teams – and those who coach or mentor others.

This book is best suited to people whose lives and careers are affected by technology and other societal shifts, but some of the author's tips on learning and memory are relevant to people from all walks of life. It's worth saying there's a huge amount to learn from this book, so be prepared to do some work, take notes, or answer questions online to get the most out of it.

Patricia McLagan is a global thought leader, speaker, and coach on learning and leadership in business. As the CEO of McLagan International, she helps organizations and people around the world to implement a new learning mindset and manage change. She's also the author of several other books on learning, communication, and leadership.

So keep listening to hear what's different about Learning 4.0 from what's gone before, how to stay motivated to learn, and how to store new knowledge and skills for the long term.

McLagan has a passion for education and she wants readers to learn from "Unstoppable You," not just read it and forget about it. So she invites us to use this book in a way that suits our individual learning styles. For some, this'll mean reading from cover to cover. For others, it'll mean skipping from one section to another, taking notes, and putting McLagan's tools into practice along the way.

Whatever our learning style, the author suggests we set an intention before we start reading. How can this book help us reach our goals? How do we want to use it? We like this invitation. It means we engage our minds before we read and helps us get value out of the book.

"Unstoppable You" is divided into four parts. Part One, The New Learning Landscape, looks at how our brains develop and how our brain chemicals influence our learning. It draws on neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy, and is a fascinating read. It also looks at how technology has changed with the internet, social media, and the ever-expanding information field.

Part Two, the backbone of the book, contains the Seven Practices of 4.0 Learners. This is where we learn to upgrade our mental software, under section headings like, Hear the Call to Learn, Connect the Dots, and Mine for Gold. We'll be returning to a few of these practices in more detail shortly.

Part Three, entitled Learning as Love, shows us how to use the Seven Practices to keep learning throughout our lives, support teams, and help others to learn. Finally, Part Four contains the 4.0 Learning Toolkit – five practical tools including templates and notes pages, to help us apply the knowledge in the book.

So let's start by looking at what Learning 4.0 means and why we need to upgrade our earlier mental operating systems.

Learning 1.0 kicked in before we were born and developed as we took our first steps. It's our basic genetic programming that prompted us to try new things, imitate others, and learn from experience. It's characterized by curiosity, trial and error, imitation, and behavior shaped by rewards and punishments.

Learning 2.0 happened at school. We began to understand social structures and accepted norms of behavior within a controlled environment. We learned to take tests, study, and respond to authority.

The upgrade to Learning 3.0 happened as we developed into adults and became more autonomous. We learned to manage our own lives, take on new roles, and respond to different challenges. We also understood how to manage our own learning, and absorb information from different experiences, relationships, and resources. We acquired self-discipline and learned to prioritize goals – to varying degrees, of course.

Learning 4.0 marks a step-change, because it responds to dramatic shifts in our world. These changes include new information about how our brains work; a broader acceptance of our psychological and spiritual sides, and how they impact learning; the increasingly complex dynamics of our hyper-connected globe; and the explosion of information and the ways we access it.

We need to adopt Learning 4.0 in order to keep pace with these changes, make the most of new opportunities, and better meet the requirements of today's workplace.

McLagan identifies 10 qualities of Learning 4.0 that build on the previous three upgrades or transform the capabilities we've already acquired.

Imagination is one of them. We imagine the future and see ourselves in it, so we're able to take the right steps to get where we want to go. Learning 4.0 also encompasses the whole brain and body – our physiological, conscious, and unconscious functions.

Another quality is self-transformation. Our new mindset draws on a deeper level of self-knowledge, so we can more consciously change our lives and use our skills to live in a purposeful way.

Learning 4.0 also involves deep learning, meaning we spot patterns in data, experiences, thoughts, and actions. We use technology to our benefit, rather than being controlled by it. We learn anywhere, anytime, and keep learning; find the best information to suit our needs; reject bias and manipulation; and find opportunities to learn in any resource or experience.

With Learning 4.0, we're change agents, taking our new learning into our workplaces, applying it to our lives, and making a difference to the world. We also co-evolve with technology, using it to help us achieve important goals. Finally, we share our Learning 4.0 capabilities with groups and teams, to support them.

We like the way the author breaks down the characteristics of Learning 4.0. It prompts readers to stop and think about the way they've been learning to date; what's changed in recent years; how they've responded, or not, to change; and how they can make the most of a new landscape.

Let's now take a look at a few of the Seven Practices of Learning 4.0, starting with the concept of creating what the author calls "future-pull."

Future-pull is the motivation that'll lead us toward our desired future, and make sure we do the learning to get there. To create it, we imagine ourselves where we want to be and engage all our senses, our body, brain, mind, and emotions. This is like visioning, but future-pull involves a second element. Once we've imagined the future, we get clear on where we are today, and then look at the space in between.

To do this exercise, think of something you feel called to learn. Next, go to a peaceful place, close your eyes, take a few deep breaths, and imagine you've done your learning and are living in the future. Where are you? What's different to today? What are you experiencing, seeing, hearing, and smelling? What are you doing, creating, or achieving? Who else is there? How does it feel? Try on your future like a new coat.

The next step is to look at where you are today. What situations would you like to refresh or change? What are you seeing, hearing, or feeling in these situations? What are you creating or achieving? What are others doing?

Write down the answers to both sets of questions in two columns with a gap in between. Now you can clearly see the difference between your virtual future and your present. This exercise creates a tension you'll want to resolve, which will motivate you to move forwards.

Let's look at an example. Say you get anxious when mixing with senior executives, so you come across as shy. This is your present reality. In your imagined future, you offer your ideas with confidence and passion and keep nerves at bay.

You can now identify the learning activity that'll take you from A to B – maybe some training on public speaking or presentation skills. If you keep your future goal in mind, you'll be motivated to keep going, even when the learning gets tough. We like this simple, practical exercise and can see how it could help to keep us enthused about learning something new.

Let's now look at how to make our learning last – in other words, how to improve our memory, so the time we invest in learning keeps paying dividends.

McLagan identifies four different learning outcomes – knowledge, skills and habits, beliefs and attitudes, and creative insights – and offers techniques that work for all, as well as some specific to each. There's so much valuable information in this section of the book and we can't cover it all, so let's focus on some general strategies.

One top tip is to delegate learning to our automatic system. This is our brain's oldest, most developed, and preferred way to operate. It's the part that acts swiftly, forcing us to swerve the car before we hit an obstacle. It's also the part of the brain that's in charge when we're playing a familiar sport, strumming the guitar, or doing something else we've practiced over and over.

If we want to learn something difficult, McLagan suggests doing so straight after a good sleep, so our brains are rested and open for more processing, or after doing aerobic exercise, so we have more oxygen and endorphins to give us the energy to learn.

We can also space out our learning. We can spend some time actively learning something, by putting it into our own words or taking detailed notes, and then leave it for a few days. When we return to it, we should review the old information first, and then learn something new.

Another way to strengthen our memory is to learn with others. When we discuss our goals with other people, we create more future-pull and get support to stay focused. Being with others increases our levels of the feel-good chemical oxytocin, keeping us motivated to learn.

Working with others on a challenging project also helps put us in a state of flow, which research shows is very effective for learning. Other tips include teaching someone else what we've learned, testing ourselves, and looking for themes and patterns.

This is just a taster of the author's tips to help us store learning for future use. You may have heard some of these ideas before, but it's great to have so many in one place. There are strategies to suit a range of learning styles and outcomes, making this section of the book especially valuable.

Other really practical suggestions in "Unstoppable You" include where to find the best sources of knowledge, in a world filled with too much information, and how to detect incorrect or biased data, or data designed to manipulate us. This is useful in an era of "fake news."

Are there any downsides to "Unstoppable You"? Well, we think McLagan, ironically, risks giving the reader too much to learn. Each chapter is packed with information, research, tips, and advice. But she does help us out by suggesting how to navigate the book, and she includes lots of chapter breaks, sub-headings, and bullet-point lists.

She could have offered more tips on how to detox from technology and deal with a constant barrage of information, but perhaps that's a different book.

Overall, "Unstoppable You" is an incredibly valuable resource. So if you want to thrive in a non-stop, digital, globalized world and become a lifelong learner, this book will give you the tools you need.

"Unstoppable You" by Patricia McLagan is published by ATD Press.

That's the end of this episode of Book Insights. Thanks for listening.