Are there unteachable lessons?

Hey Everyone,

Welcome to What Is A Happy Self, a monthly newsletter where I provide concise and actionable ideas on Emotional Intelligence, Relationships and Agile Leadership.

This is my first newsletter ever. There is a story behind this, which I will share in future editions. This Newsletter - I am being honest - goes out to 6 people so far, so thank you for subscribing and your support. I hope you like what you read.

Chris Williamson recently had Naval Ravikant on his podcast (Link below). At one point, Chris read a short, 2-minute essay exploring the question wether there unteachable lessons exists or not.

He claims that there is a certain subset of advice that - for some reason - we all refuse to learn through instructions. We prefer to disregard the advice from our tribe (our eldest, our parents, from songs or public scandals).

Usually, these are all very basic insights regarding life choices. We have all heard them along the way in one form or the other. Things like:

• Money won’t make you happy.

• Fame won’t fix your self worth.

• You will regret working too much.

• You don’t love that pretty girl.

• All your fears are a waste of time.

When I read this list forth and back, I realized, that, as Chris Williamson puts it, I not only refused to learn some of the lessons (or did not implement them right from the start).

Also, I refused to hear the message from people warning me about them. And probably still do.

At our core, don't we tend to believe that we're fundamentally different from others?

We might say to ourselves:

“That might be true for them - but not for me.”

“I am the exception to the rule.”

Naval responded that, this might be true. But he replied that unteachable lessons might be too broad to be learnable. They become unteachable in this form and have to be applied in context.

Here is my approach to exactly this - make them teachable and learnable:

I recently started posting content on Linked-In. I really like it so far.

Reading, researching, writing, connecting ideas, and building tools from them is a true passion of mine. I can focus on the topics and projects that interest me most.

After 3 weeks, I started exploring the connection between Focus, Learning and Emotions a bit deeper. And my Text-To-Picture-AI-Tool came up with this graph (you find the link to the post in the Links below):

I have been practicing Deep Work (High Focus - Low Emotions) for a while and it helped me tremendously.

But Deep Learning (High Focus - High Emotions)? I love this idea. Thank you AI.

I've found that there are several tools I use with myself and my clients that might fall into this category. However, one tool consistently produces excellent results:

• A Science-Supported Journaling Protocol to Improve Mental & Physical Health.

• So I did an extensive, in-depth post on Linked-In about this Tool (Link below).

In the following days, I encouraged myself to pick one topic from the unteachable lessons list and do the journaling routine. I chose: All your fears are a waste of time. The practice led me back to my childhood, youth and many present situations, foremost with my kids.

Like many clients, patients, friends, and myself, a large portion of our emotions are fear-based. While this lesson may seem provocative and over-the-top at first—which is how I felt too—it made more sense after completing the journaling exercise.

What’s it gonna be for you? What will you choose? Pick an unteachable lesson or create your own.

• Money won’t make you happy.

• Fame won’t fix your self worth.

• You will regret working too much.

• You don’t love that pretty girl.

• All your fears are a waste of time

I encourage you to try the Journaling Protocol Tool, too.

Feel free to email me about your experience with the tool.

I’ll be happy to give you feedback.

Take care, see you next month.

Yours,

Moritz

Links

Chris Williamson’s Podcast click here.

My Deep Learning Post on Linked-In (with the graphic).

Find my deep dive on the Science Supported Journaling Protocol on Linked-In here.