Esoteric education in 2017
Esoteric: "intended for or likely to be understood by only a small number of people with a specialised knowledge or interest.”
What are you allowed to know?
I believed there were certain things that I could learn and other things that weren’t permitted - by some fictitious social law unknown to me. It’s an absurd concept when you think about it but it’s quite common. I certainly fell for it for a long time.
For me, the idea of learning more about the brain was fascinating, but I felt that I couldn’t do that because I wasn’t a medical student. I believed the neuroscience books would be so complicated that I probably wouldn’t even understand the English - forgetting that even neuroscience experts had to start somewhere.
Telling people they can learn anything doesn’t, in my experience, instil the belief in them that they can. So I now ask 'could I stop you from learning XYZ if I wanted to?' The answer is always a resounding ‘no'. The question 'What if I said "I’m not going to let you learn it"' usually also results in a 'you can’t'.
It’s hardly surprising that we feel this way after spending 18 years spoon-fed in formal education; always optimising our learning to pass formal tests and adhering to a combination of questions, warnings and commands.
‘Did you do your homework?’ ‘This is on the test.’ ‘Don’t be late’.
What happens when the enforced testing stops? If you don't know the answer, can you find it? Or do you have to be given permission?
Further learning resources in no particular order:
- edx.org - udemy.com - coursera.org - youtube.com - audible.com - amazon.com - masterclass.com - your local library
You've been in the industry for fifteen years. You've led teams, delivered results, navigated difficult clients, and survived reorganisations that took out people far less capable than you. And yet, when the calendar invite arrives for the executive presentation — or the recruiter calls about a senior role you're more than qualified for — a familiar voice pipes up.
What if they find out you've been winging it all along?
Here’s the brutal truth almost nobody tells you about your career: You’re not hired for the tasks you do — you’re hired for the outcomes you create.
The idea comes from an innovation framework called Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) — popularised by Clayton Christensen, a Harvard Business School professor best known for his book, The Innovator’s Dilemma.
Christensen’s game-changing insight: People don’t buy products because of their features. They “hire” them to get a job done.
Have ever found yourself in the same situation — going so fast you don’t have time to check if the direction still serves you? Being too busy to reflect on your direction is like being too busy to stop for fuel — yet many of us do this with our growth and goals.
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Brian Daly is the managing director of Shelton Distributors, a confectionery distributor with over 2000 clients nationwide. With over 20 years of experience in FMCG trading, Brian talks to us about commercial planning, relationship building and negotiation, and even touches on the impact his executive coaching course has had on his leadership style.
I love the emphasis Brian puts on building relationships and meeting people individually as a way to negotiate and make deals that work for both parties. He highlights how having a people-centric approach is not just a nice way to do business, but also an effective way to create opportunities.
Jonatan Ramhöj is a front-end engineer with over a decade of experience. In this interview, he tells us about his career journey and insights into the world of software engineering.
“As a product manager, you have to be an expert on your users, their problems. You need to be an expert on the business, what matters to the business. And you need to figure out a way to solve their problems in a way that also achieves your business objectives—finding the middle ground of what the business cares about, what the users care about, and aligning a product vision that helps you to sort of check both boxes.”