Learning to learn

It’s well known that the brain is like a muscle – the more you learn the better you become. In fact studies have shown that being intellectually active correlates with longer and more fulfilling life. Learning stretches the brain more than anything else.
I would have thought that a lot of people know this but sometimes it amazes me why many think it’s cool to be ignorant.
Let me break this down.
Nobody’s born with all knowledge but learning to learn is, arguably, the most important skill in life. Any knowledge or skill you have this evening is probably going to end up obsolete tomorrow morning but as long as you continue to explore and you are curious, you probably going to end up fine. That is, if you don’t eat the fruit of good and evil knowledge; Adam didn’t heed that warning as he was just too curious.
How then should you handle a friend who asks you about things he could have checked out on the internet – I mean, Google doesn’t require subscriptions?
Why is it hard for older people and sometimes senior professional leaders to learn new things? Why do people think it’s beyond them to just pick up a book and read?
Why can’t we just go the extra mile to enhance our careers by learning new skills instead of blaming everyone for how long we have been stagnant?
Knowledge is power
If raw power is of any use, then grave diggers would be richer than Mark Zuckerberg but hey it doesn’t work that way. He had knowledge, used it to make us play Farmville on Facebook and now could provide enough dollars to crash the exchange rate to N100/$. I know he won’t do it though.
Your career and life could change dramatically with learning. You can be fortunate to learn some things easily (like tatafo) but the reality is that you have to read again and again and again to have life impacting knowledge.
This is a late evening rant – I wonder who stepped on my tail this morning!
 

Author: Adedeji Olowe

Adédèjì is the founder of Lendsqr, the loan infrastructure fintech powering lenders at scale. Before this, he led Trium Limited, the corporate VC of the Coronation Group, which invested in Woven Finance, Sparkle Bank, Clane, and L1ght, amongst others. He has almost two decades of banking experience, including stints as the Divisional Head of Electronic Banking at Fidelity Bank Plc. He drove the turnaround of the bank’s digital business. He was previously responsible for United Bank for Africa Group’s payment card business across 19 countries. Alongside other industry veterans, he founded Open Banking Nigeria, the nonprofit driving the development and adoption of a common API standard for the Nigerian financial industry. Beyond open APIs, Adédèjì works deeply within the fintech ecosystem; he’s the board chairman at Paystack. Adédèjì is a renowned fintech pundit and has been blogging on technology and payments at dejiolowe.com since 2001.

One thought on “Learning to learn”

  1. Didn’t used to be your fan (not that I hate you though)…Just that I haven’t really gotten to ‘meet’ you not until recently and virtually at that….except for a small ‘clash’ we had in your office sometime in 2012 in that tall building on Marina and the other in a small room in that cold city where some guys where speaking gibberish about ‘Sec***c*de’ …lol
    Anyways…now you got a helluva fan in me, you’re just too vast and intelligent to be ignored plus you are a fantastic writer…I can’t help but just read your articles, they are the best I’ve read in recent times….now I’m stuck *sad face…smile*
    More power to your elbow.

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